Skip to main content

Full text of "The centennial history of Oregon, 1811-1912"

See other formats 


!l;i!l£ijj!iiilift'?lS!.i:::'!!!iilili!;ft!-';;!jil:±;/  ■: 


NYPL  RESEARCH  LIBRARIES 


3  3433  08181020  6 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/centennialhistor01gast 


THENE 
PUDLIC 


TILDtH  FO- 


^^j^Mi^a-y    ■  f^  .  'if-/'"..   :'"\ 


i^^^s<ri 


THE   CENTENNIAL  HISTORY 

OF 

OREGON 

.    1811-1912 
BY 

JOSEPH  GASTON 


[With  notice  of  antecedent  explorations] 


ILLUSTRATED 


VOWMB:\l^'\\    \f 


CHICAGO 

THE  S.  J.  CLARKE  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
19U-— 


jTHENEW  ,iC,mJ.  I 

676^08    .  j 

TBJSEN  PMJWOHTKWt:         f 
I  II  19'<  L 


PREFACE 

Tlic  aiitliur  aiul  publishers  of  this  worii  having  in  lltln  brought  out  a  history 
of  the  City  of  PortUiuil.  entitled  "Portland  and  its  Builders,"  which  received 
such  a  nattering  support  from  the  citizens  of  Portland,  they  were  encouraged 
thereby  to  undertake  the  greater  and  niore  important  work  of  the  Historj' 
of  the  State,  including,  as  it  does,  the  history  of  the  "Old  Oregon  Country." 

The  decision  to  undertake  such  a  work  was  not  made,  however,  upon  the  sole 
I'eason  of  the  encouraging  financial  support  offered.  As  a  matter  of  practical 
business  it  may  be  stated  that  no  history  of  Oregon  heretofore  published  has 
ever  returned  to  the  publishers  the  first  cost  of  the  undertaking.  But  the  Cen- 
tennial celebration  of  the  founding  of  the  City  of  Astoria,  coming  on  with  the 
delivery  of  the  Portland  book,  punctuated  the  century  of  Oregon's  develop- 
ment with  such  a  public-spirited,  patriotic  reason  for  a  history  coeval  to,  if  not 
coequal  with,  the  first  century  of  the  most  unique  development  of  American  char- 
acter and  institutions  on  the  western  hemisphere,  that  the  publishers  were  in- 
duced to  take  the  risk  of  getting  out  a  work  equal  to  the  great  subject,  and  at  a 
cost  far  surpassing  the  combined  cost  of  all  other  preceding  histories  of  Ore- 
gon. This  is  the  first  and  only  general  history  of  Oregon  to  receive  the  aid  and 
illumination  of  expensive  illustrations.  In  this  respect  the  publishers  have  not 
spared  any  expense  to  secure  everything  that  would  throw  light  upon  the  text 
and  prove  interesting  to  the  reader. 

This  book  is  the  work  of  many  minds  and  hands.  The  author  desires  to  ex- 
press here  his  great  obligations  to  the  many  friends  wlio  have  extended  most 
generous  assistance.  And  first  of  all  to  that  veteran  pioneer  laborer  to  preserve 
the  history  of  Oregon — George  H.  Himes.  It  is  not  saying  too  much  to  record 
here  that  without  the  aid  of  Mr.  Himes  and  the  gi-eat  foundation  of  facts  and 
material  largely  secured  by  him  for  the  Oregon  Historical  Society,  no  complete 
history  of  Oregon  could  be  written.  For  forty  years  he  hr.s  delved,  digged, 
traveled,  collected,  arranged,  stoi-ed  ai'd  studif^d  ivery  kvenue  and  scrap  of 
Oregon  history  to  be  found  or  obtained  until  he  is  now  a  walking  storehouse  on 
the  great  subject.  ,    "   '  '  - 

Other  men  and  women  have  helped,  and  gsneroiisly"  li^lped.  From  Cyrus  II. 
Walker,  the  oldest  living  white  man  born  wes!  of  tlie  Rocny'Mountains,  and  chap- 
lain of  the  Oregon  State  Grange,  we  have  had  verj'  great  a.ssistance.  To  Rev.  J. 
Neilson  Barry,  of  Baker,  the  history  is  indebted  for  the  complete  synopsis  of  the 
tribes  and  families  of  Indians  in  old  Oregon  and  their  original  homes  in  the  state. 
This  required  much  study  and  investigation,  and  ]\Ir.  Barry  has  done  the  work 
so  carefully  and  completely  that  it  Mnll  become  the  standard  authority  on  that 
subject.  IMr.  Barry  also  added  miieh  to  what  was  known  in  Oregon  heretofore 
of  the  M'anderings  and  sufferings  of  the  Wilson  Price  Hunt  party.  To  the  old 
veteran.  Hon.  Wm.  H.  Packwood,  we  are  indebted  for  much  of  the  history  of 
Eastern  Oregon  and  Coos  and  Curry  mining,  and  Indian  war  history.    To  Orvil 


iv  PREFACE 

Dodge,  of  Curry  county,  and  Binger  Hermann,  of  Douglas  county,  the  history  is 
under  great  obligations  for  many  facts  in  the  history  of  Coos  and  Curry,  espe- 
cially to  Mr.  Dodge  for  rare  old  photographs,  which  could  not  be  had  elsewhere. 
To  Major  Lee  Moorhouse,  of  Pendleton,  the  history  is  indebted  for  the  Indian 
illustrations,  some  history  on  the  last  Indian  war,  and  many  other  favors.  To 
Capt.  0.  C.  Applegate,  of  Klamath  Falls,  we  are  indebted  for  the  line  of  Fre- 
mont 's  expedition  through  Oregon ;  for  an  original  copy  of  Lindsay  Applegate 's 
journal  of  the  location  of  the  Fort  Hall  and  Southern  Oregon  Trail,  now  entirely 
out  of  print,  and  which  is  a  complete  and  conclusive  justification  of  that  route, 
showing  its  value  and  practicability  against  all  the  petty  fault-findings  of  such 
tender  feet  as  J.  Quinn  Thornton. 

To  Hon.  Harrison  R.  Kincaid  the  history  is  indebted  for  a  copy  of  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  Provisional  Government  of  Oregon,  not  printed  in  the 
"Archives,"  and  never  before  printed  except  in  Mr.  Kincaid 's  collection  of  state 
papers  and  political  biographies.  Also  to  Mr.  Kincaid  for  the  best  collection  of 
the  autographs  of  our  public  men — many  of  them  the  pioneer  friends  of  Oregon 
— that  has  ever  been  preserved. 

To  Ellen  Condon  McCornack,  of  Eugene,  this  history  and  every  reader  of  it, 
are  under  inexpressible  obligations  for  the  intensely  interesting  chapter  on  Ore- 
gon geology,  nearly  all  of  which  is  the  work  of  Mrs.  McCornack.  Such  literary 
work  requires  a  degree  of  special  study,  preparation  and  care  which  few  readers 
comprehend,  but  who  are  all  the  more  under  obligations  for  the  knowledge  im- 
parted. To  Mr.  D.  W.  Craig,  of  Salem,  for  scraps  of  history  of  Oregon's  early 
politics ;  to  Dr.  Cardwell  for  Horticultural  reminiscences ;  to  Mrs.  Lischen  Miller, 
of  Eugene,  for  history  of  Oregon  magazine  literature ;  to  Miss  Clara  Munson,  of 
Warrenton,  for  Clatsop  county  history;  to  Valentine  Brown  for  volumes  of 
poetry,  proof  reading  and  correction — to  all  these  friends  our  thanks  are  due  for 
many  favors.  All  have  helped  with  a  hearty  good-will,  and  their  names  should 
go  down  to  the  future  with  this  book.  And  last  but  not  least  to  the  painstaking 
overworked,  ever-patient  and  always  cheerful  Miss  Mabel  Dudrow,  who  took  up 
the  whole  tangled  mass  of  penciled,  interlined,  patched  and  tangled  manuscript 
and  handed  it  back- ^a ,  .neat,  pl^an,  readable  and  enjoyable  book,  the  author's 
thanks  are  espec^all^jr'ptui'lied'.A,/    •;  j;j 

,'.  .     -...r.      'T'  '  Joseph  Gaston. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

1492—1792 


THE  WORLD-ROUND  WEST-BOUND  MARCH  OF  MAN — WAS  THE  EARTil  ROUND  OR  FLAT 
THE      PROPOSITION      OP      COLUMBUS' — HOW      AND      WHY      NAMED      AMERICA — THE 

DREAMS  OP   NAVIGATORS — THE  FABLED   STRAIT  OF  ANIAN DE  FUCA's   PRETENDED 

DISCOVERY MALDONADO'S      PRETENDED      VOYAGE LOW's      REMARKABLE      MAP 

VISCAINO   AND  AGUILAR  REACH   THE  OREGON   COAST   IN    1603 CALIFORNIA   AN   IS- 
LAND— CAPTAIN  cook's  VOYAGE  AND  DEATH BEGINNING  OF  THE  FUR  TRADE  ON 

THE  PACIFIC SPAIN  DRIVES  ENGLAND  OUT  OP  NOOTKA  SOUND  AND  THEN  MAKES 

A  TREATY  OP  JOINT  OCCUPATION — GRAY  DISCOVERS  THE  COLUMBIA  RIVER.  ...       1 

CHAPTER  II 
1634—1834 

THE  LANDWARD  MOVEMENT  WEST — TWO  DIFFERING  MINDS  OP  CIVILIZATION  AND  IN- 
DEPENDENT MOVEMENTS  OF  POPULATION  MOVE  WESTWARD — THE  FRENCH  CATH- 
OLIC ON  ONE  SIDE,  AND  THE  ENGLISH  PROTESTANT  ON  THE  OTHER MARQUETTE, 

1665 — LA     SALLE,     1679 — HENNEPIN,     1680 — JONATHAN     CARVER,     1766 ALEX- 
ANDER MACKENZIE,  1793 LEWIS  AND  CLARK,  1804 MAJOR  ZEBULON  PIKE,  1805 

SIMON    FRASER,    1806 — ANDREW    HENRY,    1808 — JONATHAN    WINSHIP,    1809 

DAVID  THOMPSON,   1810 — WILSON  PRICE  HUNT,   1811 JEDEDIAH    SMITH,    1826 — • 

NATHANIEL   J.   WYETH,   1832 LIEUT.   B.    L.   E.   BONNEVILLE,   1833 — AND   JOHN    C. 

FREMONT,    1843     19 

CHAPTER  III 
1792—1840 

THE  INDIANS,  THEIR  FAMILIES,  TRIBES  AND  DISTRIBUTION — THEIR  ANCIENT  STONE 
AGE  DESCENT  AND  IMPLEMENTS — THEIR  MYTHS,  HABITS  AND  RELIGION — THEIR 
NUMBERS  AND  WEAKNESS — THE  JARGON  LANGUAGE — THE  INDIAN  IDEA  OF  LAND 
TENURE     63 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  IV 

1640—1824 

THE    PIONEERS    OP    THE    FUR    TRADE — GROSEILLIERS    AND    RADISSON — PRINCE   RUPERT 

SENDS  OUT  A  SHIP THE  HUDSON  BAi'  COMPANY — THE  NORTHWEST  COMPANY  OP 

CANADA INDEPENDENT  AMERICAN  TRAPPERS THE  RENDEZVOUS THE  WAR  BE- 
TWEEN ENGLISHMEN  AND  SCOTCHMEN — PUR  TRADING  STARTS  PROM  ST.  LOUIS — 
THE  MISSOURI  PUR  COMPANY — JOHN  JACOB  ASTOR  ENTERS  THE  FIELD — ORGAN- 
IZES   THE    PACIFIC    FUR    COMPANY FOUNDS    ASTORIA — DESTRUCTION    OF    ASTOR 's 

ENTERPRISE — TREATMENT  OF  THE  INDIANS  BY  THE  FUR  TRADERS — THE  SERVICES 
OF   THE  FUR   TRADERS   TO   CIVILIZATION 91 

CHAPTER  V 
1834—1845 

THE  ERA  OF  EVANGELISM — THE  AGITATION  OF  HALL  J.  KELLEY THE  QUEST    OF   THE 

PLATHEADS    FOR    THE    "BOOK    OF    HEAVEN" THE    COMING    OF    JASON   LEE THE 

MARCUS    WHITMAN   PARTY THE   CATHOLIC   MISSIONARIES DE   SMET,    THE  GREAT 

APOSTLE  TO  THE  INDIANS^  ANSWERS  THE  CALL  OF  THE  PLATHEADS — THE  RIVAL- 
RIES AND  WORKS  OF  THESE  MEN — THEIR  SERVICES  TO  OREGON  AND  THE. 
NATION      , 113 

CHAPTER  VI 
0000—1862 

WHAT  DID  THE  FORELOPERS  FIND  HERE THE  FACE  OP  NATURE — THE  GEOLOGY  AND 

EXTINCT  ANIMAL  LIFE — THE  VAST  WATER  POWERS — MADE  VALUABLE  BY  APPLICA- 
TION  OF  DISCOVERIES  IN   ELECTRICITY 131 

CHAPTER  VII 

1774—1805 

THE  EVOLUTIONARY   POLITICAL   MOVEMENTS   TOWARD   OREGON THE   PIONEER   AMERI- 
CAN PUSHING  WEST GEORGE  ROGERS  CLARK  AND  OLD  VINCENNES — WASHINGTON 

AND  JEFFERSON  CO-OPERATING  TO  HOLD  THE  MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY — WASHING- 
TON AND  JEFFERSON  PLANT   STAKES  TO   PIOLD   OLD  OREGON 147 

CHAPTER  VIII 
1834—1846 

THE  PROVISIONAL  GOVERNMENT A  COUNTRY  WITHOUT  LAWS  OR  CIVIL   GOVERNORS — 

THE  SCHEMING  OF  RIVAL  SECTS  AND  INTERESTS — THE  GREAT  WORK  PERFORMED 
BY   THE   PIONEERS — THE    HEROIC   AGE    OP   OREGON 159 


CONTENTS  vii 

CHAPTER  IX 

1792—1846 

AMERICAN    TITLE    TO    THE    COUNTRY — THE    SPANISH    SEA    COAST    DISCOVERIES — THE 

PAPER    TITLES    OF    SPAIN,    FRANCE    AND    ENGLAND GRAY 's    DISCOVERY    OF    THE 

COLUMBIA  BIVER — THE  PURCHASE  OP  LOUISIANA THE  DOCTRINE  OF  CONTIGUOUS 

SETTLEMENT THE    LEWIS    AND    CLARK    EXPLORiVTION — THE    PURCHASE    OF    THE 

SPANISH     TITLE THE     CAMPAIGN     OP     "  FIFTY-POUR     FORTY     OR     FIGHT " THE 

TREACHERY       OP       PRESIDENT        POLK — OREGON        SAVED       BY       THE       AMERICAN 
SETTLERS    207 


CHAPTER  X 

1834—1844 

OREGON   IGNORED    BY    U.    S.    GOVERNMENT TREATY    OF    NON-OCCUPATION — NO    MAN 'S 

LAND THE   OREGON   TRAIL — OREGON   IN    CONGRESS   FOR   THE   FIRST    TIME — ROUTE 

OF   TRAIL   LOCATED   BY   HUNT   AND   STUART WHITMAN    WITH   THE   FIRST   WAGON 

ON    THE    TRAIL IMMIGRATION    OF    1843 — PREPARATION    FOR    STARTING ON    THE 

TRAIL — CHARACTER    OF    THE    IMMIGRANTS— BENEFITS    OF    THE    PROVISIONAL    GOV- 
ERNMENT  THE  RESULTS  OP   THE   MISSIONS 2:11 


CHAPTER  XI 

1834—1848 

THE  OREGON  HALL  OP  FAME — WHO  SAVED  OREGON?  THOMAS  JEFFERSON?  THOMAS 
H.  BENTON?  HALL  J.  KELLEY  ?  JASON  LEE?  MARCUS  WHITMAN?  JOHN  M 'lOUGH- 
LIN?  JOSEPH  L.  MEEK?  FRANCOIS  XAVIER  MATTHIEU  ?  GEORGE  ABERNETHY  ? 
— SAVED  BY  ALL  SETTLERS  PULLING   TOGETHER 265 

CHAPTER  XII 

1844—1848  • 

THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD — WORKING  OF  THE  PROVISIONAL  GOVERNMENT — RIVAL  FACTIONS 

SILENCED   BY  LAND   CLAIMS TOMAHAWK   CLAIM    DESCRIPTIONS — TITLES   TO  LAND 

CLAIMS — PRICES,  AND  COST  OF  LIVING FOUNDING  RIVAL  CITIES,  AND  HOW  THEY 

STARTED — -IMPORTATION  OF  HORSES,  CATTLE,  SHEEP  AND  GOATS — FOUNDATION  OP 
THE  FRUIT  GROWING  INTEREST — ORGANIZATION  OF  AGRICULTURAL  SOCIETIES COM- 
MENCEMENT OF  TRADE  AND  COMMERCE — DISCOVERY  OF  GOLD,  AND  THE  OREGON 
MINT^-BRIEF  SKETCHES  OP  EARLY   PIONEERS 315 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  Xlll 
1844—1912 

FOUNDING   OF   PORTLAND TOWNSITE   PEOPEIETORS FIRST    TEACHERS,    PREACHERS, 

DOCTORS  AND  LAWYERS FIRST  STEAMBOATS  AND  THEIR  BUILDERS 355 

CHAPTER  XIV 
1847—1855 

THE  WHITMAN  MASSACRE THE  PROVISIONAL  GOVERNMENT  ARMY THE  CAYUSE  IN- 
DIAN WAR  ROGUE  RIVER  INDIAN  WARS  — •  BATTLES  OF  BATTLE  ROCK   AND  BIG 

MEADOWS GENERAL    LANE   BLUFFS    OUT    150   SAVAGES CHIEF    JOHN,    THE   LAST 

"brave"    TO    SURRENDER THE    YAKIMA    WAR THE    MODOC    WAR THE    CANBY- 

THOMAS    MASSACRE     375 

CHAPTER  XV  ■ 

-.       1849—1858 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  ORGANIZED  GOVERNMENT — ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  TERRITORIAL 
GOVERNMENT LOCATION  OP  THE  STATE  CAPITAL THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  CON- 
VENTION   AND    ITS   MEMBERS ORGANIZATION    OP    THE    STATE    GOVERNMENT — THE 

GOVERNORS  AND  REPRESENTATIVES  IN  CONGRESS 421 

CHAPTER  XVI 

1843—1908 

THE  COUNTY   ORGANIZATION   OF   THE    STATE 443 

CHAPTER  XVII 

CONSERVATION  OF  NATURAL  RESOURCES — THE  STATE  OF  NATURE GAME  AND  FISH — 

PRAIRIE   AND   TIMBER FREE   LANDS   AND   LAND   GRANTS — SOIL   AND   IRRIGATION — 

FORESTS   WEALTH,    MOUNTAINS   AND    WATER   POWERS 475 

CHAPTER  XVIII 
1849—1910 

GOLD  AND  SILVER  IN  ANCIENT  TIMES THE  CHARACTER  OF  MINERS  IN  ANCIENT  TIMES 

— MINING  LAWS  IN  AMERICA DISCOVERY  OF   GOLD  IN   CALIFORNIA —  DISCOVERIES 

IN  OREGON — PRESENT   CONDITIONS  OF  MINING  IN  OREGON — MINES  OF  OTHER  VAL- 
UABLE  MINERAL  DEPOSITS THE  INFLUENCE  OF   MINES  ON   THE  STATE 487 


CONTENTS  ix 

CHAPTER  XIX 
184:3— 1911 

INTERNAL  IMPROVEMENTS — THE  FIRST  FERRY  AND  CANAL THE  FIRST  MAIL  CAR- 
RIERS— THE  FIRST  STEAMBOATS THE  FIRST  EXPRESS  LINES — THE  FIRST  TELE- 
GRAPH— THE    FIRST     RAILROADS '"jOB 

CHAPTER  XX 

1810—1911 

AGRICULTURE  —  HORTICULTURE  —  ANIMAL    INDUSTRIES  —  FARMS,    FARM    LANDS    AND 

VALUES — COMMERCE — MANUFACTURES THE  STATE  FAIR THE  LEWIS  AND  CLARK 

EXPOSITION     539 

CHAPTER  XXI 

183-4—1912 

THE    MORAL    AND    EDUCATIONAL    AGENCIES    BUILDING    THE    STATE THE    CHURCHES 

AND  CHURCH  SCHOOLS — PUBLIC  SCHOOLS  AND  COLLEGES — POETS,  HISTORIANS  AND 

PIONEER    EDITORS — AUTOGRAPHIC    HISTORY THE    GRANGE — DIVORCES,    VICE    AND 

CRIME 573 

CHAPTER  XXII 
1843—1912 

THE  EVOLUTION  OP  LAWS,  CONSTITUTIONS  AND  POLITICS THE  UNDERLYING  PRIN- 
CIPLES   AT    STAKE    AT    OLD    CHAMPOEG THE    POPUI^R    SOVEREIGNTY    DOCTRINE 

THAT  OVERRULED  ALL  OTHERS — TAXATION,  PROHIBITION  AND  SLAVERY — THE  RISE 
OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY THE  CONTEST  BETWEEN  THE  PROGRESSIVES  AND  CON- 
SERVATIVES    OF     THE     DEMOCRATIC     PARTY — THE     CIVIL     WAR     PERIOD LEADERS, 

BOSSES,  AND  CORRUPT  PRACTICES  FINALLY  PRODUCING  POPULISM,  DIRECT 
PRIMARY    AND    DIRECT     LEGISLATION 639 


INTRODUCTION 

Propliecies:  "Fixity  of  residence  and  thiekeniug  of  population  are  the 
prime  requisites  of  civilization;  and  hence  it  will  be  found  that,  as  in  Egypt 
where  great  civilization  was  developed  in  a  narrow  valley  hemmed  in  by  deserts, 
and  in  Greece  limited  to  a  peninsula  bounded  bj'  the  sea  on  one  side,  and  moun- 
tains on  the  other,  when  the  Caucasian  race,  starting  from  India  and  pursuing 
its  western  course  around  the  earth,  shall  reach  the  shores  of  the  great  Pacific 
ocean,  it  will  dam  up  in  the  strip  of  country  between  the  Rocky  Mountains  ami 
the  sea,  and  there  in  the  most  dense  population,  produce  the  greatest  civilization 
on  the  earth."  (From  the  Vestiges  of  Creation,  1838,  anonymous,  but  sup- 
posed to  be  written  by  Robert  Chambers,  of  Edinburgh,  Scotland.  It  was  in 
fact  written  before  the  emigration  wave  started  for  Oregon.) 

"I  say  the  man  is  alive,  full  grown,  and  listening  to  what  I  say,  who  will  yet 
see  the  Asiatic  commerce  traversing  the  North  Pacific  ocean — entering  the  Oregon 
river — climbing  the  western  slope  of  the  Rocky  Mountains — issuing  from  its 
gorges — and  spreading  its  fertilizing  streams  over  our  wide  extended  Union ! 

"The  steamboat  and  the  steam  car  have  not  exhausted  all  their  wonders.  They 
have  not  yet  found  their  amplest  and  most  appropriate  theatres — the  tranquil 
surface  of  the  North  Pacific  ocean,  and  the  vast  inclined  plains  which  spread 
east  and  west  from  the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  magic  boat,  and  the  flying  ear  are 
not  yet  seen  upon  the  ocean,  and  upon  the  plain,  but  they  will  be  seen  there ;  and 
St.  Louis  is  yet  to  find  herself  as  near  Canton  as  she  is  now  to  London,  with  a 
better  and  safer  route  by  land  and  sea  to  China  and  Japan  than  she  now  has  to 
France  and  Great  Britain."  (Extract  from  an  address  by  Thomas  H.  Benton, 
U.  S.  Senator,  at  St.  Louis,  October  10,  1844,  eighteen  months  after  his  fellow 
citizens  of  Jlissouri  had  started  to  Oregon  with  their  wives,  children  and  ox 
teams  to  take  the  country  from  the  British.) 

The  settlement  of  Old  Oregon,  embracing  all  the  teri-itory  west  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  north  of  California  and  up  to  Alaska,  being  the  result  of  a  long  series 
of  explorations  by  sea  and  land  covering  three  hundred  years  from  1.506  to  1806. 
is  the  most  interesting  story  of  the  entire  settlement  of  North  America.  The  his- 
tory of  this  great  territory  is  both  national  and  local.  Apparently  the  last 
grand  movement  of  the  German  Indo-European  race  of  men  in  its  all-conquering 
march  from  farthest  East  to  farthest  West,  the  history  of  Oregon  is  not  only  na- 
tional in  its  fundamentals  but  also  finds  its  original  root-graft  in  the  oldest  of 
the  virile  tribes  of  men.  The  same  Providence  that  cast  the  Mayflower  on  the 
rockbound  shores  of  New  England  to  land  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  in  a  new  world, 
inspired  the  men  and  women  and  furnished  them  with  the  faith  and  courage  to 
overcome  mountains,  deserts  and  savage  tribes  and  plant  Christianity,  civiliza- 
tion and  laws  in  the  wilderness  of  Old  Oregon. 

And  whatever  of  difference  there  may  lie  in  the  local  coloring  wliicli  differ- 
entiates Oregon  from  all  other  of  the  forty-eight  states  of  the  Grand  Republic. 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

it  is  entitled  to  its  history,  its  origin,  and  its  influence  in  moulding  the  general 
mass.  So  that  this  book  is  written  not  only  to  inform  the  newcomer  to  Oregon, 
but  also  to  arouse  an  interest  in  the  boys  and  girls  in  all  the  Oregon  schools  to 
read  and  find  in  the  history  of  their  state  a  more  exciting  and  instructive  story 
than  they  can  find  in  any  other  country  or  in  any  creation  of  the  most  gifted 
imagination. 

For  more  than  three  hundred  years  the  territory  of  Oregon  was  a  prize  for 
which  the  most  powerful  nations  in  the  world  contended.  And  for  this  country 
one  after  another,  Spain,  Russia,  France  and  England  played  the  rights  of  dis- 
covery, the  game  of  diplomacy  and  the  bluff  of  threatened  war ;  and  all  of  them 
to  see  in  the  end  the  final  word  and  the  rightful  decision  rendered,  almost  wholly 
by  half  a  hundred  American  farmers  in  the  Willamette  valley.  Such  a  page  of 
exciting  incident,  unlooked  for  surprises,  and  far-reaching  consequences  cannot 
be  found  in  the  history  of  any  other  state  or  nation. 

Born  to  a  conscious  existence  of  its  dignity  as  an  organized  community  of 
civilized  men,  and  influenced  by  the  antecedent  dangers  and  trials  through  which 
the  community  fought  its  way  to  recognition  by  congress,  it  is  not  singular  that 
there  should  be  found  here  types  of  men  and  women,  and  a  civil  government  with 
laws  and  institutions  out  of  the  ordinary ;  and  if  not  admitted  to  be  superior  it 
has  for  originality  and  force  challenged  the  attention  and  led  the  champions  of 
reform  throughout  the  nation.  A  state  isolated  from  the  rest  of  the  great  body 
of  the  American  people  by  two  thousand  miles  of  mountains  and  arid  plains  that 
can  accomplish  these  results  and  secure  this  position  among  the  states  of  the 
Union  is  no  ordinary  community,  and  must  have  a  history  at  once  both  unique 
and  forceful  to  an  extraordinary  degree. 

To  search  out  facts  from  twenty  thousand  pages  of  printed  matter  heretofore 
issued  to  the  world  as  veritable  history  of  Oregon,  a  great  deal  of  which  is  un- 
certain, much  of  it  romance  and  not  a  little  of  it  in  dispute,  is  the  task  set  before 
the  author.  In  taking  up  this  task  no  bias  in  favor  of  or  against  any  person, 
society,  creed  or  party  can  be  allowed  to  have  any  influence  whatever.  The  truth 
of  history,  and  justice  to  all  the  actors  in  the  great  drama  of  life  to  be  recorded, 
must  be  the  vinwavering  guide. 

The  history  of  Oregon  has  been  so  fruitful  a  fleld  for  writers  of  every  descrip- 
tion that  it  is  safe  to  say  that  more  pages,  if  not  more  books,  have  been  written 
about  this  region,  its  discovery,  its  name,  its  missionaries,  Indians,  the  trials  and 
sufferings  of  its  immigrants,  its  novel  provisional  government  and  its  latter  day 
new  laws  and  politics,  than  about  all  the  other  states  west  of  the  Ohio  river.  From 
this  vast  storehouse  of  historical  material  it  is  plain  that  only  so  much  as  will 
give  the  general  story  and  controlling  facts  and  movements,  can  be  included  in  a 
volume  that  the  general  reader  will  care  to  purchase. 

In  writing  the  history  of  a  state  a  common  plan  has  been  to  divide  the  whole 
period  into  parts  or  epochs,  each  limited  by  distinctive  dates.  To  the  reader 
desiring  to  know  what  took  place  at  any  given  period  this  plan  has  its  merits. 
But  it  has  appeared  to  the  author  that  in  the  case  of  Oregon  the  more  instruc- 
tive plan,  especially  to  the  younger  readers  whom  it  is  desired  to  interest  in  this 
book,  would  be  to  divide  the  history  into  subjects,  and  then  give  all  that  is  to  be 
said  on  that  subject  in  one  chapter.    By  pursuing  this  plan  it  is  believed  that 


IXTIx'oDrcTlOX  '  xiii 

there  will  be  a  relatiouship  created  between  all  parts  of  the  narrative,  so  that 
each  part  will  be  more  readily  apprehended,  more  easily  understood  and  longer 
remembered. 

That  the  eonditions  of  life  Jind  the  eiivir'onmeut  of  men  and  women — the  in- 
dividual merits  of  society — have  at  all  times  influenced  and  shaped  the  institu- 
tions of  society,  cannot  be  denied.  And  the  best  illustration  of  this  universal 
principle  can  be  found  in  the  history  of  Oregon.  The  trials  and  dangers  of  the 
long  journey  from  the  Missouri  river  to  Oregon ;  the  presence  of  the  unfriendly 
if  not  savage  possessor  of  the  land ;  the  shadow  of  the  foreign  power  in  the  back- 
ground ;  all  conspire  to  develop  a  people  alert  to  assert  and  courageous  to  main- 
tain their  rights  b.y  organization,  proclamation  and  defence.  These  character- 
istics of  the  mass  developed  traits  in  the  individual  no  less  marked  and  distin- 
guishable. The  independent  fur  hunter  in  lonely  mountains,  the  pioneer  farmer 
on  the  isolated  prairies — all  held  themselves  ready  to  defend  the  home  or  fly  to 
the  common  defence.  These  hard  circumstances  developed  in  Oregon  a  race  of 
men  and  women  independent  in  thought  and  deed,  courageous  to  insist  on  their 
rights  and  careless  of  wealth  or  fame. 

It  has  been  urged  by  some  writers  that  there  is  a  unity  in  all  history  of  the 
human  race.  But  if  this  were  a  uniform  rule,  there  would  not  be  the  difference 
between  nations  and  peoples,  between  wild  tribes,  half  civilized  barbarians  and 
cultured  races  which  is  evei-y where  observable.  That  there  is  a  unity  in  the 
history  of  all  the  nations  on  certain  facts  of  development  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
In  fact  no  progress,  or  even  existence,  could  be  maintained  without  a  unity  of 
purpose  for  self-preservation,  common  defence,  and  the  control  of  nature 's  store- 
house of  food  and  clothing.  The  history  of  Oregon  shows  a  unity  in  the  great 
trend  of  population  to  move  westward — the  American  idea  to  organize  govern- 
ment for  common  defence  in  which  all  the  individual  units  of  society  will  stand 
upon  the  same  level  and  have  the  same  voice  in  the  compact.  But  this  has  no 
similarity  to  the  governments  set  up  by  Spain  in  Mexico  and  all  the  South  Amer- 
ican colonies ;  nor  is  it  akin  to  the  colonial  charters  from  English  kings  to  the 
colonists  on  the  Atlantic  sea  coast.  The  settlement  of  Oregon  was  exceptional 
and  extraordinary,  made  so  by  the  conditions  and  surroundings  of  the  time  and 
place ;  and  its  history  cannot  be  judged  by  the  rules  and  principles  applicable  to 
the  history  of  states  in  general. 

The  highest  and  most  valuable  purpose  of  history  should  be  to  teach  by  actual 
example.  If  there  is  no  lesson,  no  useful  thought  to  the  reader,  then  the  history 
is  of  no  more  value  than  the  every-day  novel.  If  those  who  come  after  can  learn 
nothing  from  those  who  have  gone  before,  it  is  a  waste  of  time  to  make  up  the 
record  for  any  other  purpose  than  selling  the  story  as  any  story  of  fiction  might 
be  sold.  But  the  historians  of  Oregon  may  justly  point  with  pride  to  the  illus- 
trious history  of  the  state,  crowded  with  examples  of  the  daring,  courage,  toils 
and  homely  virtues  of  its  pioneer  settlers;  and  to  the  wisdom,  patriotism  and 
heroism  of  its  founders,  state  builders  and  law  givers. 

In  the  evolutionary  race  around  the  earth  from  east  to  west,  the  Oregonian 
Americans  were  the  first  to  reach  the  Pacific  and  establish  permanent  institu- 
tions. The  Spaniards  came  first,  but  their  presence  and  influence  was  a  blight 
and  a  curse  upon  the  country.  The  Russians  came  next,  but  left  no  impression 
of  any  kind.    The  English  came  next,  but  their  influence  for  the  benefit  of  man- 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

kind  was  practically  limited  to  the  life  of  a  single  man — John  McLougklin.  The 
Americans  came  last,  and  founded  states.  Recognizing  the  beginning  of  the  end 
of  Spanish  rule  on  the  Pacific  coast,  Governor  Pico,  of  California,  said  to  his 
people : 

"We  are  threatened  with  hordes  of  Yankee  immigrants.  Already  have  the 
wagons  of  that  perfidious  people  scaled  the  almost  inaccessible  summits  of  the 
Sierra  Nevadas,  crossed  the  entire  continent  and  penetrated  the  fruitful  valley 
of  Sacramento.  What  that  astonishing  people  will  next  undertake,  I  cannot  say ; 
but  in  whatever  enterprise  they  embark  they  will  be  successful.  Already  these 
adventurous  voj^agers,  spreading  themselves  over  the  country  that  seems  to  suit 
their  tastes  are  cultivating  farms,  establishing  vineyards,  erecting  sawmills,  saw- 
ing lumber  and  doing  a  thousand  other  things  that  seem  perfectly  natural  to 
them. ' ' 

Several  volumes  of  biographies  of  Oregon  men  and  women  will  accompany 
this  historical  volume.  Many  persons  assume  that  these  personal  biographies  are 
not  valuable.  But  that  is  a  mistake.  All  history  is  but  the  recital  of  the  works 
of  the  men  and  women  of  the  past.  These  personal  biographies  will  be  the  mine 
from  which  will  be  drawn  the  facts  for  histories  in  the  future.  They  are  worth 
reading  and  we  commend  them  to  all  subscribers  for  this  book.  Now  for  the 
story ! 


OREGON  CHRONOLOGY 

•  1542 — It  is  said  that  Juan  Rodrigues  Cabrillo.  a  Spaniard,  sailed  up  the 
coast  as  far  as  44  degrees,  landed  and  returned  south.  This  would  be  somewhere 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Port  Orford. 

1578 — Authorities  differ  as  to  the  distance  which  Sir  Francis  Drake,  an  Eng- 
lishman, sailed  up  the  coast.  There  is  no  record  of  his  having  landed  north  of 
San  Francisco  Bay. 

1592 — Is  given  as  the  date  upon  which  Juan  de  Fuca.  a  Spaniard,  discovered 
the  straits  which  now  bear  his  name.  It  is  doubted  wliether  he  ever  saw  them  as 
claimed  by  him. 

1603 — Sebastian  Vizcaino,  a  Spaniard,  named  Cape  Blanco,  also  reported  a 
snow-capped  peak  to  the  eastward,  calling  it  San  Sebastian  (Mt.  Shasta).  He 
also  discovered  a  river,  supposed  to  be  the  Umpqua.  Capt.  Aguilar,  one  of  his 
expedition,  claimed  to  have  discovered  the  Columbia  river. 

1742 — Two  sons  of  Chevalier  de  La  Verendrye.  of  Montreal,  led  an  overland 
expedition  to  the  Stony  mountains  (Rockies),  coming  as  far  west  as  the  country 
embracing  IMissoula.  Deer  Lodge  and  Silver  Bow  counties  in  Montana.  On  May 
19,  1744,  they  set  up  a  monument  and  christened  the  country  "Beauharnois." 

1744 — Lieut.  Juan  Perez,  a  Spaniard,  sailed  as  far  north  as  54  degrees.  On 
his  return  trip  he  discovered  a  mountain  now  called  Mt.  Olympus.  He  gave  it 
the  name  of  Sierra  de  Santa  Rosalia. 

1763 — Kodiak  Island  settled  by  the  Russians. 

1766 — The  river  "Oregon"  was  conceived  in  the  mind  of  Capt.  Jonathan 
Carver,  of  Connecticut,  who  made  an  expedition  into  the  country  adjacent  to  the 
headwaters  of  the  Mississippi  in  that  year.  This  river  has  borne  several  differ- 
ent names,  among  them  being:  Spanish-Esenada  de  Asuncion  (Assumption  In- 
let"*. Esendada  de  Heeeta  (Heceta  Inlet),  Rio  de  San  Roque  (River  of  San 
Roque),  Rio  de  Aguilar  (River  of  Aguilar).  and  Rio  de  Thegays  (River 
of  Thegays). 

1775 — Capt.  Bruno  Heceta,  a  Spaniard,  planted  a  cross  on  July  14th.  upon 
n  point  to  which  he  gave  the  name  of  Punta  de  Martinez  (Martyr's  Point),  a 
location  now  known  as  Point  Grenville.  On  the  same  day  some  of  the  crew  of 
one  of  his  vessels  went  on  shore  for  a  supply  of  fresh  water,  and  were  massacred 
by  the  Indians.  Tliis  was  the  first  recorded  instance  where  the  blood  of  the  white 
race  was  shed  in  the  Pacific  Northwest. 

1778 — On  ]\Iarch  7th,  Capt.  James  Cook  named  Cape  Foulweather.  and 
Cape  Flattery  on  March  22d.  The  latter  had  been  previously  (1774)  called 
Punta  Martinez  by  Perez. 

1785 — Capt.  James  Hanna.  an  Englishman,  arrived.  Not  for  the  purpose  of 
exploration,  but  to  gather  furs  for  the  Oriental  market.     He  was  quite  success- 


xvi  CHRONOLOGY 

fill,  selling  his  cargo  in  the  Cantonese  market  tor  $20,000.     This  was  the  first 
expedition  coming  to  the  North  Pacific  waters  solely  for  trading  purposes. 

1787 — Capt.  Dixon,  an  Englishman,  was  the  first  to  establish  the  fact  that 
Queen  Charlotte  Island  was  an  island.    He  named  it  in  honor  of  his  vessel. 

1788 — The  American  sloop,  Lady  Washington,  of  Boston,  arrived,  at  Nootka 
on  August  16.  She  was  commanded  by  Capt.  Robert  Gray,  who  afterwards 
discovered  the  Columbia  river.  On  the  voyage  up  the  coast,  the  vessel  was 
run  into  Murderers'  harbor,  since  known  as  Tillamook  Bay.  While  here  one  of 
the  crew  was  murdered  by  the  Indians,  the  first  instance  of  the  kind  occurring 
south  of  the  Columbia  river,  so  far  as  known. 

1791 — Capt.  Robert  Graj',  who  returned  in  the  ship  Columbia  after  making  a 
voyage  to  Canton  and  Boston,  wintered  in  the  harbor  of  Clayoquot,  Queen  Char- 
lotte's Island.  He  there  erected  buildings  and  mounted  gams,  the  first  thing  of 
such  a  nature  to  be  done  by  an  American.  During  his  stay  there  he  built  the 
first  American  vessel  to  be  built  on  the  Pacific  coast.  This  was  the  sloop  Ad- 
venturer. Robert  Haswell,  formerly  mate  with  Capt.  Gray,  was  the  first  master 
of  this  vessel.  She  was  sold  to  Capt.  Cuadra,  the  Spanish  commander  in  the 
Pacific  Northwest,  in  1792,  when  she  was  taken  south. 

1792 — In  the  spring  of  this  year,  Capt.  Robert  Gray  left  Queen  Charlotte's 
Island,  where  he  had  wintered,  and  coasted  south.  On  May  7th  he  entered  Bul- 
finch  harbor  (now  known  as  Gray's  Harbor)  naming  it  in  honor  of  the  owners  of 
his  vessel.  On  the  11th  he  arrived  off  the  Columbia  river  bar  and  successfully 
crossed  it,  anchoring  above  Tongue  Point  in  what  is  now  known  as  Gray's  bay. 
He  was  the  first  to  be  certain  that  it  was  a  river.  Capt.  Gray  was  the  first 
American  to  circumnavigate  the  globe. 

1793 — Alexander  Mackenzie,  a  Scotchman,  was  the  first  white  man  to  make 
the  trip  across  the  continent  to  the  Pacific  ocean.  He  discovered  the  Fraser  river, 
while  enroute,  which  he  believed  to  be  the  Columbia.  The  Fraser  river  was  so 
called  in  later  years  for  Simon  Fraser,  who  established  a  trading  post  upon  its 
banks  in  1807. 

1805 — Lewis  and  Clark  expedition  came  across  the  plains.  Followed  down 
the  Columbia  river  and  wintered  at  Fort  Clatsop,  a  fort  built  by  them  at  the 
mouth  of  the  river,  the  winter  of  1805-6.  They  bestowed  names  upon  many  of  the 
tributaries  of  the  Columbia,  gave  the  Indians  names  of  others  and  named  prom- 
inent points  along  the  route. 

Castle  Rock  they  called  Beacon  rock ;  Hood  river,  Labiesche  river ;  Klickitat 
river,  Cataract  river;  John  Day  river,  Lepage  river;  Touchet  river,  White  Sal- 
mon river.  This  was  subsequently  named  John  Day  for  a  Kentucky  hunter 
coming  with  the  Hunt  party  in  1811.  Sandy  river,  Quicksand  river;  Washougal 
river.  Seal  river;  White  Salmon  river,  Canoe  river;  Sauvie's  Island  was  Wapato 
island;  the  Willamette  was  Multnomah  river  from  the  Columbia  to  the  falls; 
above  the  falls  the  stream  was  known  as  the  Willamette ;  Tillamook  was  named 
by  Clark  Killamuck  Head.  It  had  been  called  Cape  Falcon  by  the  Spanish 
and  Cape  Lookout  by  Meares. 

With  this  party  came  York,  the  first  negro  to  come  to  the  Pacific  coast. 

1807 — Fraser  river  named  for  Simon  Fraser,  who  established  a  trading  post 
on  Fraser  Lake  adjacent  to  it. 


CHRONOLOGY  xvii 

1808 — Aiiierieaii  Fur  Company  organized.  Fort  Henry  established  on  Snake 
river.     Tlie  first  American  trading  post. 

1810— Capt.  Jonathan  Winship  located  at  Oak  Point,  Oregon,  opposite  the 
present  place  of  that  name  in  Washington.  The  floods  washing  away  his  houses, 
and  learning  of  Astor's  plans,  he  deemed  it  inadvisable  to  try  to  compete  with 
Astor,  and  abandoned  the  undertaking. 

1811 — Astoria  founded  by  Pacific  Fur  Company.  Fort  built  on  a  point 
called  Point  George,  by  Lieut.  Broughton,  in  1792.  The  first  of  this  company  to 
arrive,  came  on  the  Tonquin.  She  anchored  in  Baker's  bay,  March  22,  1811. 
This  was  the  first  vessel  to  be  blown  up  on  the  coast,  her  ship's  clerk  doing  so  to 
kill  a  host  of  Indians  on  board  who  had  murdered  the  crew  two  days  before. 
Alexander  McKay,  a  pai-fner  of  Astor,  the  first  husband  of  the  wife  of  Dr.  Mc- 
Loughlin,  was  among  those  whom  the  savages  massacred.  October  2,  1811,  was 
launched  the  first  vessel,  the  Dolly,  built  here.  She  was  afterwards  called  the 
Columbia.  Here  the  first  marriages  in  the  Paeifie  Northwest  were  celebrated, 
and  the  first  children  born,  one  of  whose  parents  were  white ;  the  first 
river  steamer,  the  Columbia,  1850,  was  built;  the  first  custom  house  erected  on 
the  coast,  and  one  of  the  two  (Oregon  City)  postoffices  west  of  the  Rockies. 
Twelve  potatoes  planted  at  Astoria  in  May  yielded  190  potatoes.  Turnips  and 
radishes  also  raised. 

Wm.  Cannon  was  probably  the  first  American  to  come  to  the  Pacific  North- 
west and  permanently  reside  here.  He  came  in  1811  with  the  Hunt  party,  and 
after  years  of  employ  as  a  trapper  for  the  fur  companies,  finally  settled  in  the 
Willamette  valley.  He  was  a  native  of  Pennsylvania.  His  death  took  place 
at  French  Prairie,  August  29,  1854.    He  was  99  years  of  age  at  that  time. 

1812 — January  12th,  the  Hunt  party  arrived  at  Astoria. 

In  November,  Robert  Stewart  of  the  Astor  expedition,  discovered  the  South 
pass.    This  became  the  main  gateway  through  the  Rockies  used  by  the  pioneers. 

John  Clark,  of  the  Astor  expedition,  hanged  an  Indian  for  stealing.  The 
first  "neck-tie"  party  on  the  Pacific  coast.  Fort  Boise  established  by  Donald 
McKenzie  on  Snake  river. 

1813^December  12th,  Astoria  reehristened  Fort  George  by  Capt.  Black,  a 
British  naval  officer,  and  the  Northwest  Company  succeeding  the  Pacific  Fur 
Company  through  the  treachery  of  some  of  the  Scotch  partners. 

Fifty  bushels  of  potatoes  from  the  start  of  1811. 

1814 — Ship  Isaac  Todd  arrives  at  Astoria.  On  her  came  Jane  Barnes,  the 
first  white  woman  to  set  foot  on  the  Pacific  Northwest.  On  this  vessel  also  came 
the  pioneer  physician.  Dr.  Swan,  to  the  Pacific  Northwest. 

1818 — Fort  George  again  becomes  Astoria  on  August  18.  Old  Fort  Walla- 
Walla  (originally  Fort  Nez  Peree)  established.  The  site  was  where  the  town 
of  Wallula,  Wash.,  now  stands. 

1S21 — Dr.  John  Floyd,  of  Virginia,  introduced  an  Oregon  bill  in  congress. 
This  was  the  first  bill  introduced  providing  for  the  occupation  of  the  Pacific 
Northwest  by  the  government. 

1825 — Fort  Colville  established  by  Hudson's  Bay  Company. 

David  Douglas,  Scotch  scientist,  who  found  and  named  the  Douglas  spruce 
of  the  Pacific  coast,  discovered  the  natives  cultivating  the  indigenous  tobacco 
plant  of  the  Columbia  river. 


xviii  CHRONOLOGY 

1827 — The  first  apple  trees  grown  in  the  Pacific  Northwest  were  planted  at 
Vancouver,  Washington.  They  sprang  from  the  seed  of  an  apple  eaten  at  a  din- 
ner party  given  in  London,  England.  One  of  the  ladies  present,  more  in  jest 
than  in  earnest,  took  the  seeds  from  an  apple  brought  in  with  the  dessert,  and 
gave  them  to  Captain  Simpson,  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company's  coast  service, 
who  was  also  a  guest,  telling  him  to  plant  them  on  his  arrival  at  Vancouver. 

First  sawmill  west  of  Rocky  Mountains  built  by  Dr.  John  ilcLoughlin,  six 
miles  east  of  Fort  Vancouver,  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company 's  post  on  tlie  Colum- 
bia river. 

1828 — Massacre  of  the  Smith  party  by  the  Rogue  river  Indians. 

Hudson's  Bay  Company's  ship,  William  and  Ann,  wrecked  on  the  Columbia 
river  bar.  Some  twenty  lives  lost,  said  to  have  been  murdered  by  the  Clatsop 
Indians,  who  plundered  the  vessel.  Dr.  McLoughlin  caused  their  village  to  be 
bombarded,  during  which  many  of  them  were  killed,  among  the  number  two 
chiefs,  and  since  then  their  chiefs  have  been  merely  phantom  I'ulers. 

1829 — James  M.  Bates,  American,  settled  at  Scappoose,  Oregon. 

Etienne  Lucier,  settled  where  Portland  (east)  now  stands.  He  afterwards 
moved  to  Fi-ench  Pi'airie.  Was  one  of  the  fifty-two  men  who  voted  to  form  the 
provisional  government.     Died  March  6,  1853. 

-      Dr.  McLoughlin  located  Willamette  Falls  (Oregon  City)  and  erected  a  saw- 
mill there. 

Captain  Dominis  of  the  brig  Owyhee,  arrived  from  the  Atlantic  seaboard. 
On  the  voyage  out,  he  secured  some  peach  trees  at  the  Island  of  San  Juan  Fer- 
nandez (Crusoe's  Island),  which  he  brought  to  Vancouver  and  presented  to  Dr. 
McLoughlin,  who  had  them  planted.  These  were  the  first  peach  trees  to  come  to 
the  Pacific  Northwest.  During  his  stay  on  the  coast  the  captain  went  to  Cali- 
fornia and  while  there  brought  up  a  shipment  of  sheep,  the  pioneer  shipment. 
The  captain  was  a  good  sailor,  but  a  poor  stock  raiser.  When  the  sheep  were 
landed  they  were  all  found  to  be  wethers.  On  his  return  to  Boston  he  took  with 
him  a  shipment  of  salmon  in  barrels.  This  was  the  first  shipment  of  this  kind 
going  to  the  eastern  states. 

Hogs  arrived  at  Vancouver  during  this  year  from  China  and  the  Sandwich 
Islands.     Cattle  came  from  Fort  Ross,  Red  river,  settlement. 

1830 — Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth  's  overland  expedition  arrived.  Wyeth  was  the  first 
to  export  salmon,  sending  to  market  half  a  ship's  load  in  barrels  in  1835.  He  es- 
tablished Fort  William  on  Wapato  (Sauvie's)  Island,  in  1834.    Left  in  1835. 

1832 — Hudson's  Bay  Company  established  an  English  fur  trading  post  on 
the  IJmpqua  river.    It  was  besieged  in  1839  by  Indians. 

1833 — First  school  taught  in  the  Pacific  Northwest  at  Vancouver  by  John 
Ball,  one  of  the  Wyeth  party  of  1832.    The  scholars  were  all  Indians. 

Louis  LaBonte  settled  in  Yamhill  county,  Oregon.  He  was  the  first  settler  in 
that  section. 

Fort  Nisqually  established. 

1834 — Revs.  Jason  and  Daniel  Lee,  Methodist  missionaries,  arrive.  They  es- 
tablish a  mission  on  the  Willamette  river.  In  1840  same  was  moved  to  Cheme- 
teke  plain,  now  Salem. 


CHRONOLOGY  xix 

Rev.  Jason  Lee  preaches  first  serinou  delivered  in  tiie  Pacific  Northwest  on 
Sunday,  September  28th,  at  Vancouver,  and  the  first  in  the  Willamette  valley  on 
September  28th. 

Webley  Hauxhui'st  erects  a  grist  mill  at  Champoeg.  He  was  the  first  white 
person  to  become  converted  in  the  Pacific  Northwest.     (January,  1837.) 

Hall  J.  Kelley  and  Ewiug  Young  arrive  in  October.  Kelley's  plan  for  a 
Pacific  Northwest  metropolis  embraced  all  the  land  between  the  confluence  of  the 
Columbia  and  Willamette  rivers  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Willamette  and  south  of 
the  Columbia. 

1835 — Rev.  Samuel  Parker,  a  Congregational  missionary,  arrives  at  Van- 
couver, coming  across  the  plains.  The  next  year  he  left  via  the  Sandwich 
Islands  and  did  not  return. 

1835 — Dr.  W.  J.  Bailey,  the  first  doctor  to  locate  in  the  Willamette  valley, 
arrived.    He  died  at  Champoeg,  February  5,  1876. 

Ewing  Young  and  Lawrence  Carmichael  set  up  a  still  and  manufactured 
wliiskey. 

Rev.  Herbert  Heaver  and  wife  arrived  by  sailing  vessel  at  Vancouver.  He 
was  the  first  Episcopal  divine  to  come  to  the  Pacific  Northwest.  They  left  again 
in  1S3S. 

1836 — Steamer  Beaver  arrived  from  Gravesend,  England,  the  first  steam 
vessel  to  come  into  the  Pacific  Ocean.  Came  under  sail.  First  ran  under 
steam  in  the  Columbia,  April  17th.  Was  wrecked  in  1888  in  Burrard's  Inlet, 
B.C. 

Dr.  Whitman  and  wife.  Rev.  H.  H.  Spalding  and  wife,  and  W.  H.  Gray 
arrived  and  established  a  mission  at  Wai-il-at-pu.  Mrs.  Whitman  and  Mrs. 
Spalding  were  the  first  white  women  to  cross  the  plains  and  come  to  the  Pacific 
coast. 

John  Work  explored  the  Umpqua. 

1837 — (Sir)  James  Douglas  and  Miss  Nellie  Connolley  were  married  at  Van- 
couver. This  was  the  first  marriage  ceremony  performed  in  Washington.  Miss 
Connolley  had  Indian  blood  in  her  veins. 

July  16th,  occurred  the  first  marriage  among  the  white  race  on  the  Pacific 
coast.  Rev.  Jason  Lee  was  man-ied  to  Miss  Anna  M.  Pittman,  and  Mr.  Cyrus 
Shepard  to  Miss  Susan  Downing.  It  was  a  double  wedding.  Rev.  Daniel  Lee 
performed  the  fir.st  ceremony  and  Rev.  Jason  Lee  the  second. 

Alice  C,  daughter  of  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Whitman,  born  at  Wail-il-at-pu.  ^larch 
14.  1837,  was  the  first  white  child  born  on  the  Pacific  coast,  and  was  drowned 
in  the  AValla  Walla  river,  June  22,  1838. 

1838 — The  first  step  taken  to  secure  a  government  for  Oregon  by  Americans, 
was  made  March  16,  1838.  Thirty-six  of  the  settlers  in  the  Willamette  valley  sent 
a  memorial  to  congress  setting  forth  the  resources  and  conditions  of  the  country, 
petitioning  occupation  by  the  United  States.  This  was  presented  in  the  senate 
on  January  28,  1839,  and  after  its  reading  was  laid  on  the  table  and  neglected. 

The  first  sawmill  erected  by  Americans,  built  on  the  Chehalem,  Yamhill 
county,  by  Ewing  Young. 

The  first  paper,  called  the  Oregonian,  was  published  this  year  at  Lynn, 
Massachusetts. 


XX  CHBONOLOaY 

1839 — (Vicar  General)  Blanehet  and  (Bishop)  Demers,  the  pioneer  Catholic 
missionaries,  arrived. 

Rev.  Demers  rings  the  first  church  bell  in  the  Pacific  Northwest  at  the  Cow- 
litz Mission,  Washington,  October  14th. 

Rev.  Blanehet  blesses  the  first  church  bell  blessed  in  the  Willamette  valley  on 
French  Prairie,  December  23rd;  also  celebrates  the  first  mass  to  be  celebrated 
in  the  valley  at  the  same  place  in  January,  1840. 

Pioneer  printing  press  of  the  Pacific  coast  brought  from  the  Sandwich  Is- 
lands. Set  up  at  Lapwai  Mission.  Booklets,  etc.,  printed  in  the  Spokane  and  Nez 
Perce  languages.  It  was  brought  here  by  E.  0.  Hall.  He  was  the  first  printer  to 
work  at  his  trade  on  the  coast.  This  press  and  type  is  now  in  the  custody  of  the 
Oregon  Historical  Society. 

Rev.  J.  S.  G-riffin  arrives.  He  published  the  first  paper  issued  in  the  Pacific 
Northwest. 

Peoria  Part}^  arrives.     This  was  the  first  company  of  immigrants  to  come. 

1840 — Harvey  Clarke  independent  missionary  party  arrives. 

First  American  vessel,  the  Thomas  H.  Perkins,  to  enter  the  Columbia  with 
cargo,  arrives. 

Salem,  Oregon,  founded.  First  called  "The  Mill,"  called  "Chemekete"  by 
the  Indians.  The  latter  name  means  "Here  we  rest"  or  "Place  of  Peace." 
"Salem"  has  also  a  similar  meaning. 

1841 — Joseph  Gale  and  others  built  the  Star  of  Oregon,  the  first  vessel  built 
by  Americans  in  the  Pacific  Northwest.  Mr.  Gale  was  one  of  the  first  executive 
committee  of  the  provisional  government.  He  died  in  Wallowa  county,  Decem- 
ber 23,  1881,  aged  92  years. 


THE    AUTHOR 

Joseph  Gaston,  author  of  the  history  of  Porthmd,  and  of  this  Centennial 
History  of  Oregon,  born  in  the  village  of  Lloydsville,  Belmont  County,  Ohio, 
November  14,  1833,  comes  of  French  Huguenot  ancestry,  as  do  all  of  the  Gas- 
tons  of  the  United  States — the  family  being  represented  in  all  of  the  states, 
and  there  being  postoiSces  in  twelve  states,  bearing  the  Gaston  name. 

The  first  person  in  history  to  choose  and  bear  this  name,  born  in  1250 — was 
the  son  of  Roger  Bernard  III,  of  Foix,  a  town  of  Prance,  situated  in  the  gorge 
of  a  narrow  valley  at  the  foot  of  the  Pyrenees  mountains,  44  miles  south  of 
Toulouse.  Roger  Bernard,  more  famous  as  a  poet  than  a  warrior,  got  into  a 
war  with  Philip  the  Bold,  was  taken  prisoner  by  Philip,  and  subsequently  also 
by  Peter  III  of  Aragon ;  and  before  his  death  in  1302,  began  the  quarrel  of  the 
house  of  Foix  with  that  of  Armagnac.  Roger's  son  and  successor,  Gaston  I,  [the 
first  Gaston]  continued  the  war.  and  was  excommunicated  in  1308  by  Pope 
Clement  V,  and  imprisoned  in  the  Chatelet,  Paris,  but  regaining  his  freedom 
shortly  afterwards,  joined  Louis  X,  in  1315,  in  an  expedition  against  Holland, 
and  died  on  the  way  home.  This  family  name  is  followed  in  French  history 
without  difficulty  down  to  1472,  when  the  house  of  Foix,  on  the  death  of  Gaston 
IV,  was  merged  in  that  of  Navarre,  to  appear  later  on  as  the  surname  of  many 
families  tracing  their  relationship  back  to  the  original  families  of  Gaston  de 
Foix,  or  that  of  his  father-in-law  Jean  II  of  Navarre. 

The  Protestant  Reformation  making  such  headway  in  France  in  the  16th 
Century  as  induced  King  Henry  IV  [who  was  himself  a  Gaston]  to  issue  a  proc- 
lamation (April  13,  1598)  having  the  authority  of  a  law,  and  known  in  history 
as  the  "Edict  of  Nantes,"  the  Protestants  were  thereby  guaranteed  the  free 
exercise  of  their  religion,  and  equal  political  rights  with  Catholics.  Under  this 
law  many  of  the  Gastons  throughout  the  Kingdom  became  what  was  (at  that 
time)  reproachfully  termed  "Huguenots."  The  Huguenots  were  the  Puritans  of 
France.  After  King  Louis  XIV  had  ascended  the  throne  of  France,  in  October, 
1685,  he  proclaimed  an  edict  revoking  the  former  edict  of  Henry  IV,  and  by 
which  the  Protestants  (Huguenots)  were  prohibited  the  free  exercise  of  their 
religion  and  denied  equal  political  rights  with  Catholics.  Rather  than  submit 
to  this  great  injustice,  and  risk  burning  at  the  stake,  a  great  majority  of  the 
Gastons,  who  had  as  a  wide  spread  family,  embraced  the  Protestant  religion, 
emigrated  from  their  native  land  with  over  three  hundred  thousand  other  Prot- 
estants— the  Gastons  settling  first  in  Scotland,  and  soon  after  moving  over  to 
the  north  counties  of  Ireland.  From  Ireland  many  of  these  expatriated  Gas- 
tons came  over  to  America  from  the  year  1690  to  1720,  settling  in  North  and 
South  Carolina,  Virginia,  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania. 

These  facts  are  interesting  only  as  showing  how  families  started  in  European 
countries  and  through  wars  and  religious  persecution  were  forced  to  emigrate 


xxii  THE  AUTHOR 

to  America,  and  add  their  blood,  education  and  influence — whatever  it  might 
be — to  the  building  of  the  new  nation.  From  the  north  of  Ireland  settlement, 
three  brothers,  John,  William  and  Alexander  Gaston,  emigrated  to  America  in 
the  year  1700,  establishing  their  home  in  the  Carolinas.  From  this  Carolina 
stock  came  Alexander  Gaston,  bom  in  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  in  1769,  and 
who  was  the  father  of  Dr.  Joseph  Gaston,  who  died  at  Lloydsville,  Ohio,  in 
1833,  and  the  grandfather  of  Joseph  Gaston,  of  this  review.  Alexander  Gaston 
removed  from  Charleston  to  Washington  County,  Pennsylvania,  in  1791,  and 
there  met  and  married  Rachel  Perry,  a  daughter  of  John  Perry,  a  neighbor  and 
friend  of  George  Washington  and  under  whom  he  served  as  a  soldier  throughout 
the  Revolutionary  war  as  an  officer  of  the  Virginia  Light  Dragoons. 

In  the  year  1800,  Alexander  Gaston  and  his  family,  with  that  of  John  Perry 
and  his  family,  removed  from  Pennsylvania  to  Belmont  County,  Ohio,  settling 
near  Morristown,  where  Alexander  Gaston  and  his  wife  (the  first  woman  physi- 
cian in  regular  practice  in  the  United  States)  practiced  medicine  until  the  end 
of  their  lives. 

Dr.  Joseph  Gaston,  aforenamed,  was  united  in  marriage  to  Miss  Nancy 
Fowler,  April  16,  1830.  Miss  Fowler  was  the  only  daughter  of  John  Fowler, 
who  fought  with  Commodore  Perry  in  the  battle  of  Lake  Brie,  and  was  one  of 
the  six  marines  who  rowed  the  commodore  through  the  British  line  after  Perry 's 
flag-ship  had  been  disabled ;  and  Perry  himself  was  a  relative  of  John  Perry, 
the  great-grandfather  of  the  author  of  this  history. 

Dr.  Joseph  Gaston  dying  prior  to  the  birth  of  his  son,  he  was  reared  in 
the  home  of  his  grandmother,  Mrs.  Jean  MacCormack-Fowler,  in  Morgan 
County,  Ohio;  obtaining  what  education  he  could  in  the  country  log  school 
house  of  the  times,  in  which  a  three  months'  winter  session  was  held  in  each 
year  for  five  years.  The  remainder  of  the  year  was  devoted  to  woi*k  on  the 
farm  until  he  was  sixteen  years  of  age  when  he  began  life  for  himself,  teach- 
ing country  schools  and  working  on  farms  and  sawmills  until  he  was  twenty -two 
years  of  age,  when  he  entered  the  law  office  of  Daniel  Peck  of  St.  Clairsville, 
Ohio,  as  clerk  and  law  student.  On  being  admitted  to  the  bar  he  practiced  law 
for  five  years,  and  then  removed  to  Oregon,  reaching  Jackson  County,  in  April, 
1862.  Here  he  worked  in  the  mines  near  Jacksonville  for  six  months,  and  then 
entered  into  law  practice  in  Oregon  in  partnership  with  John  H.  Reed,  who  was 
a  member  of  the  convention  that  framed  the  constitution  of  Oregon ;  and  at  the 
same  time  edited  the  Jacksonville  Sentinel,  the  first  Republican  party  paper  in 
Southern  Oregon. 

In  1864  he  took  up  the  project  of  building  a  railroad  from  the  Columbia 
river  to  the  southern  boundary  of  Oregon ;  and  in  1864-5  prosecuted  surveys  for 
such  a  road  from  Jacksonville  to  Portland.  In  1864  he  removed  from  Jackson- 
ville to  Salem,  Oregon,  where  he  continued  the  practice  of  law,  and  edited  the 
Oregon  Statesman  to  earn  money  to  pay  family  living  expenses,  while  still  fol- 
lowing up  the  railroad  project  by  agitating  the  subject  before  the  people  of 
Oregon  and  pressing  it  upon  the  attention  of  members  of  congress  for  a  grant 
of  public  lands  in  aid  of  the  enterprise.  He  followed  the  business  of  promoting 
and  building  railroads  in  the  state  from  1864  to  1880,  an  account  of  which  will 
be  found  in  Chapter  XIX  of  this  history.    On  retiring  from  this  railroad  work 


THE  AUTHOR  xxiii 

he  settled  on  a  farm  at  the  town  of  Gaston  in  Washington  County,  and  devoted 
sixteen  years  to  the  work  of  draining  and  converting  the  disease  breeding  swamp 
of  Wapatoo  Lake — a  thousand  acres — into  a  fruitful  and  beautiful  farm.  In 
this  work,  as  in  all  others,  he  was  most  efficiently  supported  by  a  faithful  and 
energetic  wife,  v?ho  in  addition  to  the  duties  of  home  and  household,  devoted  hor 
time  and  means  to  the  improvement  of  the  neighborhood.  She  established  the 
first  Sunday  school  in  the  south  part  of  Washington  County,  starting  the  school 
in  the  first  warehouse  at  Gaston  railroad  station :  and  subsequently,  in  couipany 
with  Mrs.  Eimice  Brock  (still  living)  raised  the  money  and  means  to  erect  the 
Gaston  Union  church — the  first  church  building  on  the  railroad  between  Forest 
Grove  and  Mcilinnville.  (J\lrs.  Gaston's  maiden  name  was  Narcissa  Doddridge 
Jones,  born  at  St.  Clairsville,  Ohio,  in  1836,  and  passing  away  at  the  family 
home  in  Portland,  November  11,  1898.) 

In  1896,  Mr.  Gaston  disposed  of  his  farm  and  returned  to  Portland  where 
he  now  resides  on  Portland  Heights,  devoting  his  time  to  a  fruit  farm  on  the 
Columbia  river  opposite  the  town  of  Hood  River,  and  to  the  management  of  a 
great  manufacturing  enterprise  in  Lake  County — the  development  of  the  soda- 
borax  deposits  of  Alkali  Lake. 

During  his  career,  Mr.  Gaston  has  been  an  editor,  connected  with  a  number 
of  political  and  agricultural  journals;  notably  the  Daily  and  Weekly  Bulletin  of 
Portland,  a  competitor  of  the  Oregonian  in  the  years  1870  to  1875;  with  several 
agricultural  journals,  his  taste  for  farming  and  country  life  leading  him  in  that 
direction;  and  also  as  editor  and  proprietor  of  "The  Farmer's  Journal,"  which 
was  substantially  the  founder  and  defender  of  the  Populist  political  jinrty  in 
Oregon.  While  always  taking  an  interest  in  politics  and  public  aflfairs,  he  has 
never  been  an  office  holder,  and  only  once  a  candidate  for  office,  being  the 
Populist  candidate  for  the  office  of  justice  of  the  supreme  court  in  1S94;  the 
election  resulting  in  40,450  votes  for  the  Republican  candidate.  26,135  for  the 
Populist  candidate,  and  18,625  for  the  Democratic  candidate.  Outside  of  jour- 
nalism and  contributions  to  monthly  magazines,  Mr.  Gaston's  literary  work  is 
limited  to  "Portland,  its  History  and  Builders."  a  volume  of  700  pages  and 
two  volumes  of  biographies  of  Portland  builders,  published  in  1911,  and  this 
present  work,  "The  Centennial  History  of  Oregon."  both  issued  by  the  same 
publish  ci's. 


CHAPTER  ] 

1492—1792 

THE   WUKLD-KOUND    WEST-BOUND  MARCH  OP  MAN WAS  THE  EARTH   ROUND  OR  FLAT 

— THE     PROPOSITION     OP     COLUMBUS HOW     AND     WHY     NAMED     AMERICA — THE 

DREAMS  OF  NAVIGATORS THE  FABLED  STRAIT  OP  ANIAN DE   FUCA's   PRETENDED 

DISCOVERY — MALDON  ado's      PRETENDED      VOYAGE LOw's      REMARKABLE      MAP — 

VISCAINO  AND  AGUILAR  REACH    THE   OREGON    COAST   IN    1603 — CALIFORNIA  AN   IS- 
LAND  CAPTAIN  cook's  VOYAGE  AND  DEATH — BEGINNING  OF  THE  FUE  TRADE  ON 

THE  PACIFIC — SPAIN  DRIVES  ENGLAND  OUT  OF  NOOTKA  SOUND  AND  THEN  MAKES 
A  TREATY  OF  JOINT  OCCUPATION GRAY  DISCOVERS  THE  COLUMBIA  RIVER. 

To  connect  Oregon  with  the  greatest  event  in  the  world  of  science  and  discov- 
ery— the  grand  achievement  of  Christopher  Columbus — we  must  take  a  long  look 
backward  and  see  that  the  train  of  events  set  in  motion  by  that  great  man  never 
halted  or  turned  aside  from  the  day  Columbus  sighted  Cat  Island  in  the  West 
Indies  until  the  Oregon  pioneers  organized  the  provisional  government  at  Cham- 
poeg.  The  settlement  of  this  last  and  most  distant  portion  of  the  United  States 
was  clearly  the  result  of  that  world-wide  racial  impulse  to  move  west  on  isother- 
mal lines,  take  possession  of  new  lands  and  colonize  the  North  American  con- 
tinent. That  impulse  already  in  existence  before  the  American  colonies  declared 
their  independence  of  the  Old  "World,  was  vastly  accelerated  by  the  surrender  of 
the  British  army  at  Yorktown. 

As  Columbus  left  no  explanation  of  his  studies  of  the  great  problem  of  sail- 
ing westward  from  Europe  to  find  the  east  coast  of  Asia  the  world  is  left  to  judge 
him  by  contemporaneous  events.  That  Columbus  did  ransack  all  possible  sources 
of  geographical  knowledge  in  his  day  to  get  a  clue  to  the  mystery  of  the  great 
western  ocean  there  can  be  no  doubt.  It  is  known  that  he  studied  the  works  of 
the  Greek  geographer  Ptolemy  who  wrote  about  150  years  after  Christ.  Ptolemy 
was  the  most  learned  man  of  his  age ;  and  the  great  problem  with  him  and  other 
learned  men  at  that  time  was  to  determine  the  size  of  the  inhabited  world.  It 
was  the  fixed  belief  at  that  age  that  the  length  of  the  inhabited  world  was  not 
only  longer  than  it  was  wide  but  that  the  length  was  twice  that  of  its  width.  All 
the  old  Greek  geographers,  except  Hipparchus,  agreed  on  the  proposition  that 
the  inhabited  world  was  a  vast  flat  plain  island  in  the  midst  of  a  boundless  ocean. 
Hipparchus  flourished  about  150  years  before  Christ,  was  the  founder  of  the 
science  of  astronomy,  calculated  eclipses,  discovered  the  precession  of  the  equi- 
noxes, and  seeing  that  the  heavenly  bodies  must  be  spheres  com-luded  that  the 
earth  also  was  a  globe.  And  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  all  the  calculations  and  spec- 
ulations of  those  old  geographers  of  eighteen  hundred  years  ago  continually  kept 
pushing  the  coast  of  Asia — what  we  know  as  China  and  Siberia — farther  and 
farther  eastward  into  the  supposed  boundless  ocean.     Columbus  had  read  and 

1 


2  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

meditated  on  these  imaginings  of  those  ancient  philosophers,  and  he  was 
no  doubt  perfectly  familiar  with  the  tradition  handed  down  to  his  age  of  the 
world  that  there  was  once  a  great  island  or  continent  occupying  a  portion  of  the 
area  covered  by  the  Atlantic  ocean,  but  which  had  been  by  an  earthquake  sub- 
merged in  the  ocean.  Plato,  the  most  illustrious  philosopher  of  all  the  ages,  and 
Strabo,  the  first  of  geographers,  both  believed  in  the  existence  of  such  an  island 
in  the  Atlantic  ocean  west  of  Europe,  that  had  been  submerged  in  the  ocean  by 
some  mighty  cataclysm  of  the  earth.  The  lost  island  of  "Atlantis"  gave  the 
name  to  the  ocean.  And  this  belief  in  an  island  or  a  continent  being  submerged 
in  the  ocean  was  not  an  unreasonable  proposition.  For  there  can  be  no  uplift  of 
the  land  in  one  place  without  a  corresponding  depression  of  land  in  some  other 
place.  And  we  now  know  from  the  testimony  of  the  rocks  that  the  area  of  our 
state  of  Oregon  was  once  a  part  of  the  floor  of  the  Pacific  ocean.  But  what  land 
was  submerged  in  the  ocean  as  our  land  of  Oregon  came  up  out  of  the  ocean  there 
is  no  record  or  tradition  to  tell.  Columbus  was  familiar  with  all  these  theories 
and  beliefs  about  the  formation  of  the  earth ;  and  from  them  all  was  evolved  his 
great  proposition  to  sail  west  from  Spain — and  make  some  great  discovery. 

But  Avhat  probably  influenced  his  thoughts  more  than  anything  else  was  a 
little  book  or  parchment  written  by  the  Venetian  traveler,  Marco  Polo,  in  the 
year  1295  after  his  return  from  a  long  journey  through  the  empire  of  Kublai 
Khan,  what  we  now  know  as  China.  Polo 's  published  account  of  his  travels  was 
the  great  sensation  and  wonder  of  that  age,  was  discussed  by  learned  men  all  over 
Europe  and  formed  the  basis  of  many  new  conjectures  about  the  size  and  shape 
of  the  earth.  Columbus  read  Polo's  narrative,  and  was  familiar  with  all  the 
various  theories  of  the  earth  and  with  all  the  new  ideas  inspired  by  Polo's  ex- 
tensive travels.  The  great  subject  had  taken  possession  of  all  his  thoughts.  And 
of  all  the  learned  men  of  that  age  he  alone  seems  to  have  been  capable  of  the 
great  idea  which  he  finally  carried  out.  But  with  him  it  was  no  sudden  impulse, 
no  scintillation  of  genius  struck  out  of  a  reckless  brain.  He  brooded  over  and 
revolved  the  great  concept  in  his  mind  for  years.  And  when  finally  he  put  forth 
the  proposition  that  by  sailing  directly  westward  from  Europe  he  could  reach 
the  east  coast  of  Asia  in  the  latitude  of  Cipango  (Japan)  as  it  was  then  known, 
he  was  so  confident  and  assured  of  the  correctness  of  his  gi'eat  idea  that  he  never 
hesitated  or  halted  until  he  had  raised  his  anchors  and  set  the  sails  that  carried 
him  to  the  New  World. 

The  only  man  of  any  note  of  the  age  of  Columbus  who  seems  to  have  sup- 
ported him  in  his  views  was  the  learned  Italian,  Toscanelli.  And  on  hearing  of 
the  proposition  of  Columbus  Toscanelli  wrote  him  a  letter  heartily  endorsing  the 
views  of  Columbus ;  and  to  demonstrate  to  Columbus  that  he  could  reach  the  east 
coast  of  Asia  by  sailing  west  from  Europe,  Toscanelli  amended  Ptolemy's  map 
of  the  world  to  make  it  correspond  with  the  description  of  Asia  by  Marco  Polo, 
and  sent  the  copy  to  Columbus.  On  this  map  the  eastern  coast  of  Asia  was  out- 
lined in  front  of  the  western  coasts  of  Africa  and  Europe,  with  a  little  ocean 
flowing  between  them  in  which  he  placed  the  imaginary  island  of  Cipango 
"(Japan)  and  Antilla. 

In  taking  up  this  proposition,  Columbus  was  met  with  a  storm  of  opposition 
and  persecution  which  would  have  crushed  any  other  man.  The  church 
denounced  the  scheme  as  heresy,  and  for  nearly  twenty  years  the  great  man 


(  iiKisi'di'iiKi;  (dUMiirs 


(The  si-eati'st   ti 


paid   to   (lii.-i  -]■ 
lit    (Ircaon's    pi 


>t   man    is   the    follow  injj 
.liiainiin    Miller. I 


Beliind  him  lay  the  gray  Azores. 

Behind  tlie  Gates  of  Hercules; 
Behind  him  not  the  ghost  of  shores, 

Behind  him  only  shoreless  seas. 
The  good  mate  said:    "Now,  we  must  pray. 

For  lo,  the  very  stars  are  gone. 
Brave  AdmVl  speak:    What  shall  I  say?" 

"Why  say,   'Sail  on!    sail   on!    sail    on!'" 

"My  men  grow  mutinous  day  by  day; 

My  men  grow  ghastly  wan  and  weak." 
The  stout  mate  thought  of  home:  as  spray 

Of  salt  wave  washed  his  swarthy  cheek. 
"What    shall    I    say.    brave    Adni'r'l.    say. 

If  we  sight  naught  but  seas  at  d;iwii?" 
"Sail  on!    sail   on!    sail   on!    sail   on!" 


They  sailed  and  sailed  as  the  winds  might  blow, 

Until  at  last  the  blanched   mate  said: 
■\A'liy,  not  even  God  would  know 

Sliould  I  and  all  my  men  fall  dead. 
These  very  winds  forget  their  way. 

For  God  from  these  dread  seas  is  gone; 
Now  speak,    brave  Adm'r'l.  speak,   and   say — " 

He   said:      "Sail   on!    sail   on!    sail   on!" 

They  sailed.    They  sailed.    Then  spake  the  mate: 

"This  mad  sea  shows   its  teeth  tonight. 
He  curls  his  lips,  he  lies  in  wait. 
With  lifted  teetli  as  if  to  bite! 
Brave  Adm'r"!  say  but  one  good  word: 

Wliat  shall  we  do  when  hope  is  gone?" 
The  words  leapt  as  a  leaping  sword: 
■'Sail   on!    sail   on!    sail   on!    sail   on!" 


riieii.  pale  and  worn,  he  kept  his  deck, 

Aiiil   peered  through  darkness.     Ah,  that   night 
I 'f  all  dark  nights!     And  then  a  speck. 

A  light!     A  light!     A  light!     A  light! 
It  grew,  a  starlit  flag  unfurled! 

It  grew  to  be  Time's  burst  of  dawn. 
He  gained   a    world;    lie  gave   that   world 

Its  grande-'t   lesion:      ■'On.  sail  on." 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  3 

traveled,  begged  and  toiled  for  recognition  and  favor  from  those  who  could  give 
aid,  and  at  last  found  a  good  priest  who  sympathized  with  his  grand  idea,  and 
through  whose  influence,  Queen  Isabella  of  Spain  wiis  induced  to  recall  a  former 
refusal  of  aid. 

IIow  Columbus  finally  induced  Queen  Isabella  to  support  his  enterprise  with 
money  and  two  small  ships,  while  a  third  ship  was  added  by  himself  and  friends, 
and  how  on  August  3,  1492,  he  sailed  out  of  Palos  harbor  with  one  hundred  and 
twenty  men  in  the  three  little  ships — Santa  Maria,  Pinta  and  Nina — is  an  oft-told 
story  and  familiar  tale.  This  exploratory  voyage,  all  things  considered,  is  the 
greatest  enterprise  ever  planned  and  carried  out  by  the  genius  and  energy  of  a 
single  man.  The  voyage  itself  was  not  a  great  affair,  the  little  vessels  of  still  less 
account,  the  use  of  the  compass  was  then  but  little  understood ;  the  seamen  were 
all  ignorant  and  superstitious  to  the  limit ;  but  when  we  consider  the  weakness 
of  such  an  outfit  to  venture  out  upon  a  vast  and  unknown  ocean  and  brave  all 
the  terrors  pictured  by  the  imagination  in  addition  to  the  real  dangers  of  the  sea, 
.and  then  place  over  and  against  them  all  the  glorj'  and  grandeur  of  the  achieve- 
ment in  practically  adding  to  the  use  and  enjoyment  of  the  race  of  man,  a  new 
world  as  large,  useful  and  beautiful  as  the  one  already  enjoyed,  our  minds  are 
unable  to  grasp  and  no  words  can  fully  express  the  greatness  of  the  achievement, 
or  the  honor,  praise  and  obligation  which  mankind  owes  to  the  name  of  Chris- 
topher Columbus. 

After  seventy  days'  sailing  westward,  Columbus  struck  Cat  Island  in  the 
West  Indies.  It  was  inhabited  by  red  men.  The  people  of  Hindostan  (India) 
were  red.  Columbus  believed  he  had  reached  India — the  east  coast  of  Asia ;  and 
he  called  the  natives  Indians.  The  name  stuck,  and  thus  all  the  natives  of  Amer- 
ica came  to  be  called  Indians.  Columbus  made  three  subsequent  voyages  from 
Spain  to  the  West  India  islands,  but  never  reached  the  mainland,  and  died  in 
ignorance  of  his  great  discover}'  of  a  continent  equal  to  the  old  world  and  sepa- 
rated from  it  by  two  great  oceans. 

It  may  seem  irrelevant  to  go  back  over  four  hundred  years  to  begin  this  nar- 
rative about  the  state  of  Oregon ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  was  Chris- 
topher Columbus  who  started  and  steered  the  tide  of  the  Caucasian  race  across 
the  Atlantic  which  finally  overran  the  American  continent  and  never  halted  un- 
til here  on  the  Willamette  to  found  a  state.  And  believing  that  the  readers  of 
this  book  will  take  a  genuine  interest  in  the  man  who  discovered  America,  and 
will  be  glad  to  have  a  lifelike,  truthful  portrait  of  his  face,  we  have,  at  much 
trouble  and  expense,  procured  from  the  Marine  Museum,  at  Madrid,  Spain,  and 
here  print  the  best  likeness  ever  made  of  the  great  man. 

When  we  look  into  the  books  of  geographical  discovery,  we  find  that  Oregon 
was  for  a  long  period  of  time  the  center  of  a  great  unknown  region  of  myths  and 
mystery.  To  see  how  that  idea  got  abroad  in  the  world,  it  will  be  necessary  to 
go  back  to  the  opening  of  the  Fifteenth  century  and  follow  the  current  of  geo- 
graphical exploration  around  the  world. 

The  proposition  of  Columbus  to  find  a  short  cut  to  Asia  by  sailing  west  from 
Spain  was  not  to  perish  with  his  death.  It  was  the  good  fortune  of  the  Italian 
navigator,  Amerieus  Yespucius.  who  made  four  voyages  to  America  and  finally 
to  discover  the  mainland  of  the  continent  near  the  equator.  And  like  Columbus, 
he  too  returned  to  Spain  and  died  poor  at  Seville  in  1512,  without  knowing  he 


4  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

had  discovered  a  separate  continent.  In  his  letter  to  the  King  of  Portugal,  in 
whose  service  he  had  sailed  to  the  new  world,  he  writes  July  18,  1500:  "We 
discovered  a  very  large  country  of  Asia." 

But  the  half  discovered  secret  of  all  the  ages  was  not  to  remain  hidden  from 
the  eyes  of  man.  Other  courageous  spirits  followed  in  the  wake  of  Columbus  and 
Vespucius.  Sebastian  Cabot,  an  Englishman,  discovered  the  coast  of  Labrador 
in  1497,  and  on  a  third  voyage,  entered  Hudson's  bay  in  1517  before  Hudson 
died.  In  1498  Vasco  de  Gama,  under  the  patronage  of  the  king  of  Portugal, 
doubled  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  opened  a  new  route  to  the  Indies.  This 
same  king  in  1501  sent  Gasper  Cortereal  with  two  vessels  to  explore  the  north- 
western ocean.  In  1512  the  Spanish  navigator  Juan  Ponce  de  Leon  discovered 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  In  1513,  Vasco  Nunez  de  Balboa  crossed  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama  where  President  Taft  is  now  digging  a  canal,  and  discovered  the  mighty 
Pacific  ocean.  It  was  a  revelation  second  only  to  the  discovery  of  Columbus. 
What  must  have  been  the  wonder  of  those  wandering  Spaniards  as  they  looked 
down  from  the  mountain  tops  to  the  vast  ocean  glittering  in  the  morning  sun. 

The  discovery  of  the  Pacific  ocean  was  a  great  event  and  had  been  accom- 
plished by  the  first  land  journey  to  the  interior.  It  then  began  to  dawn  upon  the 
sea-rovers  that  there  was  another  ocean  to  be  crossed  to  reach  the  riches  of  In- 
dia. And  from  this  discovery  all  the  country  south  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama 
was  given  up  to  the  Spanish.  And  while  the  title  to  South  America  was  thus 
accorded  to  Spain,  the  Spaniards  did  not  abate  one  jot  or  tittle  of  their  claim  to 
North  America  also.  And  in  the  year  1539,  Ferdinand  de  Soto,  one  of  Spain's 
most  distinguished  soldiers,  gathered  an  army  of  six  hundred  men  in  the  Island 
of  Cuba,  and  with  two  hundred  horses  and  a  herd  of  swine,  sailed  for  the  western 
coast  of  Florida,  where  he  arrived  on  the  30th  of  May,  and  on  landing  his  men, 
was  attacked  by  the  natives,  being  the  first  opposition  made  by  the  Indians  to 
the  occupation  of  the  new  world  by  the  white  man.  From  this  landing  point,  De 
Soto  forced  his  way  westward  against  repeated  attacks  from  the  Indians  until 
he  reached  and  discovered  the  Mississippi  river  at  the  point  where  the  north 
boundary  line  of  the  state  of  Mississippi  intersects  the  river.  Under  this  title 
of  discovery,  Spain  held  the  territory  down  to  the  year  1820. 

It  may  be  supposed  that  on  account  of  this  activity  of  the  Spanish  in  the 
south,  the  commercial  and  colonizing  projects  of  the  English  were  confined  to 
the  North  Atlantic  sea  coast.  And  consequentlj'  we  find  Martin  Frobisher,  an 
English  navigator,  in  1576-8  making  three  voyages  to  America,  giving  his  name 
to  Frobisher 's  strait,  but  not  finding  a  northwest  passage  to  Asia.  Frobisher 
was  followed  by  another  Englishman — John  Davis,  in  1587-9  in  three  voyages, 
who  gave  his  name  to  Davis  strait.  In  1570,  Francis  Drake,  afterwards  the  great 
Sir  Francis,  boldly  following  the  route  of  Magellan  around  the  south  end  of 
South  America,  and  pouncing  upon  the  Spanish  merchant  vessels  ladened  with 
gold  and  silver  from  the  mines  of  Peru,  attempted  to  get  back  to  England  by  fol- 
lowing up  the  Pacific  coast  up  past  California  and  Oregon  and  going  through  a 
mythical  northeast  passage  to  the  Atlantic  ocean.  All  these  navigators,  and  many 
more  that  we  have  not  time  to  notice,  were  trying  to  find  the  ' '  Strait  of  Anian, ' ' 
which  was  reputed  to  be  the  short  cut  through  North  America,  connecting  the 
Atlantic  and  Pacific  oceans  on  a  straight  route  from  Europe  to  Asia. 

How  this  mythical  strait  idea  ever  got  possession  of  the  minds  of  the  sea- 


THE  HOUSK— STILL  .sTA.\J)l.\(;     L\  TUK  TUWX  OF  .ST.  DIL,  FRANCE,  WHERE  THE 
AMERICAN   CONTINENT  WAS   NAMED   IN   LVIT 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  5 

rovers  of  that  age,  has  never  been  satisfactorilj'  explained,  and  its  real  origin  will 
probably  never  be  discovered.  But  that  the  idea  did  get  possession  of  the  minds 
of  many  navigators,  causing  vast  expenditures  of  money  and  the  loss  of  many 
lives,  there  is  ample  proof.  Many  of  the  old  maps  of  that  period  show  the  strait, 
connecting  the  two  oceans,  and  one  of  these  maps  made  by  one  Conrad  Low  in 
1598,  and  printed  in  his  Book  of  Six  Heroes,  is  almost  a  perfect  map  of  what  all 
the  world  now  knows  of  Bering  Strait,  and  even  showing  the  Yukon  river  under 
the  name  of  Obila.  And  yet  all  these  maps  were  purely  imaginary;  California 
being  platted  close  up  to  where  our  late  hero  Dr.  Cook  crossed  hundreds  of  miles 
of  ice  to  reach  the  north  pole.  And  to  show  how  the  mythical  and  mysterious 
had  taken  possession  of  men's  minds  in  that  age,  and  finally  located  Oregon  in 
the  very  core  of  all  this  fanciful  geography  and  imaginary  wilderness  of  myths, 
we  may  refer  to  a  few  examples  of  these  grand  stories  of  the  bold  sea-rovers.  In 
1592  one  Juan  de  Fuea  claiming  to  have  been  born  a  Greek  in  the  Island  of 
Cephalonia,  reported  that  while  in  the  employ  of  the  Spanish  viceroy  of  Mexico, 
he  sailed  north  along  the  Oregon  coast,  and  discovered  an  entrance  into  the  land 
between  47  and  48  degrees  latitude ;  and  entering  therein  with  his  ship,  he  sailed 
through  the  strait  for  twenty  days  and  came  out  on  the  Atlantic  coast.  Now, 
when  De  Puca's  report  was  analyzed  by  subsequent  navigators,  a  great  majority 
disbelieved  the  whole  story,  did  not  believe  that  he  even  found  the  Strait  of 
Fuca.  as  we  know  it ;  while  those  who  admit  that  he  might  have  found  the  strait 
to  which  his  name  is  attached,  all  concur  that  he  simply  sailed  into  the  strait, 
kept  his  course  north  and  came  out  into  the  Pacific  ocean  again,  having  simply 
sailed  around  Vancouver  island.  The  British  government  had  offered  a  reward 
of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  any  ship  that  should  discover  and  report  a 
navigable  route  for  ships  from  the  Atlantic  through  to  the  Pacific  ocean.  This 
stimulated  hundreds  of  sea  captains  to  look  for  such  a  passage,  and  still  believing 
in  the  mythical  Strait  of  Anian,  the  search  was  kept  up  for  two  hundred  years, 
and  practically  all  the  voyages  to  America  for  the  first  sixty  years  after  its  dis- 
covery were  to  find  the  short  route  to  Asia  across  North  America.  All  sorts  of 
imaginary  countries  were  reported ;  Cabot  reported  that  the  north  of  America  is 
all  divided  into  islands.  In  1610  the  English  navigator,  Henry  Hudson, 
searched  the  whole  Atlantic  coast  from  the  river  that  bears  his  name  north  to  the 
great  inland  sea  of  Hudson's  bay,  looking  for  the  passage  through  the  conti- 
nent. And  about  the  same  time  on  the  Pacific  coast  we  get  a  first-class  sensation 
from  Spanish  sources.  One  Lorenzo  Maldonado  gave  it  out  for  a  fact  that  he 
had  in  1588,  actually  sailed  through  the  Strait  of  Anian  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific  ocean  in  thirty  days,  during  the  months  of  November  and  December, 
starting  in  at  latitude  78  north  and  coming  out  at  75  north.  Such  a  voyage  would 
have  started  from  the  north  end  of  Baffin's  Bay,  passed  through  Jones  sound, 
and  come  out  on  the  Pacific  side  in  the  middle  of  the  Arctic  Ocean,  which  at  thv. 
date  named,  would  all  have  been  solid  immovable  ice.  On  hearing  this  story, 
and  examining  his  maps,  the  Spanish  authorities  denounced  Maldonado  as  an 
embustero,  which  is  doubtless  where  we  get  the  name  of  our  latter  day  "booster." 
Another  one  of  the  geographical  myths  of  that  age  was  the  belief  that  Cali- 
fornia was  an  island.  A  Spanish  navigator  by  the  name  of  Nicholas  Cordoba, 
investigated  the  subject  in  1615.  and  after  exploring  the  Gulf  of  California  and 
talking  the  matter  over  with  his  fellow  sea  captains,  reported  that  California 


6  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

was  in  fact  an  island,  and  printed  a  long  document  describing  the  country  as  "a 
far  extended  kingdom  of  which  the  end  is  only  known  by  geographical  conjec- 
tures which  make  it  an  island  stretching  from  the  northwest  to  southeast,  form- 
ing a  Mediterranean  sea,  adjacent  to  the  incognita  contraeosta  de  la  Florida. 
It  is  one  of  the  richest  lands  in  the  world,  with  silver,  gold,  pearls,  etc." 

In  1748,  one  Henry  Ellis,  published  in  London,  a  summary  of  the  voyages 
and  explorations  to  find  a  northwest  passage  across  America  to  China  and  in 
which  he  gives  the  story  of  a  Dutchman  sailor  who  having  been  driven  to  the 
coast  of  California,  had  found  that  country  to  be  either  an  island  or  a  peninsula, 
according  as  the  tide  was  high  or  low.  Before  1750,  the  Russians  had  crossed 
Asia  and  arrived  on  the  coast  of  Bering  strait,  and  made  such  discoveries  as 
proved  the  existence  of  our  Alaskan  possessions,  and  greatly  narrowed  the  north- 
ern mystery — they  had  discovered  the  real  strait  which  separated  America  and 
Asia.  And  as  embodying  the  geographical  knowledge  of  this  region  at  that  time, 
we  have  printed  Jeffrey's  map  of  1768,  which  shows  the  location  of  Oregon  un- 
der the  name  of  New  Albion,  which  was  the  name  Drake  gave  the  Oregon  coast 
in  1579.  This  is  the  first  map  to  give  any  hint  of  the  great  river  of  Columbia, 
which  is  here  put  down  on  imaginary  lines  by  both  French  and  Russians  as 
' '  River  of  the  West. ' ' 

But  as  time  passed  on  and  explorers  and  navigators  converged  from  north 
to  south  and  compared  their  observations,  it  was  made  plain  that  there  was  no 
Strait  of  Anian  or  any  other  navigable  strait  or  water  passage  across  the  con- 
tinent. The  east  coast  lines  had  been  followed  from  Hudson's  bay  south  to  the 
Straits  of  Magellan,  and  thence  along  the  west  coast  north  to  the  Bering  sea,  and 
no  strait  found.  The  result  of  this  conclusion  was,  to  start  explorations  over- 
land, first  from  Canada  and  afterward  from  Missouri  territory,  which  finally 
developed  the  emigration  to  Oregon.  And  as  this  fact  became  fixed  in  the  minds 
of  men,  we  see  the  then  ruling  powers  of  the  world  taking  steps  to  establish 
claims  to  the  country  by  more  open  and  assertive  action. 

The  first  attempt  to  get  on  to  the  land  north  of  California,  was  made  by  Bar- 
tolome  Ferrulo,  sent  out  in  two  small  vessels  by  the  Spanish  government  in  1543. 
It  seems  to  be  certain  that  Ferrulo  did  get  north  of  42°  north  latitude  and  near 
enough  to  the  Oregon  coast  to  obserye  birds,  driftwood  and  the  outflow  of  a  river. 
But  he  made  no  landing,  and  did  not  see  the  land  on  account  of  the  fogs  during 
the  month  of  February.  The  next  navigator  on  the  Oregon  coast  was  Francis 
Drake  in  the  year  1579.  Drake's  claims  to  be  the  discoverer  of  Oregon  are  cer- 
tainly better  than  those  of  De  Fuca,  and  may  with  good  reason  be  accepted  as 
the  fact.  Drake  had  come  around  into  the  Pacific  by  way  of  Cape  Horn,  and 
prepared  for  any  feat  or  fortune,  had  captured  and  robbed  a  number  of  Spanish 
merchant  ships,  returning  from  Peru  and  Mexico.  He  was  to  all  intents,  a  pirate 
on  the  high  seas;  and  knowing  full  well  that  if  any  Spaniard  able  to  capture 
him  fell  in  with  his  ship,  he  would  get  a  short  shrift  and  off  the  taffrail,  he  laid 
his  course  north  close  to  the  coast,  where  there  were  neither  ships  nor  men,  hop- 
ing to  find  a  passage  east  across  the  continent  to  the  Atlantic  ocean ;  or  failing  in 
that,  to  cross  over  to  Asia  and  get  back  to  England  by  the  way  of  Good  Hope, 
clear  of  Spanish  ships.  In  the  first  printed  account  of  this  voyage,  it  is  claimed 
Drake  reached  42°  north,  which  would  be  on  the  southern  boundary  of  Oregon, 
where  it  is  claimed  the  ship  got  fresh  water,  and  to  get  which,  the  ship  and  crew 


LOWS  M.\r.  l.V.is. 


DUTCH    IIAP 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  7 

must  have  reached  the  main  land.  Prom  here  Drake  again  sailed  northerly  along 
the  coast  until  he  reached  48°  north,  which  is  about  the  entrance  to  the  Straits 
of  Puca.  Prom  this  point  Drake  turned  back,  keeping  close  in  and  finally 
reached  what  we  now  know  as  Drake's  bay  on  the  coast  of  California.  It  is 
claimed,  and  it  may  be  true,  that  Drake  thought  he  could  find  a  passage  acro.ss 
the  continent  by  water  and  get  east  to  the  Atlantic  and  England  with  his  plun- 
der without  risking  a  fight  with  any  Spanish  ship.  If  that  were  so,  Drake  with 
all  his  admitted  great  ability,  must  have  believed  in  the  Strait  of  Anian  myth. 
But  Prancis  Pletcher,  Drake's  nephew,  who  accompanied  those  pirates  as  chap- 
lain, piously  praying  for  their  success,  published  in  1628  an  account  of  that  voy- 
age which  shows  that  they  must  have  been  well  up  towards  Alaska  before  they 
turned  back  from  the  extreme  cold. 

It  seems  necessary  to  state  these  particulars  of  Drake's  discovery,  as  they 
throw  light  upon  the  claim  the  British  government  afterwards  set  up  to  Oregon. 
If  Di-ake,  on  that  voyage,  did  actually  reach  Oregon,  then  according  to  the  inter- 
national law  of  that  period,  the  English  had  a  right  to  Oregon  from  discovery. 
But  the  British  government  never  claimed  anything  for  Drake  or  that  voyage. 
Why,  Drake  was  at  that  time  a  pirate,  and  outlaw,  and  no  rights  could 
be  founded  on  the  acts  of  such.  There  can  be  but  little  doubt  that  the  character 
of  Drake 's  expedition  was  well  known  to  the  British  government.  After  winter- 
ing at  Drake's  bay,  Drake  struck  out  across  the  Pacific  ocean  and  reached  Eng- 
land by  way  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  route  in  September,  1588,  after  an  ab- 
sence of  two  years,  being  the  first  Englishman  to  sail  around  the  earth.  His  re- 
turn to  England  created  a  great  sensation.  His  sailors  were  reported  to  be 
clothed  in  silks,  his  sails  were  damask,  and  his  masts  covered  with  cloth  of  gold. 
Queen  Elizabeth  hesitated  long  before  recognizing  the  really  great  exploration 
of  a  freebooter.  But  finally  she  honored  him  with  knighthood,  and  approved  all 
his  acts. 

Drake  was  the  first  explorer  to  give  a  name  to  the  country — New  Albion — 
which  may  be  found  for  the  first  time  on  the  map  of  Hortduis  made  in  1595. 

The  next  exploring  expedition  to  the  Oregon  coast  was  made  by  Sebastian 
Viscaino  and  ]\Iartin  Aguilar,  who  were  sent  out  by  the  Spanish  Viceroy  in  Mex- 
ico, with  two  small  vessels  to  explore  the  northwest  coast  of  America.  Leaving 
Monterey,  California,  in  January,  1603,  they  .sailed  northerly  and  falling  in  with 
bad  weather  were  separated  in  a  gale.  The  scurvy  broke  out  on  both  ships,  and 
many  of  the  men  died  from  the  disease.  But  Aguilar 's  ship  finally  reached  the 
land  near  Cape  Blanco,  Oregon,  and  found  a  river  thereabouts,  either  Coos  bay 
or  the  Coquille.  Pather  Ascension,  the  chaplain  of  the  ship,  says  in  his  a.ccount 
of  it,  that  they  "found  a  very  copious  and  soundable  river  on  the  banks  of  which 
were  very  large  ashes,  brambles,  and  other  trees  of  Castile ;  and  wishing  to  enter 
it  the  current  would  not  permit  it."  The  same  priest  obtained  a  report  from  the 
pilot  of  the  other  ship  that  "having  reached  Cape  Mendocino  with  most  of  the- 
men  sick,  and  it  being  mid-winter  and  the  rigging  cruelly  cold  and  frozen  so  they 
could  not  steer  the  ship,  the  current  carried  her  slowly  towards  the  land,  run- 
ning to  the  Strait  of  Anian,  which  here  has  its  entrance,  and  in  eight  days  we 
had  advanced  more  than  one  degree  of  latitude,  reaching  43  degrees  north  in 
sight  of  a  point  named  San  Sebastian  near  which  enters  a  river  named  Santa 
Anes."    It  seems  to  be  clear  that  both  these  Spanish  ship  captains  reached  sub'- 


8  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

stantially  the  same  point  on  the  Oregon  coast;  and  Viscaino  named  the  point, 
Cabo  Blanco  de  San  Sebastian,  which  name  has  remained  as  the  name  until  this 
day  as  our  Cape  Blanco,  about  half  way  between  Coos  bay  and  the  mouth  of  the 
Rogue  river. 

Thus  we  see  that  in  111  years  after  Columbus  discovered  land  on  the  east 
side  of  the  continent,  the  coast  of  Oregon  on  the  west  side  of  the  continent  was 
clearly  made  out  and  designated  by  names.  And  these  discoveries  of  Drake, 
Viscaino  and  Aguilar,  practically  closed  the  era  of  myths  and  mysteries  so  far 
as  the  sea  coast  was  considered.  For  while  the  belief  of  a  Strait  of  Anian,  or 
some  passage  for  ships  across  the  continent,  was  for  a  period  after  that  believed 
in  or  hoped  for,  there  were  no  further  fabricated  reports  of  the  discovery  of  such 
a  passage. 

And  now  we  find  a  long  lapse  in  the  spirit  of  exploration  and  discovery  on 
the  northwest  coast  of  America.  Not  only  Spain,  but  all  other  nations  practi- 
cally abandoned  the  coast  of  old  Oregon  for  nearly  one  hundred  and  seventy 
years.  Every  motive  which  had  moved  Spain  to  exploration  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury was  still  unsatisfied.  The  conversion  of  the  souls  of  the  natives  was  the 
great  proposition  of  the  church — and  the  church  was  Spain — was  still  beckoning 
the  faithful  missionaries  to  the  unpenetrated  forests  of  the  far  north.  The  tak- 
ing possession  of  any  possible  inter-oceanic  ship  passage  grew  more  important 
as  the  commerce  of  Spain  on  the  Pacific  increased  from  year  to  year.  And  yet 
Spain  failed  to  move  again  until  the  year  1774,  only  two  years  prior  to  the  Dec- 
laration of  Independence  at  Philadelphia.  In  that  long  interval  of  inertness, 
which  can  only  be  explained  by  Spain's  surfeit  of  gold  and  plunder  from  Mex- 
ico and  Peru,  we  find  no  more  of  other  European  powers  to  take  advantage  of  the 
opportunity.  But  in  1773  the  Spanish  Government,  moved  by  the  reports  that 
the  Russians  were  not  only  making  settlements  on  the  east  coast  of  Siberia,  but 
were  taking  possession  of  the  seal  islands  on  the  west  coast  of  America,  organized 
a  strong  expedition  to  set  sail  in  1774,  with  chaplains,  missionaries  to  the 
heathen,  surgeons  to  battle  with  the  scurvy,  and  eighty  men  to  man  the  ship  and 
fight  the  enemies  if  necessary,  with  a  year's  supplies,  left  Monterey,  California, 
to  take  possession  of  the  whole  coast  of  North  America,  north  of  California  clear 
up  to  the  point  where  the  Russians  might  possibly  have  made  an  actual  settle- 
ment. This  expedition  was  under  the  command  of  Juan  Perez,  who  proved 
himself  an  able  seaman  and  capable  commander.  Perez  was  instructed  by  his 
government  to  go  north  to  the  sixtieth  degree  of  north  latitude  and  take  posses- 
sion and  explore  the  whole  coast  to  that  extent.  It  seems  certain  from  his  report 
that  he  reached  55  degrees  north  before  turning  back,  and  at  which  point  he 
had  friendly  intercourse  and  much  trade  with  the  Indians.  At  one  time  there 
were  twenty-one  canoes  with  over  two  hundred  Indians  around  his  ship  with 
dried  fish  and  furs  to  barter  for  knives,  iron,  beads  and  other  trinkets.  This  ex- 
pedition practically  surveyed  the  whole  coast  from  what  is  now  the  southern 
boundary  of  Alaska  down  to  the  California  line ;  and  as  far  as  any  rights  can 
attach  to  the  mere  finding  or  discovery  of  new  lands  Perez  had  made  good  the 
title  of  Spain  to  the  whole  coast  from  the  California  line  up  to  Alaska. 

Determined  to  make  strong  the  claim  to  the  northwest  coast,  Spain  followed 
up  the  voyage  of  Perez  with  another,  the  next  year  under  the  command  of  Bruno 
Heceta,  with  four  vessels,  chaplains,  missionaries,  one  hundred  and  six  men  and 


I 


JEFFREVS  JIAP,  17GS 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  9 

supplies  for  a  year.  They  lel't  Monterey  on  May  21,  1775,  coasted  northerly 
and  made  their  first  landing  July  14,  1775,  on  the  coast  of  what  is  now  Jeffer- 
son county  in  the  state  of  Washington,  about  seventy-five  miles  south  of  the  en- 
trance to  the  Straits  of  Fuca.  Here  Heeeta  erected  a  cross  and  took  possession 
of  the  country  in  the  name  of  the  king  of  Spain.  And  this  was  the  first  time 
European  people  had  set  foot  on  the  coast  of  old  Oi'egon,  and  made  proclama- 
tion and  record  of  intent  to  hold  the  land.  From  this  point  Heeeta  coasted  south- 
ward  and  on  August  17th,  discovered  a  bay  with  strong  currents  and  eddies  in- 
dicating the  mouth  of  a  great  river  or  strait.  The  place  was  subsequently  named 
by  the  Spaniards.  Enscnada  de  Heeeta,  and  which  has  been  identified  as  the 
mouth  of  the  Columbia  river. 

We  have  now  given  all  of  the  Spanish  exploration  of  the  northwest  coast  as 
is  necessary  to  show  the  title  by  right  of  discovery.  It  must  be  admitted  that  it 
was  a  right  founded  wholly  on  the  consent  of  other  nations,  who  were  in  the 
same  business  of  claiming  everything  in  the  real-estate  line  they  could  find  that 
had  not  already  been  appropriated  by  others.  When  we  consider  the  character 
of  the  ships  those  old  mariners  went  to  sea  in,  and  braved  all  the  dangers  of  the 
deep,  it  would  seem  that  they  were  entitled  to  something  better  than  wild  land 
that  had  no  appreciable  value.  One  of  the  ships,  not,  however,  entitled  to  be 
dignified  as  a  ship  (with  which  Heeeta  made  that  voyage  along  the  northwest 
coast  in  1775),  was  only  thirty-six  feet  long,  twelve  feet  wide  and  eight  feet  deep. 
What  would  the  sailors  of  today  say  if  asked  to  go  upon  a  voyage  along  an  un- 
charted coast  for  a  year,  where  there  was  no  help  except  from  savage  Indians  in 
case  of  misfortune.  It  was  just  about  the  time  Heeeta  and  his  men  were  beat- 
ing around  among  the  rocks  of  Destruction  Island  and  fighting  the  Indians  of 
Mount  Olympus  on  the  Washington  coast,  when  General  Warren  and  the  conti- 
nental militia  were  pouring  hot  shot  into  the  British  at  Bunker  Hill.  There  were 
fighting  men  and  heroes  in  those  days  on  both  sides  of  America. 

And  now  we  come  down  to  a  period  one  hundred  and  ninety-nine  years 
after  Drake  discovered  the  coast  of  Oregon  and  named  it  New  Albion,  and  find 
George  III.  of  England  taking  decisive  steps  to  claim  this  country,  or  as  much 
of  it  as  was  left  unclaimed  by  the  Spaniards.  In  1776,  the  famous  navigator. 
Captain  James  Cook,  was  dispatched  to  the  Pacific  coast  with  instructions  to 
search  for  a  passage  eastwardly  through  North  America  to  Europe,  either  by 
Hudson's  Bay,  or  by  the  Northern  sea,  then  recently  discovered  by  Captain 
Hearne,  or  by  the  sea  north  of  Asia;  and  in  such  search  he  was  instructed  to 
explore  all  the  northwestern  regions  of  America.  His  instructions  were  to  strike 
the  Coast  of  New  Albion  at  45  degrees  north,  which  was  supposed  to  be  north  of 
any  discoveries  then  made  by  the  Spanish.  This  was  Cook's  third  and  last  voy- 
age around  the  world,  and  he  had  left  England  without  knowing  what  the 
Spanish  navigators  had  accomplished  before  that  time.  And  he  was  specially 
instructed  "to  take  possession,  with  the  consent  of  tlie  natives,  in  the  name 
of  the  king  of  Great  Britain,  of  convenient  situations,  as  you  may  discover,  that 
have  not  already  been  discovered,  or  visited  by  any  other  European  power,  and 
to  distribute  among  the  inhabitants  such  things  as  will  remain  as  traces  and 
testimonials.  You  are  also  on  your  way  thither  strictly  enjoined  not  to  touch 
upon  any  part  of  the  Spanish  dominions  on  the  western  continent  of  America, 
unless  driven  thither  by  unavoidable  accident,  in  which  case  you  are  to  stay  no 


10  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

longer  than  sliall  be  absolutely  necessary,  and  to  be  very  careful  not  to  give 
any  umbrage  or  offense  to  any  of  the  inhabitants  or  subjects  of  his  Catholic 
majesty.  And  if  in  your  further  progress  to  the  northward,  as  hereafter  di- 
rected, you  find  any  subjects  of  any  European  prince  or  state  upon  any  part  of 
the  coast,  you  may  think  proper  to  visit,  you  are  not  to  disturb  them,  or  give 
them  any  just  cause  of  offense. ' ' 

Now,  it  is  clear  from  these  instructions  that  Cook  was  bound  to  respect  the 
claims  of  Spain  set  up  as  prior  discoveries  of  the  Oregon  coast,  and  the  British 
government  was  bound  by  these  instructions — Cook  was  to  take  possession  of 
such  lands  as  had  not  been  discovered  or  visited  by  any  other  European  power. 
He  had  reached  the  Sandwich  islands  in  February,  1778,  and  sailing  from  the 
islands,  came  in  sight  of  the  Oregon  coast  on  ilarch  7,  1778.  He  speaks  of  the 
coast  as  ' '  New  Albion ' '  in  his  log,  using  the  name  given  it  by  Drake  nearly  two 
hundred  years  before.  At  noon  on  March  7,  the  ship's  position  was  44°  33' 
north  by  236°  and  30'  east  from  Greenwich,  and  Cook's  orders  were  to  strike 
the  coast  at  45°  north,  so  that  he  was  showing  good  sailing  qualities.  The  loca- 
tion on  the  Oregon  coast  reached  first  thus  by  Cook,  is  practically  about  the  en- 
trance of  Yaquina  Bay.  In  his  log,  he  describes  the  land  fairly  well  as  of  "mod- 
erate height,  diversified  with  hill  and  valley,  and  almost  everywhere  covered 
with  trees. ' '  Cook  laid  his  course  north  up  the  coast  and  after  passing  a  head- 
land, foul  weather  set  in  and  he  named  the  point  Cape  Foulweather,  which 
name  has  stayed  with  the  headland  to  this  day.  Cook  held  to  his  course  up  the 
coast  with  continued  stormy  weather,  until  March  29,  passing  both  the  mouth  of 
the  Columbia  river  and  the  Straits  of  Fuca,  without  seeing  either  opening,  and 
then  turned  into  what  he  named  Hope  bay  on  the  west  coast  of  Vancouver  island, 
and  finding  an  extension  of  the  bay  into  the  land,  gave  it  the  Indian  name  of 
Nootka  sound.  Here  he  explored  the  country  and  traded  with  the  Indians. 
Cook  gave  the  names  to  Capes  Foulweather,  Perpetua  and  Gregory,  all  of  which 
have  been  permanent  except  the  last,  which  is  now  known  as  Arago.  He  traded 
with  the  same  Indians  as  did  Perez,  and  found  silver  spoons  and  other  trinkets 
of  European  origin  among  them,  and  rightly  concluded  that  they  had  been  vis- 
ited by  more  than  one  navigator  on  the  coast  and  did  not  pretend  to  take  pos- 
session of  the  country,  although  he  remained  at  Nootka  on  the  coast  of  Vancouver 
island  for  a  month,  making  repairs  on  his  ship. 

On  April  26,  Cook  resumed  his  cruise  northward  surveying  the  coast  line  as 
best  he  could  keeping  a  sharp  lookout  for  a  ship  passage  eastwardly  across  the 
continent,  for  the  discovery  of  which  the  British  government  had  offered  a  re- 
ward of  twenty  thousand  pounds.  But  he  found  no  Strait  of  Anian,  or  any 
other  strait ;  and  coasted  around  northwesternly  reaching  Bering  sea,  and  finally 
the  coast  of  Asia,  and  after  satisfying  himself  that  there  was  no  passage  from 
the  Pacific  eastwardly  to  the  Atlantic,  he  sailed  for  the  Sandwich  islands,  which 
he  reached  February  8,  1779.  Here  he  met  with  great  trouble  from  the  natives, 
and  in  attempting  to  recover  a  small  boat  they  had  stolen  from  his  ship,  he  was 
violently  attacked  by  a  multitude  on  February  14,  1779,  and  brutally  killed 
with  clubs  before  his  men  could  rescue  him,  and  carried  away  and  eaten  by  the 
cannibals.  He  had  made  three  voyages  of  discovery  around  the  globe,  had 
discovered  the  Sandwich  islands  and  many  other  lands. 

Captain  James  Cook  was  the  greatest  of  all  the  navigators  and  explorers  of 


PARTS  UNKNOWN  ?^ 
PARTS  UNKNOWN 


CARVER'S  MAP,  1778 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  11 

unknown  seas,  and  in  every  respect  a  very  great  man.  His  services  to  mankind 
were  so  highly  esteemed  that  when  Franklin  was  in  Paris  as  representative  of 
the  United  Colonies  he  was  emi)owered  to  issue  letters  of  marque  against  the 
English,  but  in  doing  so,  inserted  an  instruction  that  if  any  of  tlie  holders  of 
such  letters  should  fall  in  with  vessels  commanded  by  Captain  Cook,  he  was  1o 
be  shown  every  respect  and  be  permitted  to  pass  unattaeked  on  account  of  the 
benefits  he  had  conferred  on  mankind,  through  his  important  discoveries. 

Cook  is  described  as  over  six  feet  high,  thin  and  spare,  small  head,  forehead 
broad,  dark  brown  hair,  rolled  back  and  tied  behind,  nose  long  and  straight,  high 
cheek  bones,  small  brown  eyes,  and  quick  and  piercing,  face  long,  chin  round  and 
full  with  mouth  firmly  set — a  striking,  austere  face,  showing  his  Scotch  descent, 
and  indicative  of  the  man  most  remarkable  for  patience,  resolution,  persever- 
ance and  unfaltering  courage. 

The  irony  of  fate  which  snuffed  out  the  life  of  a  great  and  good  man,  and 
deprived  him  of  the  honor  and  credit  of  opening  to  the  world  a  great  region 
filled  with  unexampled  wealth,  yet  even  in  this  last  fateful  voyage,  gave  to  the 
commercial  world  a  clue  to  vast  wealth  which  was  eagerly  snapped  up  by  citizens 
of  four  great  nations.  In  Cook's  brief  stay  at  Nootka  sound,  he  got  in  barter,  a 
small  bale  of  very  fine  furs  from  the  Indians.  These  furs  reached  China  after 
the  death  of  Cook,  and  their  extraordinary  quality  at  once  so  caught  the  atten- 
tion of  all  vessels  trading  to  Canton,  that  the  news  of  it  spread  rapidly  to  Eng- 
land, Spain,  Portugal,  and  the  United  States.  In  consequence  of  this  informa- 
tion there  was  a  sort  of  gold  mine  stampede  to  the  new-found  El  Dorado  in  the 
fur-bearing  haunts  of  the  north  Pacific,  which  set  in  toward  the  northwest  seven 
years  after  Cook  had  sailed  away.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  great  fur  trade 
from  which  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  made  so  many  royal  millionaires  in  Eng- 
land. 

Following  up  this  discovery  of  rich  furs  in  the  northwest  we  find  Captain 
James  Hanna,  an  Englishman,  coming  over  from  China  in  a  little  brig  of  sixty 
tons,  with  twenty  men.  He  reached  Nootka  sound  in  August,  1785,  and  he  had 
no  sooner  anchored  his  little  ship  than  the  Indians  attacked  him.  He  gave  them 
a  hot  reception,  drove  them  off,  and  they  then  obligingly  turned  around  and  of- 
fered to  trade.  The  sea-rover  accommodated  them,  and  in  exchange  for  a  lot  of 
cheap  knives,  shirts,  beads  and  trinkets,  the  natives  handed  over  five  hundred 
and  sixty  sea  otter  skins,  which  would  be  worth  at  this  day  a  quarter  of  a  million 
dollars.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  great  fur  ti-ade  in  old  Oregon,  Alaska 
and  California. 

The  next  navigator  to  visit  this  region  after  Hanna,  was  the  famous  French 
explorer.  La  Perouse,  who  was  sent  out  by  the  French  king  to  examine  such 
parts  of  northwestern  America  as  had  not  been  explored  by  Captain  Cook,  to 
seek  an  inter-oceanic  passage,  to  make  observations  on  the  country,  its  people 
and  products,  to  obtain  reliable  information  as  to  the  fur  trade,  the  extent  of  the 
Spanish  settlements,  the  region  in  which  furs  might  be  taken  without  giving  of- 
fense to  Spain,  and  the  inducements  to  French  enterprise.  But  while  the  com- 
mander of  the  expedition,  like  Cook,  lost  his  life  on  this  voyage,  it  was  in  many 
respects  one  of  the  most  valuable  of  all  the  exploring  expeditions  to  this  region. 
La  Perou.se  was  accompanied  by  a  corps  of  scientific  observers  able  to  report  in 
full  the  value  of  the  country,  and  their  observations  and  the  report  of  the  voyage 


12  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

made  up  four  volumes  with  a  book  of  maps,  and  really  gave  to  the  world  the  first 
scientific  knowledge  of  this  vast  region.  The  expedition  had  also  another  very 
decisive  feature  as  showing  at  that  time  what  other  nations  than  England 
thought  of  the  ownership  of  the  country.  La  Perouse  was  instructed  to  ascertain 
the  extent  and  limits  of  the  rights  of  Spain,  and  no  reference  was  made  whatever 
to  any  rights  of  England,  clearly  showing  that  in  the  estimation  of  other  nations, 
England  had  no  rights  on  the  Pacific  coast  as  against  Spain  or  any  other  power. 

Following  La  Perouse  in  1786,  three  fur-trading  expeditions  were  dispatched 
to  the  northwest  coast.  One  of  these  under  the  command  of  Captains  Meares  and 
Tipping,  with  the  ships  Nootka  and  Sea  Otter,  was  fitted  out  in  Bengal  and 
traded  with  the  Indians  in  Prince  Williams  sound  and  the  Alaskan  coast.  A 
second  expedition  was  fitted  out  by  English  merchants  at  Bombay,  sailing  under 
the  flag  of  the  East  India  Company,  reached  Nootka  sound  in  June,  1786,  and 
secured  six  hundred  sea  otter  skins,  not  as  many  as  they  hoped  for,  because  the 
Indians  had  promised  to  save  their  skins  for  Captain  Hanna  who  had  given  them 
a  thrashing,  and  who  returned  in  August.  This  expedition  from  Bombay  is  re- 
markable for  more  than  its  six  hundred  sea  otter  pelts.  It  left  behind,  at  his 
own  request,  the  first  white  man  to  reside  on  the  northwest  coast  of  America — 
one  John  McKey — who  being  in  bad  health  chose  to  take  his  chances  with  the 
Indians,  the  chief  promising  him  protection.  McKey  lived  for  over  a  year  with 
the  Indians,  taking  a  native  woman  for  a  wife,  was  well  treated  but  endured 
many  hardships,  kept  a  journal  of  his  experiences,  and  gave  to  the  world,  through 
Captain  Barclay,  who  carried  him  away  to  China,  the  geographical  fact  that 
Vancouver  island  was  not  a  part  of  the  mainland. 

The  third  expedition  of  that  year  was  two  ships  fitted  out  in  England  in  1785, 
but  did  not  reach  the  Pacific  coast  until  1786.  It  was  sent  out  by  what  was 
called  King  George's  Sound  Company,  an  association  of  British  merchants  act- 
ing under  licenses  from  the  South  Sea  and  East  India  monopolies,  and  was  com- 
manded by  Nathaniel  Portlock  and  George  Dixon,  both  of  whom  had  been  with 
Cook  on  his  last  voyage.  They  reached  the  coast  of  Alaska  in  July,  1786,  then 
drifted  south  intending  to  winter  at  Nootka,  but  from  bad  weather  and  other 
causes  failed  to  find  harbors  and  sailed  to  the  Sandwich  islands,  where  they 
wintered.  They  returned  to  the  coast  in  1787,  and  repeated  their  cruise  of  drift- 
ing southward  from  Alaska.  Portlock  and  Dixon  named  several  points  on  the 
coast  on  this  cruise,  secured  two  thousand  five  hundred  and  fifty  sea  otter  skins 
which  they  sold  in  China  for  $54,857,  while  the  whole  number  of  otter  pelts 
secured  by  the  other  fur  traders — Hanna,  Strange,  Meares  and  Barclay  down  to 
the  end  of  1787  was  only  2,481  skins.  Captain  Barclay  reached  the  coast  at 
Nootka  in  June,  1787,  coming  out  as  a  commander  of  the  ship  Imperial  Eagle, 
which  sailed  from  the  Belgian  port  of  Ostend  under  the  flag  of  the  Austrian 
East  India  Company,  making  another  nation  engaging  in  the  fur  trade.  Bar- 
clay went  no  further  north  than  Nootka,  got  eight  hundred  otter  skins  and  then 
sailed  southward,  discovering  Barclay  sound ;  continuing  his  voyage  south,  pass- 
ing the  Strait  of  Fuca  without  seeing  it,  he  sent  off  a  boat  to  enter  a  river,  prob- 
ably the  Quillayute,  with  five  men  and  a  boatswain's  mate,  where  they  were  at- 
tacked by  the  Indians  and  all  killed.  These  were  probably  the  same  savages  that 
gave  Heceta  and  his  men  such  a  battle  in  1775.    Mrs.  Barclay  had  accompanied 


■ 

^M 

H 

^^^V 

^H 

^^^^v 

^i 

^H^H       "^     4Htt 

In 

tAITAIX  .lA.MKS  ((KIK. 
tirf«ti'«t  tif  Kii};liitli  Xiiviyiitor* 


THE  CEXTKNNrAL  HISTORY  OF  OKEGOX  13 

the  captain  on  his  voyage,  and  is  entitled  to  tlie  (lislinrtidii  ol"  l)eins'  tlie  first 
white  woman  to  land  on  the  soil  of  old  Oi'egon. 

Following  up  Captain  Bai-elay's  careful  survey  of  the  coast,  the  Spanish 
government  sent  north  in  17SS  another  exploration  to  find  out  what  the  Rus- 
sians were  doing  on  the  coast ;  it  had  been  reported  that  the  Russiiins  had  four 
settlements,  coming  down  as  far  south  as  Nootka,  and  it  was  feared  that  the  Rus- 
sians might  come  still  farther  south,  as  probably  they  did.  This  Spanish  expe- 
dition consisted  of  two  vessels,  commanded  by  ^Martinez  and  De  Haro,  for  each 
of  which  important  coast  points  have  been  named.  This  expedition  shows  clearly 
enough  that  Spain  was  asserting  her  title  to  the  coast  against  all  the  world  as 
far  up  as  60  degrees  north. 

And  now  we  reach  the  date  when  citizens  of  the  United  States  for  the  first 
time  show  an  interest  in  the  country  we  write  this  book  about.  Here  for  the  first 
time  do  the  "Bostons"  and  the  "King  George"  men  (as  the  Indians  named 
them)  come  in  contact  as  explorers,  traders  and  rivals  for  the  great  northwest. 
For  the  year  1788  the  history  of  this  vast  region  is  made  up  of  the  movements  of 
the  American  captains,  Kendrick  and  Gray,  in  command  of  the  ship  Columbia 
and  the  sloop  Lady  Washington,  and  the  British  captains,  Meares  in  command  of 
the  P^elice,  and  Douglas  in  command  of  the  Iphigenia.  All  these  old  sea  captains 
were  exceedingly  polite  to  each  other,  accepting  various  favors,  the  Americans 
firing  a  salute  on  the  launching  of  Meares'  new  schooner,  but  each  man  kept  a 
sharp  lookout  for  "the  main  chance." 

Captain  Gray,  the  first  American  citizen  to  set  eyes  on  the  coast  of  Oregon, 
hailed  the  land  near  the  boundary  between  California  and  Oregon,  August  2, 
1788,  and  coasted  north,  keeping  in  close  to  the  shore.  Two  days  after  sighting 
land,  ten  natives  came  oi¥  in  a  canoe  and  gave  the  strangers  a  friendly  greeting. 
On  the  fourteenth  of  August,  Gray  crossed  over  the  Tillamook  bar  and  anchored 
in  thirteen  feet  of  water  near  where  the  town  of  Bay  City  is  now  located.  The 
Indians  appeared  to  be  friendly,  furnishing  large  quantities  of  fish  and  berries 
without  payment,  and  trading  furs  freely  for  iron  implements,  taking  what  was 
offered  in  exchange,  and  also  furnishing  wood  and  water  as  desired.  Gray 
thought  he  had  entered  the  mouth  of  the  great  "River  of  the  West,"  which  Jon- 
athan Carver  had  figured  out  on  his  map  of  the  northwest,  made  ten  years  prior, 
from  conversations  he  had  with  Indians  on  the  Mississippi  river,  near  where 
St.  Paul  is  located.  But  remaining  a  few  days  in  the  Tillamook  Bay  to  recuper- 
ate his  men  from  scurvy,  he  got  into  a  hot  fight  with  the  Indians  about  a  cutlass 
one  of  them  had  stolen  from  his  servant,  Lopez.  Poor  Lopez,  a  native  of  the 
Cape  Verde  islands,  was  killed,  three  sailors  badly  beaten,  barely  escaping  with 
their  lives,  the  captain  had  to  drive  the  savages  away  with  the  swivel  gun,  killing 
many  of  them,  and  naming  the  place  "Murderers'  Harbor."  The  speculators  who 
are  now  so  noisily  "boosting"  that  beautiful  sheet  of  water  for  a  fashionable 
summer  resort,  will  hardly  adopt  its  first  white  man's  name  as  an  attractive  bis- 
torical  suggestion.  Tillamook  bay  may  be  considered  the  first  harbor  on  the 
coast  of  Oregon  entered  by  a  white  man 's  ship ;  and  all  the  more  appreciated 
is  the  fact  that  the  ship  was  American,  and  that  its  captain  was  the  discoverer 
of  our  grand  river,  Columbia. 

Leaving  Tillamook  and  proceeding  north  up  the  coast,  the  navigators  found 
ttiothing   new  in  adventure  or  discovery.    They  did  not  even  see  the  entrance  to 


14  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

the  Straits  of  Puca,  although  Haswell,  the  ship's  second  officer,  wrote  at  the  time, 
"I  am  of  tlie  opinion  that  the  Straits  of  Fuca  do  exist,  though  Captain  Cook 
positively  asserts  they  do  not,  for  at  this  point  the  coast  takes  a  bend  that  may 
be  the  entrance."  It  is  surprising  that  so  important  a  geographical  feature  of 
the  northwest  coast  should  not  have  been  discovered  sooner  than  it  was.  And  it 
is  a  painful  disappointment  that  the  name  of  the  discoverer.  Captain  James 
Barclay,  should  not  have  been  attached  to  the  strait,  instead  of  that  of  the  Greek 
impostor,  De  Fuca.  It  is  some  satisfaction,  however,  to  know  that  the  first  man 
to  sail  through  the  great  strait  was  an  American — Captain  Robert  Gray,  and 
niaking  a  remarkable  and  most  happy  coincidence,  in  that  his  vessel  was  named 
Lady  Washington  in  honor  of  the  wife  of  the  man  who  was  at  the  date  of  that 
memorable  voyage  through  the  strait  inaugurated  the  first  president  of  the 
United  States. 

From  this  time  on,  the  fur-trading  vessels  to  the  north  Pacific  rapidly  in- 
creased. The  profits  of  the  fur  trade  were  so  enormous  that  men  and  money 
rushed  into  it  from  every  maritime  nation.  It  was  typical  of  and  the  forerunner 
of  the  California  gold  craze  which  came  along  about  sixty  years  later.  The  only 
difference  being,  so  far  as  the  argonauts  were  concerned,  was  that  in  the  rush  to 
get  furs  all  had  to  go  in  ships  and  brave  the  perils  of  the  sea ;  while  in  the  mad 
rush  to  California  tens  of  thousands  made  their  way  overland  from  the  Missouri 
river  by  ox  team.  But  on  reaching  these  two  era-making  El  Doradoes,  we  see  an- 
other wholly  dissimilar  plan  to  get  the  gold.  The  fur-trading  sea  captains  did 
not  hunt  for  any  furs  or  descend  to  the  menial  labor  of  digging  gold  from  mother 
earth.  They  took  the  lordly  and  aristocratic  way  of  working  the  heathen  savage 
to  catch  the  furs  on  land  and  sea,  and  then  trading  him  out  of  his  pelts  with  bad 
whiskey,  shoddy  shirts,  and  glass  beads.  But  the  California  miner  for  gold  had 
to  get  in  and  dig  for  himself  to  get  gold.  Indians  there  were  in  plenty  in  Califor- 
nia, but  no  lordly  son  of  the  forest  would  ever  demean  himself  with  the  base  work 
of  using  a  pick  and  shovel.  And  here  we  see  the  two  races  face  to  face,  opposed. 
One  will  hunt,  and  shoot,  and  fish,  and  kill,  and  starve  before  he  will  work.  The 
other  will  work  and  trade,  and  cheat  and  rob,  before  he  will  starve. 

At  the  same  time  that  Gray  and  Kendrick  were  out  here  from  Boston,  two 
English  ships,  the  Felice  and  Iphegenia,  already  noticed,  were  here  for  furs. 
The  Englishmen  had  come  prepared  to  build  a  small  vessel  on  the  coast  and 
making  their  headquarters  at  Nootka,  erected  there  the  first  house  built  north  of 
California.  This  house,  built  122  years  ago,  was  two  stories  high  with  a  de- 
fensive breastwork  all  around  it,  and  a  cannon  mounted  on  top  of  it.  Captain 
Kendrick  of  the  Columbia,  also  built  a  house,  but  whether  before  or  after  the 
erection  of  the  English  house,  the  record  does  not  show.  Being  inquired  of,  the 
Indian  chief,  Maquinna,  and  all  of  his  sub-chiefs,  who  were  in  native  possession 
of  the  land  at  Nootka,  answered  that  they  sold  no  land  to  the  British  captains, 
and  that  the  American  captain,  Kendrick,  was  the  only  man  to  whom  they  had 
ever  sold  any  land.  So  that  so  far  as  getting  the  Indian  title  to  lands  was  con- 
cerned, history  shows  that  the  Americans  were  the  first  and  only  people  to  rec- 
ognize the  Indian  title  to  lands  on  the  Pacific  coast.  The  Englishmen  who  built 
the  house,  above  described,  got  in  all  the  furs  they  could  and  prepared  to  leave 
for  China  in  September,  1788.  The3'  tore  down  the  house  they  had  erected,  put 
part  of  the  materials  on  board  the  ships,  and  gave  the  balance  to  the  Americans. 


CAPTAix  i;ui!i;uT  i.i;a\ 


I   '^n-t 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  15 

In  other  respects,  they  were  not  so  liberal.  They  strongly  urged  the  Americans 
not  to  remain  on  the  coast  and  brave  the  winter  storms,  avoided  carrying  any 
letters  from  the  Americans  to  China,  declared  they  had  not  got  more  than  fifty 
otter  skins  when  they  had,  in  fact,  thousands.  But  the  Americans  stayed  and 
wintered  at  Nootka. 

With  the  opening  of  the  spring  of  1789,  the  two  American  ships  pushed  their 
work  of  exploration  to  new  locations  and  other  tribes  of  Indians,  getting  in  large 
lots  of  furs,  before  the  English  or  Spanish  ships  could  reach  the  coast,  and  dur- 
ing the  summer  surveying  the  Straits  of  Fuca.  By  the  middle  of  June,  the  Eng- 
lishmen had  returned  from  China,  and  immediately  engaged  in  trade  for  furs. 
But  prior  to  the  arrival  of  the  English  ships,  two  Spanish  vessels  reached  Nootka 
imder  the  command  of  Lieutenant  Martinez  and  Captain  Haro,  who  came  pre- 
pared to  assert  and  enforce  the  rights  of  Spain  to  the  country.  Finding  the 
English  ships  had  two  sets  of  papers,  one  English  and  one  Portuguese,  prepared 
to  sail  under  two  different  flags,  the  Spaniards  promptly  arrested  the  English- 
men, and  thereby  hangs  the  tale  of  a  good  sized  tempest  in  a  teapot  settlement  at 
Nootka  sound.  Back  and  under  the  whole  trouble  was  the  strife  to  get  furs 
from  the  Indians.  The  Spaniards  had  never  made  any  settlement  in  the  coun- 
try or  left  a  single  priest  to  convert  the  heathen.  Neither  had  the  English.  But 
the  Spaniards  claimed  the  country  by  right  of  discovery,  and  if  now  by  asserting 
that  right  vigorously  they  could  put  the  Englishmen  out  of  the  fur  trade,  it 
would  be  good  business.  And  so  the  Spaniards  pushed  their  advantage  by  send- 
ing the  English  captains  down  to  San  Bias  as  prisoners  or  pirates.  Spain 
claimed  the  right  to  found  a  settlement  and  build  a  fort.  The  English  claimed 
the  same  rights  and  it  was  clear  there  could  not  be  two  sovereignties  in  the  same 
territory.  The  upshot  of  the  whole  matter  was  a  making  of  a  compromise  treaty 
of  which  we  will  give  a  copy  in  tlie  chapter  on  title  to  the  countr.y. 

But  as  the  Spaniards  were  very  poor  business  men,  they  never  got  much  out 
of  the  fur  trade.  Besides  that,  otter  pelts  were  not  near  so  attractive  as  the 
ingots  of  gold  and  silver  they  were  squeezing  out  of  the  Mexicans  and  Peruvians. 
And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  no  more  than  justice  to  the  priests  and  ought  to  be 
said,  that  the  church  used  its  influence  through  the  priests  to  protect  the  Indians 
as  far  as  possible  from  the  evils  of  the  rum  traffic  and  outrageous  robbery  by  fur 
traders  in  getting  the  fruits  of  their  labor  for  mere  trifles.  A  single  example 
may  be  given  to  show  how  ignorant  the  natives  were  of  the  value  of  otter  skins 
when  they  gave  Captain  Cook,  on  his  survey  of  Queen  Charlotte  island,  two  hun- 
dred sea  otter  skins,  worth  at  that  time  eight  thousand  dollars  for  an  old  iron 
chisel  not  wortli  a  dollar. 

The  Americans  had  decided  to  send  Gray  with  the  Columbia  back  to  Boston, 
when  the  quarrel  between  the  English  and  the  Spaniards  was  at  its  height ;  and 
to  that  end,  with  the  furs  taken  by  Kendrick  and  Gray,  he  (Gray)  returned  to 
Boston  at  the  close  of  1789.  The  joint  expedition  of  the  two  ships  had  not  been 
greatly  profitable,  but  the  Boston  merchants  were  not  discouraged,  and  resolved 
to  outfit  the  ship  and  send  Gray  out  again. 

Accordingly  the  Columbia  sailed  out  of  Boston  harbor  on  the  28th  of  Sep- 
tember, 1790,  for  its  second  voyage  to  the  coast  of  old  Oregon,  and  arrived  at 
Clayoquot  on  the  west  coast  of  Vancouver  Island,  on  the  5th  of  June,  1791.  After 
a  rest  for  a  few  days,  the  ship  proceeded  to  the  ea.stern  side  of  Queen  Charlotte 


16  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

island,  on  which  and  the  opposite  mainland  coast  she  remained  until  September, 
exploring  and  trading  with  the  Indians,  going  as  far  north  as  the  present  ex- 
treme southern  end  of  Alaska.  Gray  returned  to  Clayoquot  on  the  29th 
of  August,  having  had  only  indifferent  success  in  getting  furs,  and  then  went 
into  winter  quarters  near  an  Indian  village,  and  during  the  winter,  built  a  small 
sloop  and  lived  on  the  ducks  and  geese  so  plentiful  and  fat.  The  next  spring 
(1792)  brought  a  lot  of  traders  from  Prance,  Portugal,  England,  and  the  United 
States.  There  were  twenty-eight  vessels  on  the  northwest  coast  in  the  spring  of 
1792  at  one  time.  Five  of  them  came  expressly  to  make  geographical  explora- 
tions. The  others  brought  out  government  commissioners  or  supplies  for  gar- 
rison and  national  vessels.  But  it  is  no  part  of  our  purpose  to  follow  the  move- 
ments of  any  of  these  ships. 

We  return  again  to  Captain  Gray  in  winter  quarters  at  Clayoquot.  In  Feb- 
ruary, 1792,  the  Indians  that  had  all  along  been  so  friendly  to  Gray,  formed  a 
plot  to  seize  the  ship  and  kill  every  man  but  a  Kanaka  servant  boy.  The  plot 
was  detected  and  defeated  by  the  mistake  of  the  Indians  in  trying  to  bribe  this 
Kanaka  to  wet  the  powder  in  all  the  firearms  on  a  certain  night.  By  moving  the 
ship,  preparing  for  defense,  and  firing  the  cannon  into  the  woods,  the  attack 
was  prevented.  On  the  23d  of  February  the  sloop  which  Gray  had  built — the 
first  American  ship  built  on  the  coast — was  launched  and  named  the  Adventure, 
and  on  April  2d  both  of  Gray's  ships  sailed  out  for  their  spring  harvest  of  furs. 
The  two  vessels  parted  company  at  Clayoquot,  Gray  and  the  Columbia  going 
southward.  On  the  29th  of  April,  Gray  met  the  Englishman,  Vancouver,  just 
below  Cape  Flattery,  and  gave  him  some  account  of  his  discoveries,  and  among 
other  things  told  him  about  having  been  off  the  mouth  of  a  river  in  latitude  46 
degrees  north  where  the  outgoing  flow  was  so  strong  as  to  prevent  him  from  en- 
tering the  river  after  nine  days'  effort.  After  meeting  Vancouver,  he  ran  into 
what  is  now  called  Gray's  Harbor,  and  remained  there  trading  with  the  Indians, 
and  got  into  a  fight  with  them,  until  the  10th  of  May,  when  he  weighed  anchor, 
sailed  out  and  southward  to  the  point  where  he  had  struck  the  outflow  of  the 
great  river,  and  then  on  May  11,  1792,  succeeded  in  sailing  in  over  the  bar  and 
up  the  river  for  twenty-five  miles,  and  on  May  19th  named  the  river  after  his 
ship,  "Columbia's  River" — our  great  Columbia. 

From  the  log  book  of  the  Columbia  we  take  the  following  extracts :  "At  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  11th  we  beheld  our  desired  port,  bearing  east- 
southeast,  distant  six  leagues.  At  8  a.  m.,  being  a  little  to  the  windward  of  the 
entrance  of  the  harbor,  bore  away,  and  ran  in  east-northeast,  between  the  break- 
ers, having  from  5  to  7  fathoms  of  water.  "When  we  were  over  the  bar,  we  found 
this  to  be  a  large  river  of  fresh  water,  up  which  we  steered.  Many  canoes  came 
alongside.  At  1  p.  m.  came  to  with  the  small  bower,  in  ten  fathoms,  black  and 
white  sand.  The  entrance  between  the  bars  bore  west-southwest  ten  miles ;  the 
north  side  of  the  river,  distant  a  half  mile  from  the  ship,  the  south  side  of  the 
same,  two  and  a  half  miles  distant,  a  village  on  the  north  side  of  the  river,  west 
by  north,  distant  three  quarters  of  a  mile.  Vast  numbers  of  the  natives  came 
alongside ;  people  emplo^^ed  pumping  the  salt  water  out  of  bur  water-casks  in 
order  to  fill  with  fresh  while  the  ship  floated  in.     So  ends." 

"No,  not  so  ends,  Oh,  modest  Captain  Gray  of  the  ship  Columbia  (says  Mrs. 
Victor),  the  end  is  not  yet,  nor  will  it  be.  until  all  the  vast  territory,  rich  with 


lAITAlN     i.lLW  S     --im'     "t  "I.I   MItIA 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  17 

every  prdduetion  ol'  the  earth,  which  is  liraiiied  by  the  waters  of  the  new-ruuiul 
river,  shall  have  yielded  up  its  illimitable  wealth  to  distant  generations." 

And  to  this  Yankee  skipper  from  Boston,  the  American,  Robert  Gray,  more 
honors  came  in  the  exploration  of  the  northwest  than  to  any  other  man.  He  was 
not  only  the  fii'st  to  sail  a  ship  through  the  Straits  of  Fuea — the  discoverer  of  the 
Columbia  river — but  he  was  the  first  American  to  circumnavigate  the  globe  un- 
der the  national  flag,  which  he  did  in  1790,  by  the  way  of  Good  Hope,  trading  his 
furs  to  the  Chinese  at  Canton  for  a  cargo  of  tea. 

Here  our  record  of  the  explorations  of  the  northwest  from  the  seacoast  comes 
to  a  close.  We  have  given  enough  to  enable  the  reader  to  follow  the  story  and 
see  how  these  explorations  gradually  concentrated  to. the  point  of  discovering  the 
river  which  drains  the  empire  of  old  Oregon.  The  foundation  of  our  title  to  the 
whole  northwest,  clear  up  to  the  Alaskan  boundary,  and  the  diplomacy  in  set- 
tling that  title  will  be  better  understood  when  reading  future  chapters  after 
having  read  this  chapter  through. 

We  may  pause  here  for  a  moment  and  contemplate  the  mischances  of  great 
men — the  greatest  of  men.  While  the  world  has  accorded  to  Christopher  Co- 
lumbus the  imperishable  fame  and  honor  of  discovering  the  American  continent, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  other  Ei;ropean  mariners  had  touched  on  the 
continent  of  America  before  him.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Scandinavians 
under  the  lead  of  Leif  Ericson  had  crossed  over  to  the  western  hemisphere  more 
than  a  hundred  years  before  Columbus  was  born.  But  they  left  no  settlement, 
and  made  but  little  if  any  record  or  comment  of  the  matter.  It  was  a  matter  of 
no  importance  to  them,  and  no  one  ever  followed  up  their  lead.  It  is  conjectured 
that  Columbus  had  heard  of  this  discovery  from  the  Icelanders  whom  he  visited 
fifteen  years  before  he  sailed  away  from  Palos  into  the  unknown  western  ocean. 
But  if  so,  Columbus  never  mentioned  the  fact,  and  there  is  no  evidence  that  he 
had  ever  heard  of  the  Scandinavian  discovery. 

Columbus  was  rightly  entitled  to  name  the  land  he  had  discovered,  although 
he  had  never  reached  the  main  land,  but  had  only  set  up  his  banner  on  a  neigh- 
boring island.  But  sentiment,  poetry  and  praise  alike  has  for  four  hundred 
years  striven  to  undo  the  great  wrong  to  the  greatest  hero.  The  ship  that  first 
entered  Oregon's  great  river  bore  his  name;  and  the  mighty  river  itself  is  a  per- 
petual memorial  to  the  honor  of  Christopher  Columbus. 

To  Americus  Vespucius,  who  was  born  at  Florence,  Italy,  on  the  9th  of  March, 
1451.  was  given  the  honor  of  naming  the  New  World.  Vespucius  moved  from 
Italy  to  Spain  in  the  j'ear  of  1490,  and  made  the  acquaintance  of  Columbus  before 
he  sailed  from  Palos.  And  on  the  return  of  Columbus  to  Spain  with  the  great 
discovery  Vespucius  was  one  of  the  first  to  greet  the  great  discoverer.  But  he 
(Vespucius),  then  a  merchant  at  Seville,  made  no  effort  to  verify  the  report  of 
Columbus  until  1499.  when  he  accompanied  Ojeda  on  his  expedition  to  America 
as  an  astronomer.  Vespucius  made  four  voyages  to  the  New  World,  but  he  had 
not  the  chief  command  of  these  expeditions;  and  like  Columbus  died  without 
knowing  he  had  reached  a  separate  continent.  In  a  letter  to  the  King  of  Portu- 
gal, in  whose  services  he  had  sailed,  July  18,  1500,  he  says:  "We  discovered  a 
very  large  country  of  Asia."  And.  like  Columbus,  after  giving  to  the  world  all 
the  riches  of  America,  he  died  a  poor  man.  passing  away  at  Seville  in  15'i2. 

But  how  came  Vespucius  to  receive   the  great   honor  of  naming  the  New 


18  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

World  ?  The  answer  is :  Vespueius  wrote  a  book — an  account  of  his  voyages.  If 
Columbus  ever  wrote  any  report  of  his  discovery  voyage,  it  was  buried  under  the 
envy  and  malice  that  finally  destroyed  him,  and  was  not  given  to  the  world  at 
that  time. 

The  reader  must  now  go  with  the  historian  to  a  little  school  at  the  little  old 
town  of  St.  Die  at  the  foot  of  the  Vosgian  Alps  mountains  in  France.  In  the  year 
1507  this  school  was  in  the  hands  of  some  pious  monks,  as  were  all  schools  in 
those  days.  The  over-lord  of  this  institution  was  Rene  II.,  Duke  of  Lorraine; 
who  on  one  of  his  Ducal  visits  to  the  little  school  carried  with  him,  being  a  patron 
of  arts  and  sciences,  a  Mss.  book  of  French,  which  he  had  then  recently  received 
from  Italy,  entitled  "Quatre  Navigations  d'Amerique  Vespuce."  But  whether 
Vespueius  was  the  author  of  this  book  or  not,  there  is  no  account.  That  incident 
took  place  thirty-nine  years  after  the  death  of  Gutenberg,  the  inventor  of  print- 
ing. At  that  date  the  monks  and  governors  of  the  little  school  had  just  pur- 
chased and  set  up  the  first  printing  press  in  that  part  of  France ;  and  were  at  that 
time  preparing  to  print  a  geography  of  the  world,  and  which  they  entitled  a ' '  Cos- 
mography. ' '  Here  then  was  a  grand  chance  for  the  new  book — a  piece  of  up-to- 
date  geography;  and  so  the  manuscript  brought  by  the  Duke  must  go  into  the 
new  book.    And  it  went  in  under  the  title 

"the  land  op  America" 

and  the  introduction  to  it  on  page  30  of  the  book  reads :  ' '  There  is  a  fourth  quar- 
ter of  the  world  which  America  Vespuci  has  discovered,  and  which  for  this 
reason  we  call  'America,  the  land  of  Americ'  "  And  further  along  the  book 
says:  "We  do  not  see  why  the  name  of  the  man  of  genius,  Americo,  who  has 
discovered  them,  should  not  be  given  to  these  lands — the  more  so  as  Asia  and 
Eiirope  bear  the  names  of  women."  Alack!  and  alas!  The  mighty  deeds  of  the 
great  Columbus  overlooked  or  forgotten  within  a  year  after  his  poor  body  was 
laid  in  the  grave !  And  this  was  the  New  World,  named  by  the  French  who  had 
not  then  sent  out  a  single  voyage  of  discovery ;  and  who  by  that  book  and  print- 
ing press  were  successful  in  giving  to  a  man  whose  work  had  not  been  conspicu- 
ous, the  name  which  rightly  belonged  to  the  great  Columbus.  On  another  page 
is  given  the  pictiire  of  the  building,  yet  standing,  where  America  got  its  name. 


CHAPTER  11 

1634—1834 

THE  LANDWARD  MOVEMENT  WEST — TWO  DIFFERING  MINDS  OF  CIVILIZATION  AND  IN- 
DEPENDENT MOVEMENTS  OF  POPULATION  MOVE  WESTWARD THE  FRENCH  CATH- 
OLIC ON  ONE  SIDE,  AND  THE  ENGLISH  PROTESTANT  ON  THE  OTHER MARQUETTE, 

1665 — LA    SALLE,     1679 — HENNEPIN,     1680— JONATHAN     CARVER,     1766 ALEX- 
ANDER MACKENZIE,  1793 LEWIS  AND  CLARK,  1804 MAJOR  ZEBULON  PIKE,  1805 

SIMON    FRASER,    1806 — ANDREW    HENRY,    1808— JONATHAN    WINSHIP,    1809 

DAVID  THOMPSON,    1810 WILSON  PRICE  HUNT,    1811 JEDEDIAH   SMITH,    1826 

NATHANIEL  J.  WYETH,   1832 — LIEUT.   B.    L.   E.   BONNEVILLE,   1833 AND   JOHN   C. 

FREMONT,  1843. 

The  settlement  of  the  west,  northwest  and  southwest,  from  the  earliest  time 
proceeded  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  on  two  separate  and  characteristically 
different  lines. 

First :  The  French  from  the  Canadas,  succeeded  by  the  English  Canadians. 
Second :  The  English  from  the  colonies,  succeeded  by  the  American  rebels  of  the 
colonies.  These  currents  of  differing  populations,  ideas  and  ideals  impinge  one 
against  the  other,  first  in  the  wilderness  of  old  Fort  Du  Quesne,  where  the  city 
of  Pittsburg  now  stands,  resulting  in  war  between  France  and  England,  and 
finally  on  the  Columbia,  a  half  century  later,  between  the  United  States  and 
England,  for  possession  of  old  Oregon. 

In  this  chapter  will  be  sketched  the  men  and  movements  which  seem  to  have 
been  in  their  inception  more  devoted  to  fur  trading  or  religious  interests  than 
to  the  political  aspect  of  permanent  settlements.  Having,  in  tracing  the  devel- 
opment and  conclusion  of  the  seacoast  exploration  of  the  northwest,  gone  only 
so  far  as  that  exploration  resulted  in  locating  and  pointing  out,  as  its  final  result, 
the  great  interior  water-way  line  across  the  continent,  that  was  to  locate  and 
build  this  state,  this  chapter  will  present  the  personalities  of  the  great  work  of 
civilization  in  the  settlement  of  this  vast  region  by  the  white  race.  From  the 
timid  and  tentative  adventurings  out  from  the  Atlantic  seacoast  into  the  un- 
known western  wilderness,  two  distinct  and  diverse  lines  of  thought  and  purpose 
characterize  two  separate  and  independent  movements  of  population  to  take  pos- 
session of  the  vast  unknown  West.  And  that  these  diverse  lines  of  thought  and 
separated  independent  movements  of  people  did  as  surely  and  definitely  eon- 
verge  upon,  select  and  build  up  this  Oregon,  as  did  the  many-sided  sea-rovers' 
exploration  of  unknown  seas  finally  converge  upon  and  select  the  great  Columbia 
river,  will  be  the  thought  and  conclusion  of  this  chapter. 

The  French  being  in  possession  of  Canada,  were  the  first  to  make  the  plunge 
into  the  boundless  wilderness.  And  this  final  and  successful  effort  to  get  into 
the  interior  of  the  continent  was  made  only  after  a  long  and  bitter  war  with  the 

19 


20  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Iroquois  Indians,  who  had  destroyed  the  previously  established  Catholic  mis- 
sions along  Lake  Huron,  and  driven  back  the  French  to  the  gates  of  Quebec. 
Protection  being  finally  guaranteed  to  the  Jesuits,  and  a  reginien;t  of  French  sol- 
diers being  sent  out  to  overcome  the  Indians,  the  five  nations  finally  made  a 
peace  which  assured  an  end  of  further  hostilities.  Starting  from  Old  Fort  Fron- 
tenac,  at  the  outlet  of  Lake  Ontario  as  early  as  1665,  we  find  the  faithful  priest, 
AUouez,  braving  all  the  dreaded  dangers  of  the  unknown,  and  following  up 
through  the  chain  of  Great  Lakes,  and  finally  reaching  Lake  Superior,  with  Mar- 
quette^  establishing  the  mission  of  St.  Mary,  the  first  settlement  of  white  men, 
within  the  limits  of  our  northwestern  states.  Following  this,  various  other  mis- 
sions were  established  and  explorations  made.  Fired  by  rumors  of  a  great  river 
in  the  far  distant  west,  Marquette  was  sent  by  the  superintendent,  Talon,  to 
find  it.  Marquette  was  accompanied  on  this  exploration  of  the  trackless  wilder- 
ness by  Joliet,  a  merchant  of  Quebec,  with  five  Frenchmen  and  two  Indian 
guides.  Leaving  the  lakes  by  the  way  of  Fox  river,  they  ascended  that  stream 
to  the  center  of  the  present  state  of  Wisconsin,  where  they  carried  their  canoes 
across  a  portage  until  they  struck  the  Wisconsin  river.  Here  the  Indian  guides, 
fearful  of  unknown  terrors  in  the  wilderness  beyond,  refused  to  go  farther,  and 
left  the  white  men  to  make  their  own  way  alone.  For  seven  days  the  Frenchmen 
floated  down  the  Wisconsin,  and  finally  came  out  on  the  mighty  flood  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi— the  "Great  River"- — for  such  is  the  meaning  of  the  name.  With  the 
feelings  of  men  who  had  discovered  a  new  world,  they  floated  down  the  great 
river,  charmed  and  delighted  with  the  wondrous  scene,  passing  through  verdant 
meadowland  prairies,  covered  with  uncounted  herds  of  bufi'alo,  with  •  the  un- 
broken silence  of  ages  they  passed  the  outpouring  floods  of  other  rivers — the  Ues 
Moines,  the  Illinois,  the  Missouri,  the  Ohio,  and  on  down  to  the  Arkansas.  Here 
they  landed  to  visit  the  astonished  natives  on  the  shore,  who  received  them  with 
the  utmost  kindness,  and  invited  tliem  to  make  their  homes  with  them. 

But  leaving  the  Arkansas,  Marquette  and  his  companions  floated  on  down 
the  Father  of  Waters,  until  greeted  by  a  different  climate,  by  cottonwood,  pal- 
mettoes,  heat  and  mosquitoes.  Marquette  was  satisfied  that  to  follow  the  river 
they  must  fall  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico ;  and  fearful  of  falling  into  the  hands  of 
the  Spaniards,  reluctantly  turned  the  prows  of  their  canoes  up  stream  and  made 
their  way  back  to  Canada  over  the  same  route.  Leaving  Marquette  at  Green 
bay  on  Lake  Michigan,  Joliet  carried  the  news  back  to  Quebec.  Shortly  after 
this  Marquette's  health  gave  way,  and  while  engaged  in  missionary  work  among 
the  Illinois  Indians,  he  died  May  18,  1675,  at  the  age  of  thirty-eight.  He  had 
fallen  at  his  post,  and  his  self-appointed  work  of  enlightening  and  blessing  the 
benighted  American  savage,  and  unselfishly  consecrated  his  life  to  the  highest 
and  noblest  impulses  of  the  human  soul. 

And  now  we  strike  a  different  character,  Robert  Cavalier  de  La  Salle,  a  dash- 
ing young  Frenchman,  who  had  shown  energy  and  enterprise  in  explorations  of 
Lakes  Ontario  and  Erie,  was  roused  to  great  interest  and  resolved  at  once  that 
he  would  explore  the  course  of  the  great  river  to  its  outlet  in  the  ocean,  wherever 
that  might  lead  them.  Leaving  his  Fort  Frontenac,  and  his  fur  trade,  he  hur- 
ried back  to  France  to  get  a  commission  from  the  government  to  explore  the  Mis- 
sissippi river.  Nothing  could  be  done  in  those  days  by  the  French,  Spanish  or 
English  without  government  license.    It  was  different  on  the  American  Colonial 


.MKluu  i:riii  i;    i.i;u  is 

Of    till-    I..-\vi»    anil    (lark    i:x|.i.|itli.ii 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  21 

side  of  the  line  after  the  Battle  of  iiuuker  Hill.  La  Salle  got  his  coramissiou ; 
returning  to  Canada,  accompanied  by  the  Chevalier  Tonti,  an  Italian  veteran, 
as  his  lieutenant,  he  made  haste  to  build  a  small  sloop  with  which  he  sailed  up 
the  Niagara  river  to  the  foot  of  the  rapids  below  the  great  falls.  Transporting 
his  stores  and  material  around  the  falls,  he  began  the  first  rigged  ship  that  ever 
sailed  the  Great  Lakes.  In  this  ship  of  sixty  tons,  which  he  named  the  Griffin;, 
with  a  band  of  missionaries  and  fur  traders.  La  Salle  passed  up  Lake  Erie, 
through  the  strait  at  Detroit,  across  St.  Clair  and  Lake  Huron,  through  the 
Straits  of  Mackinaw,  into  Lake  Michigan,  and  finally  came  to  anchor  in  Green 
bay  in  the  present  state  of  Wisconsin,  October,  1679.  From  this  point,  after 
sending  the  ship  back  for  fresh  supplies.  La  Salle  and  his  companions  crossed 
Lake  Michigan,  to  the  mouth  of  St.  Joseph's  river  in  the  present  state  of  Michi- 
gan, where  Father  Allouez  had  established  a  mission  with  the  Miami  Indians, 
and  where  La  Salle  now  added  a  trading  post  which  he  called  the  Port  of  the 
Miamis.  Here  the  party  labored  and  waited  in  vain  for  a  year  the  return  of 
their  ship  which  had  been  wrecked  and  lost  on  its  way  back  to  Lake  Erie.  Tir- 
ing of  his  troubles  in  camp,  and  vexatious  of  delay,  with  a  few  followers  they 
shouldered  their  muskets  and  packed  their  canoes  and  set  out  on  foot  from  St. 
Joseph  in  December,  1679,  tramping  around  the  southern  end  of  Lake  Michigan, 
and  across  the  frozen  prairie  to  the  head  waters  of  the  Illinois  river,  finding 
which  they  floated  down  the  river  to  Lake  Peoria,  where  the  city  of  Peoria  now 
stands.  There  they  got  into  trouble  with  the  Indians,  large  numbers  of  whom 
inhabited  that  part  of  the  country.  They  had  every  imaginable  kind  of  trouble 
with  the  Indians,  with  half-hearted  followers  and  open  deserters.  But  La  Salle, 
well  named  "the  lion-hearted,"  was  equal  to  every  danger  and  emergency,  and 
kept  his  grand  ship  of  enterprise  and  exploration  afloat  under  circumstances 
that  would  have  overwhelmed  any  other  man.  But  receiving  no  news  from  St. 
Joseph,  and  knowing  nothing  of  the  loss  of  his  ship,  and  destitute  of  the  tools, 
implements  or  supplies  to  enable  him  to  go  forward  and  compass  the  great 
scheme  of  exploration  to  the  mouth  of  the  great  river,  he  resolved  to  return  to 
Canada  with  only  three  men,  painfully  and  tediously  making  their  way  by  land 
across  the  vast  wilderness  from  the  heart  of  the  present  state  of  Illinois  to  Fron- 
tenac,  in  Canada,  where  the  city  of  Kingston  now  stands,  taking  sixty-five  days 
of  foot-sore  travel  to  accomplish  the  trip.  But  before  leaving  Peoria  lake.  La 
Salle  detached  one  of  his  men,  Tonti,  who  had  only  one  arm.  and  the  priest, 
Father  Hennepin,  to  make  further  explorations  of  the  country  in  his  absence. 
Hennepin  was  to  explore  the  upper  Mississippi,  and  Tonti  the  Illinois  country. 
Hennepin  has  always  had  credit  of  being  the  first  white  man  to  explore  the  up- 
per portion  of  the  river.  He  claimed  to  have  gone  up  the  Mississippi  from  the 
mouth  of  the  Illinois  to  the  falls  of  St.  Anthony,  where  St.  Paul  now  stands;  and 
when  he  returned  to  France,  he  published  an  account  of  such  explorations.  But 
the  correctness  of  Father  Hennepin's  story  has  been  disputed  by  the  historian 
Sparks,  who,  after  receiving  the  report  of  Hennepin,  says:  "These  facts,  added 
to  others,  are  perfectly  conclusive,  and  miist  convict  Father  Hennepin  of  having 
palmed  upon  the  world  a  pretended  discovery  and  a  fictitious  narrative." 

Leaving  Father  Hennepin,  and  coming  back  to  his  one-armed  co-laborer, 
Tonti,  we  find  that  the  Illinois  Indians  promptly  banished  him  on  the  departure 
of  La  Salle,  so  that  he  had  to  take  refuge  at  the  old  camp  on  Green  bay. 


22  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTOEY  OF  OREGON 

from  which  point  Tonti  sent  back  to  Canada  a  dismal  report  of  all  his  troubles, 
and  the  destriiction  of  the  fort  at  Peoria,  and  the  probable  death  of  La  Salle  at 
the  hands  of  Indians.  But  La  Salle  was  not  dead.  The  lion-hearted  hero  of 
the  great  American  wilderness  was  alive  and  equal  to  the  great  reverses  of  his 
fortune.  On  reaching  his  old  home  and  establishment  at  Frontenac,  he  found  it 
plundered  and  all  his  property  wrecked,  stolen,  lost  and  ruined.  But  the  daunt- 
less man  refused  to  be  defeated.  To  raise  money  in  a  wilderness  and  outfit  a 
new  expedition  seemed  an  impossibility.  There  are  a  thousand  promoters  of  all 
sorts  of  schemes  in  this  state  today,  where  there  is  fifty  million  dollars  of  money. 
But  if  all  these  thousand  promoters  were  boiled  down  into  one  man  (he)  they 
could  not  do  in  Oregon  what  La  Salle  did  in  the  wilderness  of  Canada  two  hun- 
dred and  thirty  years  ago.  With  his  eloquence  of  speech,  his  courage,  his  desper- 
ate determination  to  succeed  and  his  refusal  to  accept  defeat,  he  gathered  a  new 
party,  of  men,  he  procured  supplies  for  a  year,  he  laid  in  arms  and  ammunition 
to  fight  Indians,  if  fight  he  must,  and  again  sallied  forth  to  claim  and  conquer 
the  mightiest  empire  of  rich  land  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  for  his  God  and  his 
king.     The  grandeur  and  heroism  of  the  man  is  simply  paralj'zing. 

With  his  new  company  of  men  and  ample  supplies,  he  returned,  collected 
together  his  old  men,  went  on  to  Peoria  lake,  to  find  his  fort  destroyed  and 
all  the  Indian  camps  in  ruins,  and  the  ground  covered  with  the  bones  and  corpses 
of  the  slain  Illinois  who  had  been  literally  wiped  out  by  the  merciless  Iroquois. 
Then  La  Salle  constructed  a  barge — not  a  ship  with  sails  as  he  had  told  the  In- 
dians— but  a  barge  like  what  may  be  seen  in  Portland  harbor  loaded  with  wood 
or  ties  today,  and  with  this  comfortably  outfitted,  he  floated  down  the  Illinois 
from  Peoria  lake  to  the  ' '  Father  of  Waters, ' '  and  thence  day  after  day  on  down, 
down,  down,  until  he  came  to  the  point  where  the  great  river  divided  into  three 
branches  to  discharge  its  vast  flood  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  The  party  divided. 
La  Salle  followed  down  the  Western  outlet,  D'Autray  the  East,'  and  Tonti,  the 
Central.  They  came  out  on  the  great  gulf  where  not  a  ship  had  ever  disturbed 
its  waters,  and  where  there  was  no  sign  of  life.  The  three  parties  assembled,  and 
re-united,  proceeded  to  make  formal  proclamation,  April  9,  1682,  of  the  right  of 
discovery  of  all  the  lands  drained  by  the  mighty  river,  and  the  ownership  of  the 
same  by  the  king  of  France.  They  erected  a  cross  as  a  signal  that  the  country 
was  devoted  to  the  religion  of  the  Holy  Roman  Catholic  church;  and  buried  a 
tablet  of  lead  with  the  arm^s  of  France,  and  erected  a  slab  on  which  were  en- 
graved the  arms  of  France  and  the  inscription:  Louis  Le  Grande,  Roy  De 
France  Et  De  Navarre,  Regne;  Le  Neuvieme,  Avril,  1682. 

The  Frenchmen  fired  a  volley,  sang  the  Te  Deum  and  then  La  Salle  raised  his 
sword  and  in  the  name  of  his  king,  claimed  all  the  territory  drained  by  the  Mis- 
sissippi. A  region  "watered  by  1,000  rivers  and  ranged  by  1,000  warlike  tribes; 
an  empire  greater  than  all  Europe,  passed  that  day  beneath  the  sceptre  of  the 
king  of  France  by  this  feeble  act  of  one  man."  And  now  we  can  see  on  what 
slight  and  trivial  circumstances  the  titles  to  continental  empires  of  land  turned 
in  the  easy-going  times  230  years  ago.  When  Columbus  discovered  America, 
Pope  Alexander  VI.,  of  bad  repute,  gave  the  whole  of  it  to  Spain,  and  that  dis- 
position of  the  continent  was  acquiesced  in  for  a  long  time.  When  Hernando 
De  Soto  discovered  the  Mississippi  river  in  1539,  he  claimed  the  river  and  all 
the  regions  that  it  drained  for  the  king  of  Spain.     How  the  Holy  Father  ever 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  23 

settled  the  matter  between  (he  two  loyal  Catiiolic  nations  has  prol)al)ly  never 
been  ascertained. 

The  sad  fate  of  so  great  a  man  as  La  Salle  slionld  not  be  omitted  from  tliis 
record.  Gathering  up  his  i'oUowers,  being  unable  to  take  his  barge  back,  he 
turned  his  canoes  up-stream  and  i'or  many  months  paddled  his  way  back,  stop- 
ping to  build  a  fort  at  where  the  city  of  St.  Louis  now  stands,  and  organizing  the 
Illinois  Indians  into  an  effective  force  to  withstand  the  attacks  of  the  Iroquois 
and  hold  the  country  for  France.  Of  all  the  explorers  of  the  west,  La  Salle  seems 
to  have  been  the  only  man  who  appreciated  or  tried  to  organize  and  utilize  the 
natives  in  reclaiming  the  wilderness  for  the  purposes  of  civilization. 

After  thus  rapidly  bringing  the  Illinois  Indians  to  his  support  and  the  de- 
fence of  the  interests  of  Prance,  he  returned  to  Canada  to  find  his  friend  and 
supporter.  Governor  Frontenac,  recalled  to  France  and  the  weak  and  foolish 
old  man,  La  Barre,  in  his  place.  And  this  man,  wholly  unable  to  comprehend 
the  great  work  La  Salle  had  accomplished,  treated  him  with  cruel  ingrati- 
tude, denouncing  him  as  an  impostor.  He  ridiculed  the  explorer's  story  of  his 
explorations  as  a  base  fiction,  saying  the  country  was  utterly  worthless  even  if 
he  had  found  such  a  country.  Stung  with  mortification  and  exasperated  by  in- 
sult, La  Salle  at  once  sailed  for  France  to  lay  his  case  before  the  king  in  person. 
The  king  met  La  Salle  for  the  first  time,  and  the  great  explorer  made  the  speech 
of  his  life,  detailing  with  a  passionate  eloquence  the  grandeur  of  the  great  river, 
the  beauty  of  the  great  countries  it  passed  through,  the  value  of  the  forests,  and 
the  future  of  its  commerce,  and  captured  the  king  and  court  of  what  was  then 
the  most  powerful  government  on  the  earth.  Too  much  could  not  be  done  for 
him.  WTiat  did  he  want?  He  should  have  anything  he  asked  for.  He  asked 
for  ships  and  men  to  found  a  colony  at  the  mouth  of  the  great  river.  They 
were  granted.  The  ships,  the  men,  and  women  with  them.  The  ships  were 
good  enough,  but  their  commander  turned  traitor  to  La  Salle  and  the  colonists 
to  found  a  new  state  were  the  scum  of  all  France.  They  sailed  for  the  Missis- 
sippi, but  on  the  way  the  Spanish  captured  one  of  the  ships  and  the  other 
missed  the  mouth  of  the  great  river  and  landed  at  Matagorda  bay  in  the  terri- 
tory of  what  is  now  Texas.  The  ships  sailed  away  leaving  La  Salle  and  his 
worthless  colonists.  They  started  a  settlement  where  the  town  of  Lavaca  now 
stands.  Sickness  broke  out  among  them,  and  they  died  off  like  sheep.  Of  the 
one  hundred  and  eighty  men  and  women  who  landed  from  the  ship,  one  hundred 
and  thirty-five  perished  within  six  months.  La  Salle  made  two  efforts  to  get 
away  from  the  doomed  settlement  and  find  the  Mississippi,  but  failed.  Then 
made  a  third  attempt  and  got  as  far  as  the  Teche  river  in  what  is  now  St.  Lan- 
dry county  in  the  state  of  Louisiana,  where  he  was  brutally  murdered  by  the 
mutiny  and  treason  of  three  of  his  men,  shooting  him  from  ambush.  And  the 
murderers,  quarreling  over  the  spoils  of  their  leader,  hastily  suffered  the  same 
retributive  fate  at  the  hands  of  their  associates;  while  one  Jontel,  the  narrator 
of  these  bloody  deeds,  and  only  five  others  of  all  that  ship's  load  of  people,  ever 
lived  to  reach  the  great  river.  La  Salle  was  killed  on  the  19th  of  March,  1687. 
And  the  good  priest,  Antase,  who  had  faithfully  followed  to  the  last  sad  end, 
dug  his  grave,  bui'ied  him,  and  erected  a  cross  over  the  remains  of  the  greatest 
land  explorer  the  world  ever  saw,  at  the  place  where  the  town  of  Washington, 
in  Louisiana,  is  now  located. 


24  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

La  Salle  had  literally  given  his  life  to  his  king,  to  France,  and  to  the  ex- 
tension of  the  Catholic  religion.  According  to  the  supposed  law  of  nations  two 
hundred  years  ago,  La  Salle  had  given  France  a  good  title  to  all  the  lands 
drained  by  the  Mississippi  river.  And  as  it  turned  out  in  the  current  of  his- 
torical and  political  events,  that  title  was  made  good  to  France  by  the  subse- 
quent action  of  President  Thomas  Jeiferson;  thus  showing  what  a  great  work 
and  a  great  gift  La  Salle  had  conferred  on  his  country.  From  that  territory, 
and  founded  upon  the  title  which  the  acts  and  labors  of  La  Salle  had  given  to 
France,  and  for  which  the  United  States  paid  France  fifteen  million  dollars 
more  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  the  following  American  states  have  been  peopled 
and  organized:  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  Missouri,  Iowa,  Minnesota,  Kansas,  Ne- 
braska, Wyoming,  North  Dakota,  South  Dakota,  Oklahoma,  Indian  Territory, 
and  parts  of  Montana  and  Colorado. 

But  we  must  not  forget  that  this  was  not  all  of  the  empire  which  the  dis- 
coveries of  La  Salle  conferred  on  France.  La  Salle  had  claimed  all  the  lands 
drained  by  the  Mississippi.  In  addition  to  the  states  named  above,  this  claim 
covered  Illinois,  Michigan,  Indiana,  Ohio,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  parts  of 
Wisconsin,  Virginia,  Pennsylvania  and  Mississippi.  France  had  already 
claimed  the  whole  of  lower  and  upper  Canada,  and  for  two  hundred  and  thirty 
years,  running  from  1524  down  to  1760,  had  held  exclusive  possession  of  the 
same,  and  from  La  Salle's  advent  on  the  Mississippi,  had  held  a  like  exclusive 
possession  of  the  whole  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  for  more  than  seventy  years. 

The  relation  and  connection  of  this  state  of  Oregon  with  this  chapter  of  the 
life  of  the  great  La  Salle  consists  of  the  influence  which  the  acts  of  the  explorer 
gave  to  the  extension  of  American  settlements  and  exploration  towards  the  Pa- 
cific Northwest.  It  may  be  adverted  to  now,  and  enlarged  upon  hereafter,  that 
the  French  nation  and  the  French  people  have  always  been,  whenever  occasion 
offered,  friends  of  American  ideas  and  institutions  on  the  American  continent 
as  against  other  nations.  And  this  friendship  has  more  than  once  been  effective 
to  confer  great  benefits  not  only  on  the  United  States,  but  also  on  the  people  of 
Oregon. 

In  1753,  England,  by  virtue  of  the  possession  of  the  colonies  on  the  Atlantic 
coast,  and  especially  the  colony  of  Virginia,  put  forth  a  claim  to  all  the  ter- 
ritoj'y  west  of  Virginia.  The  first  public  assertion  of  this  claim  by  England  was 
when  Dinwiddle,  colonial  governor  of  Virginia,  on  the  30th  of  October,  1753, 
sent  a  young  man  named  George  Washington  over  the  Alleghany  mountains,  to 
the  forks  of  the  Ohio  to  find  out  what  the  French  were  doing  in  that  region. 
Young  Washington,  then  only  twenty-two  years  of  age,  took  along  with  him 
an  old  soldier  that  could  speak  French,  engaged  a  pioneer  guide  and  struck  out 
into  the  vast  wilderness.  Reaching  an  Indian  camp  twenty  miles  below  where 
the  city  of  Pittsburg  now  stands,  he  held  a  pow-wow  with  the  red  men,  and 
they  furnished  him  an  escort  and  guides  to  go  up  the  Alleghany  river  and  find 
the  Frenchmen.  This  was  then  in  the  middle  of  a  bad  winter.  But  nothing 
could  stop  Washington.  He  found  the  French  prepared  to  hold  the  country 
by  military  force  if  necessary.  He  got  their  reply  to  Dinwiddle's  letter,  and 
returned  to  Williamsburgh,  the  then  capital  of  Virginia.  Washington  Irving 
has  drawn  out  the  story  of  this  first  expedition  of  George  Washine;ton  in  his 
unsurpassed  style  and  adds:    "This  expedition  may  be  considered  the  founda- 


w  11. 1. 1  \\l    I  I    \l:!, 
(U  tlii>  L<-ui.4  anil  Clark   Kx|M'ilitiiin 


TlIK  CEXTKNNlAIj  IIISTOUV   OF  OREGON  2;') 

don  of  WasliiiiS'toirs  rortiiiU'S;  from  that  iiioiiiciit  lie  was  the  rising  liopc  of 
Virginia." 

To  make  a  long'  story  siiort,  tiiis  was  the  chalh'nge  to  b'rance,  and  tiie  jire- 
hule  to  the  war  which  raged  for  six  years  on  Anieriean  soil  to  decide  whether 
France  with  the  Catholic  or  England  with  the  Protestant  Episcoi)al  faith  should 
rule  America.  It  is  one  of  the  remarkable  things  of  history  that  tliis  war  so  de- 
cisive and  far-reaching  in  its  results  should  have  been  begun  under  the  leader- 
ship of  this  young  Virginian  surveyor;  and  that  it  hardly  had  been  closed  by 
a  treaty  which  gave  nearly  all  of  America  to  the  English,  until  the  colonies 
themselves,  under  the  leadership  of  this  same  Virginian  surveyor,  should  have 
disputed  the  rights  of  England  and  successfully  made  good  their  claim  by  a 
subsequent  treaty  which  gave  to  Washington's  work  nearly  everything  the 
English  had  wrested  from  the  French,  and  thus  verifying  the  prophecy  of  the 
French  statesman.  Count  Vergennes,  "The  colonies  (said  he)  will  no  longer 
need  the  protection  of  the  English ;  England  will  call  on  them  to  contribute 
toward  supporting  the  burdens  they  have  helped  to  bring  on  her,  and  they  will 
answer  by  striking  for  independence." 

B.y  the  treaty  of  Paris,  made  February  10,  1763,  the  whole  of  upper  and 
lower  Canada  and  all  of  Louisiana  claimed  by  La  Salle,  east  of  the  Mississippi 
river  liad  been  ceded  to  England,  and  the  island  and  city  of  New  Orleans  and 
all  of  Louisiana  west  of  the  ]\Iississippi  had  been  ceded  to  Spain.  By  this  treaty 
French  rule  disappeared  from  America,  but  French  influence  remained  active 
by  fomenting  discord  between  the  colonies  and  England. 

LAND  EXPLORATIONS  TOWARDS  OREGON — JONATHAN    CARVER,   FIRST,    1766 

Having  thus  traced  out  the  impulse  given  to  the  exploration  of  the  west  by 
the  French,  we  turn  to  the  American  colonies  and  find  that  no  sooner  than  the 
treaty  of  Paris  had  been  signed,  that  the  hardy  pioneers  of  the  border  poured 
over  the  Alleghany  mountains  into  western  Pennsylvania,  western  Virginia, 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  The  only  Englishman  we  find  in  this  flood  of  immi- 
gration is  Jonathan  Carver,  born  in  Connecticut,  who  left  Boston  in  June,  1766, 
intending  to  penetrate  the  western  wilderness  to  the  head  of  the  Mississippi  river. 
It  is  true  there  are  many  accounts  of  explorations  to  the  far  west  which  do  not 
give  any  certain  information,  and  which  have  a  flavor  of  mystery  if  not  fiction, 
but  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  notice  here.  Carver's  trip  to  the  headwaters  of 
the  Mississippi  is  a  veritable  historical  fact,  and  for  many  rea.sons,  is  of  very  great 
importance  in  any  history  of  Oregon  or  the  North  Pacific.  Carver  was  a  captain 
in  the  British  provincial  army,  and  from  necessity  a  man  of  education  and  ability 
to  comprehend  the  facts  coming  under  his  observance.  His  exploration  extended 
to  a  point  about  fifty  miles  west  of  where  the  city  of  St.  Paul  stands.  Here  he 
met  the  Dacotah  Indians,  and  lived  with  them  for  seven  months,  studying  their 
language  and  learning  all  he  could  from  them  about  the  country  to  the  west- 
ward. These  Indians  drew  maps  for  him  as  best  they  could  on  bircli  bark, 
which,  though  meagre  and  rude  in  drawing.  Carver  found  to  be  correct  when 
he  had  an  opportunity  to  explore  for  himself.  These  Indians  told  Carver  of  the 
Rocky  mountains;  pointed  to  their  location  farther  west,  telling  him  they  were 
the  highest  land  in  all  the  world  they  knew,  and  told  him  that  four  great  rivers 


26  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

ran  down  from  these  mountains  in  every  direction.  Tliis  was  true.  From  tlieir 
description,  Carver  made  a  map  which  we  insert  in  this  book.  On  this  map 
Carver  shows  our  Columbia  as  the  River  of  the  West,  although  the  natives 
gave  him  the  name  of  Oregon  in  connection  with  the  country  or  the  river,  and  it 
is  not  certain  which.  But  it  was  from  these  Dacotah  Indians,  and  through 
Carver,  we  get  the  word  Oregon  as  the  name  of  the  Old  Oregon  Country,  and 
the  name  of  our  state.  Gallons  of  ink  and  reams  of  paper  have  been  wasted 
in  trying  to  solve  the  origin  and  mystery  of  this  name ;  and  still  it  goes  back 
to  those  unlettered  sons  of  the  forest.  Carver  undoubtedly  tried  his  best  to 
catch  their  meaning,  and  the  true  name  of  everything,  and  it  is  very  probable 
that  he  did,  for  he  was  with  them  for  seven  months,  and  certainly  had  their 
utmost  trust  and  confidence.  It  must  be  accepted  as  a  mere  designation,  name 
of  a  place  or  country  without  any  known  reason  or  signification  for  it,  just  as 
thousands  of  other  places  have  names  without  rhyme  or  reason. 

Carver's  idea  in  this  exploration,  besides  studying  the  Indians,  was  to  cross 
the  continent  and  ascertain  its  breadth  from  east  to  west  between  the  forty- 
third  and  fortj'-sixth  parallels  of  latitude,  after  which  he  intended  to  have  the 
British  government  establish  a  post  somewhere  on  the  straits  of  Anian.  In  his 
first  expedition  with  promised  support,  the  supplies  never  reached  him;  and 
when  afterwards  he  revived  the  scheme  with  a  wealthy  member  of  the  British 
parliament,  their  plans  were  iipset  by  the  breaking  out  of  the  American  rebel- 
lion and  the  war  for  independence.  The  British  government  had  sanctioned 
the  Carver  plan  which  was  to  take  fifty  men  to  ascend  the  Missouri  river  to  its 
headwaters,  cross  over  the  Rocky  mountain  divide  and  then  descend  the  River 
of  the  West  to  the  Pacific  ocean,  and  build  a  fort  at  some  strategic  point.  And 
it  is  perfectly  clear  from  this  chapter  of  Carver's  report  that  the  British  did  not 
intend  to  respect  the  rights  of  Spain  under  the  treaty  of  Paris  to  the  country 
west  of  the  Mississippi.  England  was  even  then,  within  three  years  after  sign- 
ing the  treaty  of  Paris,  making  plans  and  taking  steps  to  drive  Spain  out  of  her 
possessions  west  of  the  Mississippi,  just  as  they  had  driven  Prance  out  of  Can- 
ada. But  now  they  were  counting  without  their  host.  In  driving  France  out 
of  Canada,  they  had  Washington  and  the  colonists  to  help ;  but  now  they  were 
to  have  Washington  and  the  colonists  to  oppose  them. 

We  cannot  realize  that  at  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  interior 
of  the  North  American  continent,  now  so  familiar  to  every  reader  of  public 
journals,  was  less  known  to  the  world  than  is  the  heart  of  Africa  today.  French 
fur  traders  had  penetrated  its  wilderness  depths  to  the  base  of  the  Rocky  moun- 
tains; but  what  they  found,  or  what  they  knew,  they  jealously  kept  to  them- 
selves, so  that  there  could  be  no  inducement  to  other  venturesome  spirits  to  go 
searching  for  peltries  and  poaching  on  their  preserves.  In  addition  to  this 
trade  reason,  they  had  been  able  to  make  doubly  sure  the  silence  of  the  Indian, 
as  to  what  the  rivers  and  forests  contained.  Of  all  the  people  brought  in  con- 
tact with  the  American  Indian,  the  French  were  the  most  successful  in  getting 
and  holding  his  good  will. 

Indians  had  no  doubt  crossed  the  continent  from  the  Ohio  river  to  the  Pa- 
cific ocean.  M.  La  Page  du  Pratz,  in  his  history  of  Louisiana,  gives  a  long  ac- 
count of  an  Indian  having  become  endued  with  a  burning  desire  to  find  oiit 
whence    came    the    American    Indians,    crossed    the    continent    from    Natchez 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  27 

on  the  Mississippi  to  the  Pacific  oc-ciin  and  then  returned.  And  there  may  have 
been  others.  We  have  authentic  histoiy  to  prove  that  Sacajawea  (the  bird- 
woman  of  the  Lewis  and  Chirk  expedition)  eros.sed  the  mountains  from  the 
valley  of  the  Snake  river  to  the  Mississippi,  ami  remembered  the  country  well 
enough  to  guide  that  expodilioii  b;ii-k  over  the  same  I'diitc  Hut  explorations  of 
this  kind  prove  nothing  to  nur  [mrpose — the  dcvcl(i|iiiiciit  (if  the  country. 

ALEXANDER  MACKENZIE,    ITJ'S 

We  now  come  to  the  first  white  man  that  ever  crossed  the  Rocky  mountains 
from  the  east  to  the  west  for  a  great  purpose,  and  set  foot  on  the  shores  of  the 
Pacific  ocean.  He  was  neither  French,  English  nor  American — but  Scotch,  and 
Alexander  Mackenzie  was  his  name.  He  was  a  native  of  Inverness,  knighted 
by  George  III.  for  distinguished  services,  migrated  to  Canada,  and  entered  the 
service  of  a  fur  trader  in  the  year  1779,  while  yet  a  young  man,  and  while  the 
British  were  in  the  midst  of  their  fight  with  Washington  and  his  rebels.  This 
Scotchman  possessed  every  qualification  to  make  him  a  successful  leader  and 
governor  of  men;  a  fine  mind,  clear  head,  strong,  muscular  body,  lithe  and  ac- 
tive, great  resolution,  invincible  courage,  tireless  and  patient  energy,  with  the 
capacity  to  comprehend  and  manage  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  Remaining 
in  the  fur  trade  for  five  years  as  a  hired  man,  saving  his  wages,  and,  biding  his 
time,  he  cut  loose  for  himself,  and  became  a  partner  in  the  great  Northwest 
Company,  which  to  distinguish  it  from  others,  was  known  as  the  Canada  com- 
pany, for  many  years  the  most  prosperous  and  aggressive  of  all  the  fur  traders. 

The  great  interior  of  northwest  America  was  at  that  time  but  little  known. 
In  fact,  nothing  was  known  of  this  vast  region  beyond  the  incomprehensible 
accounts  of  roving  Indians  and  the  meagre  reports  of  adventuresome  trappers. 
It  was  just  such  a  state  of  incomprehension  and  imperfect  knowledge  of  a  vast 
country  filled  with  great  riches,  as  appealed  to  the  keen  apprehension  and  pro- 
found mind  of  Alexander  Mackenzie,  and  he  resolved  to  find  out  the  great 
secrets  which  the  boundless  forests  beyond  Canada  contained.  To  prepare  him- 
self for  this  self-appointed  task,  he  studied  astronomy  enough  to  find  his  way 
in  untraveled  regions  by  the  guidance  of  the  stars,  and  to  take  care  of  himself 
and  men  in  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  circumstances  in  distant  explorations 
by  land. 

The  trappers  and  fur  traders  had  gradually  worked  west  and  north  from 
the  upper  end  of  Lake  Superior  until  they  had  reached  the  western  end  of  Lake 
Athabasca,  where  Peace  river,  coming  west  from  an  opening  in  the  Rocky  moun- 
tains, discharges  its  waters  into  channels  which  carry  it  to  the  Arctic  ocean. 
Mackenzie  knew  that  up  to  that  point,  clear  back  to  the  Mississippi,  there  was 
no  Strait  of  Anian,  or  water  course  from  the  east  side  of  the  Rocky  mountains 
to  the  Pacific  ocean,  and  that  if  he  would  follow  that  water,  then  running  due 
north,  it  would  take  hira  either  into  the  great  frozen  sea  of  the  north,  in  which 
ease  he  would  find  tlie  Strait  of  Anian  if  there  was  one,  or  the  water  would  turn 
west  at  some  point  short  of  the  Arctic  sea,  and  carry  him  to  the  Pacific.  So,  that 
with  a  birch  bark  canoe,  four  Canadians  (two  with  their  wives)  and  two  smaller 
canoes  with  English  Chief,  an  Indian,  and  his  family,  and  followers  of  Mac- 
kenzie, set  out  on  June  3,  1789,  to  float  down  with  the  current  of  Great  Slave 


28  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

river  into  Great  Slave  lake,  and  thence  on  down,  down,  north,  wherever  the 
waters  took  them,  until  they  had  solved  the  great  mystery  of  the  unknown  Arc- 
tie.  Passing  from  one  lake  to  another,  hunting,  fishing,  trapping  as  they  went, 
the  adventurous  party  finally  in  the  month  of  July,  found  themselves  in  the 
Arctic  ocean,  where  they  chased  the  whales  and  paddled  around  miles  and 
miles  of  icebergs,  iinder  a  starless  sky,  and  a  never  setting  summer  sun.  This 
expedition  was  one  of  the  most  important  in  the  annals  of  discovery.  Mac- 
kenzie had  proved  the  non-existence  of  the  Strait  of  Anian,  and  established 
the  fact  for  all  time  that  no  such  passageway  across  the  continent  existed,  and 
found  that  the  watershed  to  the  north  was  wholly  separate  from  the  waterished 
to  the  west.  They  had  suffered  no  hardships  or  hairbreadth  escapes,  and  they 
found  a  great  waterway  to  the  north  in  the  same  month  that  Captain  Robert 
Gray  had  sailed  through  the  Straits  of  Fuca  for  the  first  time,  two  thousand 
miles'  to  the  southwest. 

After  an  absence  of  one  hundred  days,  Mackenzie  returned  with  his  party 
to  his  starting  point,  loaded  with  fine  furs  and  having  found  both  coal  and  iron 
ore  at  Great  Bear  Lake.  Mackenzie  was  not  satisfied  with  his  first  venture, 
regarding  as  something  of  a  failure  that  which  was  in  fact  a  great  success.  He 
had  penetrated  the  mystery  to  the  north,  and  put  an  end  to  the  quest  for  the 
Strait  of  Anian  which  the  sea  captains  had  believed  in  and  vainly  sought  to  find 
for  nearly  three  hundred  years.  It  was  one  more  dark  corner  of  the  mystery 
which  enshrouded  the  Oregon  country  cleared  up.  And  we  see  how  the  enlight- 
ening agencies  of  exploration  and  discovery  were  gradually  creeping  in  on  the 
core  of  the  mysterious  region,  "Where  rolls  the  Oregon." 

But  Mackenzie  was  not  satisfied.  Such  a  man  is  never  satisfied  as  long  as 
there  are  other  regions  to  explore  and  other  obstacles  to  overcome,  and  other 
duties  to  be  performed.  Three  years  after  this  trip  to  the  north  we  find  him 
again  at  the  old  starting  point  at  the  mouth  of  Peace  river.  But  this  time  in- 
stead of  floating  down  with  the  water,  he  resolved  to  go  up  stream,  follow  the 
river  to  its  fountainhead  and  find,  if  possible,  a  pass  through  the  Rocky  moun- 
tains, and  a  stream  on  the  west  side  that  would  carry  him  down  to  the  Pacific 
ocean  as  had  Peace  river  and  his  own  Mackenzie  carried  him  to  the  Arctic 
ocean.  And  so  on  the  10th  day  of  October,  1792,  five  months  after  Captain 
Gray  had  found  and  entered  the  Columbia  river.  Mackenzie  starts  westward 
for  an  exploration  to  find  this  river.  In  ten  days  Mackenzie  had  reached  the 
most  western  post  of  the  Northwest  Company  at  the  base  of  the  Rocky 
mountains.  Here  the  natives  and  trappers  received  their  big  chief  with  great 
eclat  amidst  the  firing  of  guns  and  general  rejoicing  of  the  people ;  and  many 
was  the  bottle  of  good  old  Scotch  emptied  on  that  auspicious  occasion.  There 
were  three  hundred  natives  and  sixty  professional  trappers  and  hunters  congre- 
gated there.  Mackenzie  not  only  treated  them  liberally  to  rum  and  tobacco, 
but  he  preached  them  a  good  sermon  as  to  the  proper  manner  they  should  de- 
mean themselves  for  their  own  good  and  that  of  the  white  man.  From  this 
point  Mackenzie  kept  on  west  for  sixty  miles  until  he  reached  the  point  named 
Fort  York,  and  to  which  men  had  been  sent  the  previous  sprina;  to  prepare  the 
ground  and  timbers  for  a  new  post,  which  was  to  be  their  winter  quarters  previous 
to  their  last  plunge  into  the  wilderness  over  the  mountains  and  down  to  the  Pa- 
cific ocean  the  next  spring.    This  Fort  York  came  to  be  called  York  factory  un- 


PATRICK  GASS  OF  THE  LEWIS  AND  CLARK  EXPEDITION 


pfm. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  29 

der  the  Iludsou's  Ba^^  Company  ownership,  and  rroni  which  point  all  the  travel, 
messengers  and  olfteers  as  well  as  employes  of  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company,  came 
over  the  mountains  on  their  way  to  Vancouver  on  the  Columbia.  Ebberts  was 
an  American  independent  trapper,  and  Otchin,  Baldra,  and  all  the  old  Hud- 
son's Bay  men  of  Washington  county,  Oregon,  were  perfectly  familiar  with 
that  route  and  could  give  many  interesting  tales  of  its  surprises  and  dangers. 

Here  ilackeuzie  put  in  the  winter  of  1792-3,  and  by  spring  had  all  things 
in  readiness  for  the  final  advance  to  the  Pacific.  With  one  canoe,  twenty-five 
feet  long,  four  and  three-quarters  feet  beam,  and  twenty-six  inches  hold,  seven 
white  men  and  two  Indian  hunters  and  interpreters  with  arms,  ammunition, 
provisions  and  goods  for  presents  weighing  in  all  about  three  thousand  pounds, 
these  explorers  started  for  the  Pacific  ocean  on  mountain  streams.  The  canoe 
was  so  perfectly  made,  and  so  light  that  two  men  could  carry  it  over  portages 
for  miles  at  a  time  without  stopping  to  rest.  Where  is  the  white  man  boat 
builder  that  could  equal  that  canoe  carved  out  of  a  great  cedar  tree  by  the  un- 
tutored red  men? 

On  the  9th  of  May,  1793,  the  little  party  left  Fort  York,  pointed  their  little 
vessel  up  stream  and  was  off  for  the  great  Pacific.  Before  them  everything  was 
in  its  native  wildness;  unpolluted  streams,  untouched  forests,  and  verdant 
prairies  covered  with  buffalo,  elk,  deer  and  antelope.  Nothing  could  have  been 
more  exciting  or  entrancing  to  these  lovers  of  the  woods  and  waters  of 
our  primeval  forests.  With  paddle  and  pole  they  propelled  their  craft  up  the 
swift  flowing  mountain  stream  day  by  day  against  every  manner  of  obstruction 
and  difficulties.  Rocks  beset  their  way  on  every  side,  beavers  dammed  the 
streams,  perpendicular  cliffs  and  impassable  cataracts  compelled  them  to  take 
boat,  provisions  and  everything  from  the  stream  and  carry  all  around  obstruc- 
tions for  miles,  to  gain  calm  water  on  upper  levels.  Rain  and  thunder  storms 
were  frequent  and  the  men  worn  out  by  unexpected  and  exhaustive  toils, 
openly  cursed  the  expedition  with  all  the  anathemas  of  the  whole  army  in  Flan- 
ders or  any  other  place.  But  the  great  soul  of  Mackenzie  was  unmoved.  He 
reminded  them  of  the  promise  to  be  faithful  and  remain  with  him  to  the  end. 
He  patiently  painted  in  glowing  colors  the  glory  of  their  success — and  he 
opened  a  fresh  bottle  and  all  went  merry  again,  merry  as  wedding  bells. 

On  the  9th  of  June  they  were  nearing  the  broad,  flat  top  of  the  Rocky  moun- 
tains in  that  latitude.  They  were  short  of  provisions,  and  had  to  eat  porcupine 
steaks  and  <vild  parsnip  salads  or  starve.  Here  they  found  a  tribe  of  wild  In- 
dians who  had  never  seen  white  men  before.  They  were  now  surely  beyond  the 
limits  of  all  previous  explorations.  Assured  at  length  of  the  peaceful  intentions 
of  the  explorers,  the  Indians  ventured  near  enough  to  talk  to  the  interpreters. 
They  exhibited  scraps  of  iron,  and  pointed  to  the  west.  Further  efforts  elic- 
ited from  them  the  fact  that  their  iron  had  been  purchased  from  Indians  farther 
west  who  lived  on  a  great  river,  and  who  had  obtained  the  iron  from  people 
who  lived  in  houses  on  the  great  sea — white  men  like  these — and  who  got  the 
iron  from  ships  large  as  islands  that  come  in  the  sea.  And  now  we  see  these 
children  of  the  forest  beset  by  the  white  men  behind  and  before,  and  there  is 
no  longer  any  secret  the  white  man  does  not  find  out,  and  the  fateful  terrors 
of  these  white  men  have  followed  them  to  their  land-locked  mountain  retreat. 
Terror  as  it  was  to  the  Indian,  it  was  a  god-send  to  Mackenzie.     He  could  now. 


30  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

from  these  incoherent  descriptions  of  places,  rivers,  mountains  and  marshes, 
reckon  that  he  could  reach  the  great  river,  which  he  at  once  supposed  to  be 
Carver's  Oregon,  in  ten  or  twelve  days,  and  from  the  great  river  reach  the  sea 
coast  in  a  month.  Mackenzie  got  the  Indian  that  told  him  the  story  to  draw 
a  map  on  a  piece  of  birch  bark,  which  proved  to  be  a  very  good  map  of  the  region 
to  be  traversed.  The  Indian  made  the  river  run  into  an  arm  of  the  sea,  and  not 
into  the  great  ocean.  Mackenzie  was  sure  the  Indian  was  either  mistaken  or 
deceiving  him.  But  he  was  doing  neither.  Mackenzie  did  not  know  of  the  ex- 
istence of  Eraser  river.  He  did  not  know  of  Gray 's  discovery  of  the  Columbia, 
but  he  did  know  of  Carver's  reported  account  of  the  "Oregon  River  of  the 
West,"  running  directly  into  the  ocean,  and  this  was  the  only  great  river  he 
supposed  could  exist  on  the  west  slope  of  the  Rocky  mountains.  He  recalled 
Carver's  statement  that  he  had  ''learned  that  the  foremost  capital  rivers  on 
the  continent  of  North  America,  viz.  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  Mississippi,  the 
river  Bourbon  and  the  Oregon  or  the  River  of  the  West  have  their  sources  in 
the  same  neighborhood.  The  waters  of  the  three  former  are  Avithin  thirty 
miles  of  each  other ;  the  latter,  however,  is  rather  further  west. ' '  And  thus  from 
these  mere  glimmerings  of  geography  assuming  what  from  this  "Height  of 
Land"  flowed  four  great  rivers,  one  the  Mississippi  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
another  south  into  the  California  sea,  another  north  into  the  icy  sea,  and  the 
fourth  west  into  the  Pacific.  Mackenzie  had  been  down  the  north  river  to  the 
icy  sea,  and  he  was  sure  he  would  now  go  west  to  the  "Oregon  River,"  and 
find  his  Indian  map-maker  mistaken. 

On  the  12th  of  June,  1793,  MacKenzie  crossed  the  narrow  divide  of  the 
Rocky  mountains  and  found  it  only  eight  hundred  and  seventeen  paces  (about 
half  a  mile)  between  the  head  waters  of  Peace  river  and  the  head  waters  of  the 
Eraser.  From  there  on  to  the  Eraser  the  stream  was  a  succession  of  torrents, 
cascades  and  little  lakes,  making  traveling  very  bad.  But  not  a  word  was  said 
about  turning  back.  The  voyagers  had  imbibed  some  of  the  spirit  of  the  in- 
trepid and  irresistible  leader  as  well  as  much  of  the  spirit  they  carefully  packed 
from  one  portage  to  another  as  a  most  precious  treasure ;  and  on  the  17th  day 
of  June,  1793,  after  cutting  a  passage  through  driftwood  and  underbrush  for 
a  mile,  and  dragging  their  canoe  and  goods  through  a  swamp,  they  landed  on 
the  margin  of  the  Eraser  river  of  British  Columbia.  Simon  Eraser,  for  whom 
the  river  was  named,  after  this  route  had  been  opened  by  Mackenzie,  after- 
wards passed  over  it  and  pronounced  it  the  worst  piece  of  forest*  traveling  in 
North  America.  We  here  include  a  copy  of  the  map  the  explorer  made  of  this 
region,  which  not  only  shows  by  the  dotted  line  his  course  from  the  Eraser  river 
across  to  Salmon  bay  on  the  Straits  of  Georgia,  but  shows  that  Mackenzie  did 
not  follow  the  Eraser  to  its  mouth  in  the  Straits  of  Georgia  or  he  would  not 
have  dotted  in  the  lower  course  of  the  river  as  entering  the  ocean  down  by  our 
Saddle  mountain  near  Astoria.  But  this  mistake,  arising  wholly  from  making 
a  short  cut  across  the  land  to  the  ocean  instead  of  following  the  river  to  its 
mouth,  was  confirmed  by  Lewis  and  Clark,  who  also  supposed  that  Mackenzie 
had  been- upon  the  upper  waters  of  the  Columbia.  Simon  Eraser  made  the 
same  mistake  when  he  saw  the  Eraser,  and  remained  thus  mistaken  until  1808, 
when  he  followed  the  river  down  to  its  mouth  in  the  Straits  of  Georgia,  three 
hundred  miles  north  of  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia. 


TtlE  CENTKNNTAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  31 

To  ooiifhide  the  narrative  oi  Mackenzie's  expedition  across  the  Reeky 
iiKiuntains  to  the  Pacific  ocean,  it  is  sufficient  to  add  here  tliat  the  Pacific  ocean 
water  wliich  Mackenzie  did  reach  is  now  known  as  "Bentinck  Nortli  Arm,"  an 
inlet  from  the  ocean  into  which  the  Belhi  Coola  river  discharges,  aliout  two 
hundred  miles  north  of  the  international  boundary.  After  exploring  the  coun- 
try sufficient  to  show  that  he  had  in  fact  reached  the  waters  of  the  Pacific  ocean, 
Mackenzie  mixed  some  vermilion  in  melted  grease  and  painted  in  large  letters 
on  the  south  side  of  a  great  roek  under  which  his  party  had  camped,  the  follow- 
ing claim  to  the  country:  "Alexander  Mackenzie,  from  Canada,  by  land,  the 
twenty-second  day  of  July,  one  thousand  seven  hundred  and  ninety -three. " 

LEWIS  AND  CLARK  EXPEDITION,  1804 

At  the  next  session  of  congress  after  the  purchase  of  Louisiana  from  France, 
President  Jefferson  sent  a  confidential  message  to  congress  containing  a  recom- 
mendation for  an  exploring  expedition  to  the  west,  and  congress  promptly 
passed  an  act  providing  the  necessary  funds  to  make  the  exploration.  The  Pres- 
ident lost  no  time  in  organizing  the  expedition  known  in  all  the  histories  as  the 
Lewis  and  Clark  expedition,  appointing  his  private  secretary.  Captain  Meri- 
wether Lewis,  to  the  chief  command  and  Captain  Wm.  Clark,  a  brother  of  Gen- 
eral George  Rogers  Clark,  as  second  in  command.  As  a  matter  of  historical 
fact,  the  President  had  already,  before  he  knew  of  the  signing  of  the  treaty  of 
session  at  Paris,  perfected  arrangements  with  Captain  Lewis  to  go  west  and 
organize  a  strong  party  to  cross  the  continent  to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia 
river.  This  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  Lewis  left  Washington  City  within  four 
days  after  the  news  was  received  by  the  President  that  the  treaty  had  finally 
been  executed.  A  large  part  of  the  year  was  spent  in  making  preparations  for 
the  journey,  and  the  President  was  so  anxious  for  the  safety  and  success  of  the 
men,  that  he  prepai'ed  with  his  own  hands  the  written  instructions  to  show  the 
nature  of  them,  and  the  great  care  the  President  was  taking  to  have  success 
assured,  and  the  natives  treated  with  justice  and  consideration.  "In  all  your 
intercourse  with  the  natives,"  says  Jefferson,  "treat  them  in  the  most  friendly 
and  coneiliatorj'  manner  which  their  own  conduct  will  admit ;  allay  all  jealousies 
as  to  the  object  of  your  journey ;  satisfy  them  of  its  innocence ;  make  them  ac- 
quainted with  the  extent,  position,  character,  peaceable  and  commercial  dispo- 
sitions of  the  United  States ;  of  our  wish  to  be  neighborly,  friendly,  and  useful 
to  them,  and  of  our  disposition  to  hold  commercial  intercourse  with  them,  and 
to  confer  with  them  on  the  point  most  convenient  for  trade  and  the  articles  of 
the  most  desirable  interchange  for  them  and  for  us." 

The  purchase  of  Louisiana  and  the  great  exploring  expedition  which  fol- 
lowed the  purchase  is  unique  and  unexampled  in  the  history  of  mankind.  After 
more  than  a  century  of  enlightenment,  consideration  and  development  of  this 
vast  region,  the  momentous  influences  and  consequences  of  that  great  transac- 
tion are  not  fully  comprehended  to  this  day.  Vast  regions  and  great  nations, 
even  those  with  more  or  less  of  what  we  call  civilization,  have  in  the  history  of 
the  world,  passed  under  the  dominion  of  overwhelming  military  power,  and 
lingered  in  decay  or  gone  down  to  oblivion.  But  here  is  an  empire  of  natural 
wealth  in  a  vast  region  claimed  and  owned  by  the  then  foremost  military  power 


32  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGOlSf 

on  the  globe,  quietly,  speedily  and  with  a  friendly  hand,  passing  over  to  the 
youngest  member  of  the  family  of  nations,  to  be  by  it,  in  its  inexperience  in 
government,  ruled  and  developed  for  the  happiness  and  blessing  of  mankind. 
Not  only  does  this  ruling  military  power  of  the  world,  led  and  ruled  by  the 
most  successful  and  brilliant  soldier  in  the  history  of  mankind,  turn  over  this 
empire  of  rich  territory  to  the  keeping  of  the  young  republic  of  the  west,  but 
a  greater  power  than  the  wealth  and  resources  of  the  land  goes  with  it — the 
power  to  rule  two  great  oceans  and  dictate  the  peace  of  the  world.  Of  the  two 
master  minds  that  wrought  this  great  work,  one  has  been  denounced  as  an  infi- 
del, and  everything  that  was  dangerous  to  the  well-being  of  his  fellowman; 
while  the  other  condemned  throughout  the  world  as  an  unprincipled  adventurer 
to  whom  fickle  fortune  gave  for  an  hour  the  evanescent  glory  of  accidental  suc- 
cess. Shall  we  dare  say  that  these  two  men  did  not  consider  the  welfare  of 
their  fellowman  in  this  great  transaction?  Shall  we  say  they  wrought  wiser 
than  they  knew?  Or  shall  we  concede  that  there  is  a  Divinity  that  shapes 
our  ends? 

So  that  in  tracing  the  steps  of  this  unorthodox  President  in  the  great  task 
of  acquiring  almost  half  the  territory  of  the  United  States,  and  setting  up 
therein  the  ways,  means  and  influences  of  education  and  civilization,  we  may 
form  some  opinion  of  his  real  character  and  great  work.  Neither  President 
Jefferson  nor  anybody  else  outside  of  the  native  Indians  knew  anything  about 
the  vast  region  which  had  been  acquired.  Exploration  of  it  by  competent  ob- 
servers was  necessary  to  find  out  what  the  wilderness  was  worth.  Captains 
Lewis  and  Clark  organized  their  party  of  forty-five  persons  in  the  winter  of 
1803,  and  made  their  start  for  Oregon  in  the  following  spring  of  1804.  There 
were  no  steamboats  in  those  days,  and  the  ascent  of  the  river  from  St.  Louis 
to  the  Mandan  Indian  villages  on  the  Missouri  river,  almost  one  thousand  miles 
as  the  river  runs,  above  St.  Louis,  paddling  and  poling  their  boats  up  stream, 
occupied  nearly  five  months'  time.  Of  course  the  party  stopped  along  ;the 
river  to  hunt  game  for  their  subsistence.  But  as  game  was  everywhere  in 
plenty,  this  could  not  have  delayed  them  very  much,  which  shows  what  a  slow, 
toilsome  undertaking  these  men  had  entered  upon.  And  it  shows  the  vast 
changes  in  the  country  in  a  hundred  years,  where  now  railroad  trains  running 
on  both  sides  of  the  river  will  whisk  the  traveler  over  an  equal  distance  in  one 
day. 

On  this  up-river  trip,  the  volunteer  explorers  from  Ohio  and  Kentucky 
found  many  animals  they  had  never  seen  before.  The  vast  numbers  of  buffalo 
the  antelope,  mule-deer,  coyote,  and  prairie  dog  were  all  new  to  these  men,  and 
excited  the  wonder  of  both  leaders  and  privates.  With  all  the  Indian  tribes 
the  explorers  held  councils,  telling  them  of  the  changes  of  governors,  and  of 
President  Jefferson,  who  was  so  anxious  for  their  welfare.  The  Indians  pro- 
fessed to  be  pleased  with  this  news,  and  as  the  explorers  distributed  gifts,  pur- 
ported to  come  from  the  great  Father  at  Washington,  the  natives  agreed  to 
everything,  as  they  always  did  when  there  was  anything  to  be  had  by  being 
good.  It  is  scarcely  possible  that  the  Indians  at  that  day  had  any  idea  of  a 
government,  or  the  exercise  of  control  by  one  man  over  a  vast  population,  trav- 
eling as  they  did  wherever  they  pleased. 

As  the  cold  weather  of  the  approaching  winter  came  on  the  party  concluded 


[the  i^^- 

PUBLiC 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  ?« 

to  stop  at  the  Mantlaii  villages  aod  prepare  for  liousiiiji  ui)  until  the  spring  of 
1805,  aud  here  they  built  log  huts  and  the  usual  stockade  familiar  to  the  pio- 
neers of  the  Indian  country  in  the  west,  and  which  they  named  Fort  Mandan. 
The  Mandans  proved  to  be  good  neighbors,  and  not  only  helped  provide  game 
for  the  party,  but  invited  them  to  their  dances,  which  were  numerous,  fantastic 
and  devoid  of  lady  partners.  Game  had  to  be  hunted,  and  generally  supplies 
could  be  had  within  a  day's  pony  ride,  but  sometimes  the  men  had  to  go  out 
fo]>several  days  at  a  time ;  but  in  all  their  hunting  forays  were  never  molested 
by  the  llandan  Indians.  Their  journals  show  that  in  one  of  these  hunting  ex- 
cursions the.y  killed  thirty-two  deer,  eleven  elk  and  a  buffalo ;  on  another  hunt 
they  killed  forty  deer,  sixteen  elk  and  a  buffalo ;  showing  that  for  winter  quar- 
ters that  was  a  fine  game  country.  But  as  snow  came  on,  most  of  the  game  left 
for  the  mountains,  showing  that  the  wild  animals  know  that  they  are  safer  in 
the  rough  mountains  in  the  winter  weather  than  out  on  the  bleak  plains. 

In  the  spring  of  1805,  after  sending  back  ten  of  the  men  who  had  enlisted 
to  go  only  to  the  first  winter  quarters,  and  who  carried  back  with  them  the  rec- 
ord of  their  exploration  thus  far,  with  some  specimens  of  pelts  and  plants, 
Lewis  and  Clark  broke  camp  and  struck  out  through  the  boundless  plains,  due 
west  from  Fort  Mandan.  The  party  now  numbered  thirty-three  persons  all  told : 
Sergeant  Floyd  had  died  on  the  way  up  river,  and  was  buried  on  the  bluffs 
where  Sioux  City  is  now  located.  Three  men  had  joined  the  party  at  Mandan, 
including  the  French  trapper,  Charboneau,  together  with  his  Shoshone  wife — 
Sacajawea,  now  represented  in  the  bronze  statue  in  the  Portland  City  Park. 
They  were  now  far  beyond  Jonathan  Carver's  explorations,  and  in  a  country 
never  before  trod  by  the  foot  of  a  white  man.  But  few  Indians  were  seen,  but 
the  whole  country  literally  swarmed  with  wild  game,  vast  flocks  of  sage  hens, 
prairie  chickens,  ducks  of  all  kinds,  cranes,  geese  and  swan,  and  vast  herds  of 
big  game,  bu&'alo,  elk,  antelope,  white  and  black  tail  deer,  big  horn  sheep,  and 
so  unfamiliar  with  the  race  of  men  as  to  be  easily  approached ;  great  herds  of 
elk  would  lie  lazily  in  the  sun  on  the  sand  bars  imtil  the  party  was  within  twenty 
yards  of  them. 

On  the  Yellowstone  river  Clark  encountered  on  the  return  voyage  a  herd 
of  buffaloes  wading  and  swimming  across  the  stream  where  it  was  a  mile  wide, 
and  so  many  in  the  herd  that  the  exploring  party  had  to  draw  up  in  a  safe 
place  and  wait  for  an  hour  for  the  herd  to  pass  before  they  could  proceed.  The 
party,  of  course,  had  to  live  on  meat  as  their  main  stay,  and  they  got  it  fresh 
every  day  without  going  out  of  their  course  to  find  it,  and  they  generally  ate 
up  one  buft'alo  or  an  elk  and  one  deer,  or  four  deer,  a  day.  And  here  for  the 
first  time  they  struck  that  terror  of  the  Rocky  mountains,  the  grizzly  bear.  No 
other  traveler  or  explorer  ever  gave  any  account  of  this  bear  prior  to  what  we 
hear  from  Lewis  and  Clark.  The  grizzly  was  the  terror  of  the  Indians.  They 
had  never  been  able  to  devise  any  means  of  trapping  him,  and  they  had  no  gims 
to  fight  him  with  and  their  only  safety  from  him  was  in  flight.  The  first  ac- 
counts given  to  the  people  of  the  United  States  of  this  monster  bear  were 
printed  in  the  early  school  books,  and  were  extracts  from  the  journal  of  this 
expedition.  The  summer  trip  up  the  Missouri  in  their  little  boats  was  very 
pleasant.  But  the  fall  season  of  the  year  was  rapidly  approaching  before  they 
had  reached  the  Rocky  mountains,  and  they  were  warned  by  early  frosts  that 


■S-i  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

great  expedition  was  necessary  to  enable  tliem.  to  pass  over  the  mountains  and 
strike  some  branch  of  the  Columbia  to  float  westward  upon  before  the  deep 
snows  shut  them  in  or  out  for  the  winter.  Lewis  and  Clark  crossed  the  Rocky- 
mountains  about  three  hundred  miles  north  of  the  point  where  the  Oregon  trail 
crosses,  and  here  they  found  their  salvation  in  the  sturdy  little  Indian  woman, 
Sacajawea.^'  They  got  to  a  point  that  their  white  man's  reason  could  not  guide 
them,  but  Saeajawea  had  been  there  when  a  child,  and  she  "pointed  the  way" 
to  the  Columbia 's  headwaters,  to  safety  and  success.  And  by  her  aid  as  an  inter- 
preter, and  her  kinship  to  the  Shoshoues,  the_party  was  enabled  to  procure 
horses  from  a  band  of  wandering  Shoshones,  and  by  "caching"  their  boats  and 
packing  their  goods  and  blankets  on  the  ponies,  they  got  out  of  the  labyrinth 
of  mountains,  crossed  over  the  great  divide,  struck  the  middle  fork  of  the  Clear- 
water; and  made  their  way  down  to  where  the  city  of  Lewiston  now  stands. 

Here  they  got  canoes  from  the  Nez  Perce  Indians,  and  floated  down  the 
Snake  river  to  the  Columbia,  and  on  down  the  Columbia  to  where  Astoria  now 
stands,  and  paddled  around  Smith's  point  and  crossed  over  Young's  bay  and 
biiilt  log  huts  at  a  point  named  Fort  Clatsop,  where  they  went  into  winter  quar- 
ters until  the  spring  of  1806. 

With  the  troubles  and  experiences  of  the  exploring  party,  during  the  long 
rainy  season  of  1805  and  6  at  Fort  Clatsop,  we  have  no  concern.  The  men  put 
in  their  time  hunting,  fishing,  mending  their  clothing,  making  moccasins  for  the 
long  tramp  homeward  in  the  spring,  and  in  making  salt  by  the  seaside  out  of 
the  Pacific  ocean  water,  some  remains  of  the  old  furnace  in  which  they  placed 
their  kettles  to  evaporate  the  salt  water  being  still  in  existence  after  the  lapse 
of  one  hundred  and  six  j^ears.  As  early  in  the  spring  of  1806  as  it  was  prac- 
ticable to  travel,  the  party  started  on  their  return  to  the  states.  Whether  the 
expedition,  as  a  party,  ever  campod  on  the  present  site  of  the  city  of  Portland, 
is  uncertain.  The  probability  is  very  strong  that  they  did  camp  on  the  river 
flat  in  front  of  the  town  of  St.  Johns,  which  is  a  suburb  of  that  city,  and  it  is 
certain  that  members  of  the  party  came  up  the  river  as  far  as  Portland  town- 
site.  On  their  return  up  the  Columbia,  the  explorers  camped  at  the  mouth  of 
the  White  Salmon  river  on  the  north  side  of  the  Columbia,  and  there  it  was 
that  Timotsk  (Jake  Hunt),  the  Klickitat  Indian,  pictured  on  another  page, 
saw  the  explorers,  the  first  white  men  he  had  ever  seen,  when  he  was  a  little  boy 
eleven  years  of  age,  making  Timotsk  one  hundred  and  seventeen  years  old  now, 
and  pi'obably  the  oldest  Indian  on  the  Pacific  coast. 

The  party  pursued  their  way  back  over  the  mountains  and  down  the  Mis- 
souri river  without  loss,  or  anything  specially  eventful,  arriving  at  St.  Louis 
in  September,  1806,  having  been  absent  from  civilization  for  two  years  and  four 
months.  Their  safe  return  caused  great  rejoicing  throughout  the  west. 
"Never,"    says    President    Jefferson,    "did    a   similar    event    excite    more    joy 

"  The  name,  spelling  and  pronunciation  of  this  Indian  Avonian,  now  in  general  use,  is  used 
in  this  history,  because  of  such  general  use.  But  the  claim  is  here  made  for  the  first  time 
in  history,  that  "Saeajawea"  is  incorrect.  When  the  Lewis  and  Clark  Exposition  was  held 
in  Portland  in  1905  Mr.  George  H.  Himes  interviewed  William  Shannon,  an  invited  guest  of 
I  he  Exposition  As.sociation  and  who  was  the  son  of  George  Shannon  who  was  a  member  of 
the  Lewis  and  Clark  expedition,  as  to  the  name  of  this  heroine  of  the  party.  After  reflecting 
and  testing  his  memory  Mr.  vShannon  distinctly  recalled  his  father's  pronunciation  of  the  name, 
saying  it  was  "Suh-ka-gowea" — the  canoe-woman; — not  the  bird-woman.  "Suh-ka-gowea," 
has  the  guttural  sound  which  proves  its  Indian  origin  and  correctness. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTOKV  OF  OREGON  ;{r, 

thruuiilioiil  llic  United  States.  'I'he  liiiiul)lest  oi'  its  citizens  li.-id  taken  a  lively 
interest  in  the  issue  oi"  this  journey  aiul  looked  forward  with  iiiipat  icncc  to  the 
information  it  would  bring."  The  expedition  liad  ai-i-oniplishccl  a  Lireat  work, 
for  it  ojiened  the  door  not  only  into  the  far  wrst,  Imt  to  the  shores  ot  the  j;reat 
Taeilie,  ami  laid  llir  roinidation  of  n  just  national  claim  to  all  the  regions  west 
of  the  Rocky  iiioiintains,  lairth  of  the  ('alifoniia  line,  up  to  the  ixussian  posses- 
sions. There  is  no  othei-  I'xpedition  like  it.  oi-  cipial  to  it,  iu  the  history  of  civ- 
ilization: and  i'Vfiy  iiiciiiher  of  it  returned  to  their  homes  as  heroes  of  a  great 
historical  deetl.  The  ('resident  [irouiptl.v  I'cwardcd  the  two  leaders  with  just 
recognition,  appointing  Captain  Lewis  governoi'  cd'  Loiiisiaua  tcri-itory.  and 
making  Captain  Clark  governor  and  Indian  agent  of  .Missouri  territory.  The 
oidy  regretable  eircunistanees  of  the  whole  great  work  was  the  untimely  death 
of  Sergeant  Floyd,  which  took  place,  as  before  stated,  before  the  expedition-  got 
fairly  started  on  the  way.  A  great  monument  has  been  erected  to  his  memory 
at  the  location  of  his  burial  near  Sioux  City,  Iowa.  The  only  miscarriage  of 
.iustiee  was  the  neglect  of  the  brave  and  patient  little  Indian  heroine,  Sacaja- 
wea,  who  received  no  reward  whatever.  Both  Lewis  and  Clark,  so  far  as  words 
could  go,  recognized  the  great  service  of  the  woman  to  the  fullest  extent,  but 
gave  no  reward.  The  services  of  Sacajawea  were  equal  to  that  of  any  of  the 
whole  party,  and  much  greater  than  those  of  most  of  the  party.  She  had  not 
only  paddled  the  canoes,  trudged  where  walking  was  neeessaiy,  and  in  every 
event  done  as  much  as  a  man.  and  that,  too,  with  her  infant  babe  on  her  back, 
but  she  had  rendered  that  greater  service  which  no  one  else  could  render — shv. 
had  made  friends  for  the  party  when  they  were  in  dire  straits  in  the  mountains, 
and  secured  from  her  tribe  assistance  in  horses  and  provisions  which  no  other  per- 
son could  have  commanded,  and  when  in  doubt  as  to  what  course  they  should 
take  to  reach  safety  towards  the  headwaters  of  the  Columbia,  Sacajawea  pointed 
out  the  route  through  the  mountain  defiles.  And  it  was  left  to  the  noble  women 
of  Oregon — and  to  their  great  honor  they  nobly  performed  the  duty— of  raising 
to  this  Indian  benefactress  of  the  great  northwest  the  first  and  fitting  monument 
to  perpetuate  her  name  and  unselfish  labors — the  heroic  size  bronze  statue  of 
the  woman  at  Lewis  and  Clark  exposition,  and  now  standing  in  the  City  Park 
at  Portland. 

Many  persons  have  entertained  the  idea,  that,  with  the  exception  of  the 
leaders,  who  were  educated,  and  came  from  distinguished  families  in  old  Vir- 
ginia, the  rank  and  file  were  rough  and  inconsequential  characters,  picked  up 
around  St.  Louis.  This  is  a  great  mistake :  for  they  were,  nearly  all  of  them, 
men  of  great  natural  force  and  ability  and  selected  by  their  leaders  be- 
cause of  their  inherent  force  of  chai'acter.  As  the  author  of  this  history  was  pei'- 
sonally  acquainted  with  one  mend)e,  of  tlie  party,  and  with  the  family  of  an- 
other mendier  of  the  party,  the  following  sketches  of  them  are  given  as  fair 
samples  of  the  whole  force,  and  which  will  show  the  reader  what  character  of 
men  it  was  that  braved  the  dangers  of  the  unknown  wilderness,  and  risked 
their  lives  in  the  most  dangerous  and  arduous  toils  to  navigate  wild  streams 
and  scale  frowning  mountain  bai-riei-s  to  uncover  and  uuike  known  to  the  world 
this  old  Oregon  of  ours. 

Patrick  (!ass:  This  mend)er  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  expedition  was  un- 
doubtedly the  most  vigorous  and  energetic  character  of,  the  entire  party;  and 


36  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

notwithstanding  some  excess  in  living,  outlived  all  his  compatriots.  Gass  was 
the  son  of  Irish  parents,  born  near  Chambersburg,  Pennsylvania,  in  1771,  and 
died  at  Wellsburgh,  in  the  state  of  West  Virginia,  April  30,  1870,  nearly  one 
hundred  years  old.  The  Gass  family  moved  from  Chambersburg  when  the 
boy  was  a  mere  child,  carried  in  a  creel  on  the  sides  of  a  pack  horse,  and  set- 
tled near  Pittsburgh.  There  were  no  schools  in  those  days  in  the  frontier  set- 
tlements, and  Patrick  Gass  grevf  up  as  other  boys  of  his  day,  schooled  to  hard- 
ships and  dangers,  ready  and  eager  for  adventure  of  any  sort.  He  was  not  long 
in  finding  an  opportunity,  and  joined  a  party  of  Indian  fighters  under  the  lead 
of  the  celebrated  Lewis  Wetzel,  and  had  his  experience  in  Indian  warfare  in 
Belmont  county,  Ohio,  where  the  author  of  this  book  subsequently  first  saw  the 
light  of  day  forty  years  afterwards.  Like  other  young  fellows  at  that  time, 
Gas^made  trips  down  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers  to  New  Orleans  in  "flat 
boats"  in  trading  expeditions,  returning  home  by  ship  to  Philadelphia  and 
thence  to  Pittsburgh  with  freight  teams. 

Gass  learned  the  carpenter's  trade,  but  when  war  was  threatened  with 
France  in  1799,  he  joined  the  army  and  was  ordered  to  Kaskaskia,  Illinois,  and 
while  at  that  station,  met  Captain  Meriwether  Lewis,  who  was  hunting  for  vol- 
unteers for  the  great  expedition  to  the  Pacific.  With  the  aid  of  Lewis  he  man- 
aged to  be  released  from  his  enlistment  in  the  army,  and  safely  made  the  trip 
from  St.  Louis  to  the  moiith  of  the  Columbia  river  and  return  to  the  Ohio.  He 
kept  a  journal  of  his  great  trip,  which  shows  he  had  by  his  own  efforts  picked 
up  some  book  education,  and  his  journal  was  the  first  account  published  of  the 
expedition.  When  the  War  of  1812  broke  out,  he  again  joined  the  army  and 
served  along  with  the  writer 's  grandfather  at  the  battle  of  Lundy  's  Lane,  where 
he  was  severely  wounded.  The  remainder  of  his  life  was  spent  at  and  near 
Wellsburgh,  West  Virginia.  In  1831,  at  sixty  years  of  age,  he  was  married  and 
lived  a  happy  life  thereafter,  having  seven  children  born  to  him.  At  ninety 
years  of  age  when  the  southern  rebellion  broke  out,  he  volunteered  to  fight  for 
the  union  of  the  states,  but  of  course  his  age  precluded  an  acceptance  of  his 
patriotic  offer.  Soon  after  this  event  he  became  converted  to  the  Christian 
(Campbellite)  faith,  and  was  baptized  by  immersion  in  the  Ohio  river  in  front 
■of  the  town  of  Wellsburgh,  the  entire  population  of  the  town  turning  out  to 
lionor  the  event;  and  thereafter  the  soldier  of  three  enlistments  and  two  wars, 
the  hero  of  the  great  expedition  across  the  continent,  faithfully  upheld  the 
banner  of  the  cross.  I  am  thus  particular  in  making  this  record  to  preserve  a 
suitable  account  of  two  of  the  most  important  and  capable  subalterns  of  the 
Lewis  and  Clark  expedition,  and  not  only  because  they  were  here  before  all  the 
rest  of  us,  one  hundred  and  seven  years  ago,  rendering  great  services  to  their 
country  and  to  Oregon,  but  also  because  we  were  all  from  Ohio.  The  writer 
was  personally  acquainted  with  Patrick  Gass,  having  met  the  venerable  old 
patriot  at  Wellsburgh,  Virginia,  in  1857.  He  was  then,  at  eighty-six  years  of 
age,  a  very  bright  and  interesting  man,  and  gave  me  a  brief  account  of  his  great 
trip  across  the  continent  to  the  Pacific  ocean,  and  of  his  trouble  in  preserving 
his  journal  of  that  trip. 

George  Shannon :  The  writer  w-as  personally  acquainted  with  the  Shannon 
family,  whose  name  and  fame  is  cherished  as  a  part  of  the  heritage  of  "Old  Bel- 
mont  County, ' '    Ohio ;   and  with   Wilson   Shannon,   the  youngest   brother   of 


3^ 


■f  r?:' 


^^. 


TlMdTSK 
Hereditary  Chief  of  tin-  Klickitats— Still  Living,  n:.  Vcurs  Old — Saw  Lewis  and  Clark  in  1S06 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  ;57 

(icorge  Slianuoii,  who  was  twice  elected  governor  of  Ohio,  was  minister  to  JMcxico, 
one  of  the  argonauts  to  California  in  1849,  practicing  law  in  San  Francisco, 
and  territorial  governor  of  Kansas.  Like  Gass,  Shannon  was  Protestant  Irish, 
of  splendid  stock,  his  father  a  brave  soldier  of  the  Revolution,  and  a  leader 
among  men.  George  was  sent  to  school  in  Pennsylvania  and  ran  away  from 
scliool  to  join  the  Lewis  and  Clark  expedition.  After  returning  from  the  Pa- 
cific coast,  he  entered  the  University  at  Lexington,  Kentucky,  graduated, 
studied  law  in  Philadelphia,  married  Ruth  Snowden  Price  at  Lexington  in  1813, 
was  made  a  judge  of  the  state  circuit  court  at  Lexington  and  rendered 
honorable  service  as  a  judge  for  twelve  years;  removed  from  Lexington 
to  St.  Charles,  Missouri,  where  he  was  again  placed  on  the  judicial  bench,  and 
died  suddenly  while  holding  court  at  Palmyra,  Missouri,  in  1836.  He  was 
unquestionably  the  man  of  the  most  talent,  culture  and  ability  of  all  Avho  made 
that  world-renowned  trip  across  two  thousand  miles  of  unexplored  mountains, 
plains,  deserts  and  wilderness.  Several  descendants  of  the  Shannon  family 
recently  resided  in  Portland. 

Saeajawea:  The  last  to  be  noticed  in  the  Lewis  and  Clark  expedition,  but 
by  no  means  the  least  important  nor  the  least  deserving  of  notice,  is  the  only 
woman  of  the  party — Saeajawea.  And  no  words  can  better  express  the  merits 
of  this  Indian  woman  than  those  of  Olin  D.  Wheeler,  who  has  said:  "There 
were  many  heroes;  there  was  but  one  heroine  in  this  band  of  immortals.  And 
at  the  start  I  wish  to  take  off  my  hat  to  the  modest,  womanly,  unselfish,  patient, 
enduring  little  Shoshone  squaw — the  Bird  "Woman  of  the  Minaterees — Saeaja- 
wea, who  uncomplainingly  canoed,  trudged,  climbed  and  starved  with  the 
strongest  man  of  the  party;  and  that,  too,  with  a  helpless  papoose  strapped  on 
lier  back.  All  honor  to  her !  Her  skin  was  the  color  of  copper ;  her  heart  beat 
as  true  as  steel,  and  was  pure  gold.  Through  all  the  long,  dreary  racking 
months  of  toil  she  bore  her  part  like  a  Spartan.  Captured  when  a  child  and 
I'arried  over  the  mountains  from  Idaho  as  a  slave  to  the  Mandan  (Wyoming) 
country,  and  there  sold  to  Charboneau  for  a  wife,  she  rose  superior  to  her  sad 
lot :  was  the  go-between  in  all  dangers  and  trials  with  the  Indians,  a  safeguard 
by  her  tact  and  native  wit;  she  interpreted  all  Indian  dialects,  made  clear  all 
doubtful  trails  and  pathways,  guided  the  great  party  in  safety  to  the  great 
Columbia,  and  was  in  every  aspect  of  the  great  national  achievement  a  mentor 
to  the  wise  men  set  to  lead,  and  who  thereby  achieved  almost  immortal  fame.  No 
words  of  praise  can  transcend  her  just  dues;  and  her  fame  should  be  a  cherished 
and  precious  memory  to  every  Oregon  household." 

Lewis  and  Clark  frankly  acknowledged  their  debt  to  the  woman  so  far  as 
mere  words  go,  for  her  inestimable  services.  But  these  two  leaders,  and  con- 
gress as  well,  are  open  to  the  most  severe  and  unsparing  condemnation  in  fail- 
ing to  make,  or  recommending  to  congress  to  make  suitable  and  liberal  reward 
in  money,  lands  or  a  pension  to  this  woman.  And  it  is  an  ineffaceable  blot  on 
the  names  of  Lewis  and  Clark,  and  an  everlasting  disgrace  to  the  congress  of  the 
United  States  that  this  poor,  lowly,  humble  Indian  was  requited  with  such  neglect 
for  the  priceless  services  she  rendered  to  the  great  nation.  And  it  is  to  the  ever- 
lasting honor  and  credit  of  the  women  of  Oregon  that  they  provided  and  reared 
the  firsst  and  most  enduring  monument  to  the  honor  of  the  heroic  Indian  woman 
— Saeajawea.     (The  bronze  monument  in  the  Citv  Park'  at  Portland.) 


38  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  pREGON 

The  following  poem  by  Bert  Huffman,  editor  of  the  East  Oregonian  of  Pen- 
dleton, Oregon,  widely  published  throughout  the  country, '  fittingly  commem- 
orates the  just  fame  of  that  greatest  heroine  of  her  race,  and  the  equal  of  her  sex 
in  any  race  on  the  continent. 

"Behind  them  toward  the  rising  sun 

The  traversed  wilderness  lay — 
About  them  gathered,  one  by  one. 

The  baffling  mysteries  of  their  way  I 
To  Westward,  yonder,  peak  on  peak 

The  glistening  ranges  rose  and  fell — 
Ah,  but  among  that  hundred  paths 

Which  led  aright  ?    Could  any  tell  ? 

"Brave  Lewis  and  Immortal  Clark! 

Bold  spirits  of  that  best  Crusade, 
You  gave  the  waiting  world  the  spark 

That  thronged  the  empire-paths  you  made  ! 
But  standing  on  that  snowy  height, 

Where  westward  yon  wild  rivers  wliirl. 
The  guide  who  led  your  hosts  aright 

Was  the  barefoot  Shoshone  girl." 


EXPEDITION   OF   LIEUT.    ZEBULON  PIKE — 1805 

The  next  year  after  Lewis  and  Clark  started  with  their  world-renowned  ex- 
pedition to  the  Pacifie  coast.  Lieutenant  Zebulon  Pike  of  the  United  States  army 
was  ordered  by  the  United  States  government  to  explore  the  sources  of  the 
Mississippi  river,  and  establish  friendly  relations  with  the  Indians  whose  ter- 
ritory had  but  lately  been  included  within  the  boundaries  of  the  new  born  Re- 
public. Taking  twenty  men  from  his  military  camp  near  St.  Louis,  and  a  keel- 
boat — no  steamboats  on  the  great  river  in  those  days — seventy  feet  in  length. 
Pike  ascended  the  Mississippi  to  its  sources  and  hoisted  there  the  United  States 
flag.  This  exploration  and  this  act  of  Pike's  determined  the  point  to  which  dis- 
tance north  the  United  States  could,  under  ti'eat3^  of  peace  with  England,  claim 
and  maintain  the  northern  boundary  of  this  nation  east  of  the  Rocky  mountains. 
Pike  had  not  only  settled  that  disputed  point  but  he  had  made  known  the  course 
of  th^  river  itself  from  St.  Louis  to  its  fountain  head.  Pike  made  other  impor- 
tant explorations  and  discoveries  among  which  is  the  mountain  peak  in  Colorado, 
which  beax's  his  name.  He  also  mapped  the  sources  of  the  Platte,  the  Kansas  and 
the  upper  reaches  of  the  Arkansas  rivers. 

And  now  we  reach  a  period  when  private  enterprise  enters  the  field,  pri- 
marily for  furs  and  trade  with  the  Indians,  yet  making  important  discoveries, 
beneficial  to  the  nation  and  useful  to  the  western  pioneers  and  especially  to  the 
emigrants  to  Oregon. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  39 

EXI'KDITIONS    OF    SIMON    KlIASER — ISOfi 

III  iiiiiiiy  rcsprcis  till'  cxpiMlitidiis  ol'  Siiiiuii  l<'r;iscr  t(i  the  west  side  of  the 
li'iirky  iiiouiitaiiis  were  iiiiirc  iiiipdi-tiint  tliiiii  that  nf  his  more  distinguished  pred- 
ecessor, Alexander  .Maekeiizie ;  and  for  tliis  reason  lie  more  than  Mackenzie 
was  better  entitled  to  the  honor  of  naming  the  great  river  which  his  courage  and 
liersistence  explored  and  made  known  to  the  world. 

The  work  of  exploitation  by  Fraser  on  the  west  side  of  the  Rocky  mountains 
was  assumed  by  him  on  his  own  initiative  as  a  partner  in  and  a  commander  of 
the  emplo.ves  of  the  Northwest  Company.  He  had  taken  the  place  of  ]\Iac- 
keiizie  in  the  Fur  Company's  general  business  of  gathering  furs,  establishing 
trading  posts,  and  exploring  the  unknown  western  country.  He,  however,  was 
not  the  first  Scotchman  after  Mackenzie  to  reach  the  west  side  of  the  Rocky 
mountains.  James  Finlay,  an  employee  of  the  Northwest  Company  had,  soon 
after  Mackenzie's  expedition,  ascended  Peace  river  and  passed  over  the  summit 
of  the  Rocky  mountains,  made  many  important  discoveries  in  the  lay  of  the  land 
and  gave  his  name  to  a  branch  of  Peace  river — as  Finlay  river. 

Eraser's  expedition  to  the  west  side  of  the  Rocky  mountains  was  in  the  Au- 
tumn of  1805,  when,  following  in  the  tracks  of  Mackenzie  and  Finlay  he  ascended 
Peace  river  and  its  Parsnip  river  branch  to  the  Height  of  Land.  Here  the  voy- 
ageurs  were  compelled  to  make  a  portage — take  their  canoes  out  of  the  waters 
that  ran  eastward  and  north  to  tlie  Arctic  ocean,  and  carry  them  west  across  the 
summit  of  the  mountain  until  they  could  find  a  stream  running  westward  to 
Oregon  and  the  Pacific  ocean.  Mackenzie  describes  this  mountain  pass  as  fol- 
lows:— June  12,  1793 :  "We  landed  and  unloaded,  where  we  found  a  beaten  path 
over  a  low  ridge  of  land  of  eight  hundred  and  seventeen  paces  in  length  to  an- 
other small  lake.  The  distance  between  the  two  mountains  at  this  place  (The 
Pass)  is  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  rocky  precipices  presenting  themselves  on 
both  sides."  Fraser  describes  the  Pass  as  follows:  "We  continued  to  the  ex- 
tremity of  the  lake  about  three  miles,  and  there  unloaded  at  the  Height  of  Land, 
which  is  one  of  the  finest  portages  I  ever  saw,  between  six  and  seven  hundred 
yards  long,  and  perhaps  the  shortest  interval  of  any  between  the  waters  that 
descend  into  the  northern  and  southern  oceans." 

Fraser  and  his  companions  were  so  impressed  with  the  grandeur  and  beauty 
of  the  great  mountains  that  they  named  the  country  of  their  first  discoveries 
west  of  the  Rocky  mountains  "New  Caledonia,"  in  honor  of  what  they  chose  to 
call  their  native  land  of  Scotland.  Fraser  himself  was  born  in  the  United  States 
in  1776.  just  at  the  lireaking  out  of  the  Rebellion  against  Hritish  rule;  and  his 
father,  choosing  to  remain  loyal  to  the  English  King,  was  driven  out  of  Vermont 
as  a  Tory  and  traitor  to  the  colonies. 

At  what  date  Fraser  returned  to  the  east  side  of  the  Rocky  mountains  in 
1805  there  seems  to  be  no  authentic  information.  Put  in  .laniiai>-.  1806,  we  find 
Fraser  actively  employed  at  the  fort  on  Peace  river  called  the  "Rocky  Mountain 
House."  preparing-  for  another  expedition  over  the  Rocky  mountains.  Having 
been  impressed  by  what  he  had  discovered  on  his  first  tyip,  that  the  fur  trade 
possibilities  on  the  west  side  of  the  mountains  were  very  good,  he  determined 
to  make  a  permanent  settlement  there  in  the  shape  of  a  fort  or  trading  station 
with  the  Indians.     And  on  May  20,  1806,  we  find  Fraser  taking  an  inventorv  of 


40  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

all  the  property  of  the  company  at  the  Rocky  Mountain  House,  writing  letters 
to  his  friends,  turning  over  the  command  of  the  fort  to  McGillivray.  and  mak- 
ing a  start  on  his  new  venture  into  the  Great  Western  Wilderness.  And  although 
Eraser  was  far  better  equipped  for  the  expedition  than  had  Mackenzie  been, 
and  although  he  had  all  the  benefits  of  the  discoveries,  landmarks  and  reports 
of  both  Mackenzie  and  Finlay  who  had  preceded  him,  he  was  forty  days  on  the 
route  from  the  Rocky  Mountain  House  to  the  summit  of  the  Rocky  mountains — 
a  distance  of  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles.  During  this  trip  Eraser 's  jour- 
nal shows  that  he  put  in  much  of  his  time  in  abusing  Alexander  Mackenzie  for 
alleged  misrepresentation  of  the  route. 

After  reaching  navigable  water  on  the  west  side  of  the  summit,  and  repair- 
ing their  canoes,  Eraser  and  his  men  commenced  the  laborious  and  perilous  de- 
scent of  the  rapid  stream  forming  the  head  of  Eraser  river  on  July  2,  1806. 
These  dates  are  given  here  for  the  purpose  of  showing  their  relation  to  the  Brit- 
ish claim  of  title  to  the  Oregon  country.  Both  Mackenzie  and  Eraser  believed 
at  the  dates  of  their  explorations  of  the  headwaters  of  the  Eraser  river  that 
they  were  in  fact  on  the  headwaters  of  the  Columbia  river.  If  such  had  been 
the  case,  then  the  British  government  would  have  had  a  better  claim  to  all  the 
country  drained  by  the  Columbia  river  than  they  were  ever  able  to  show. 
Neither  Mackenzie  nor  Eraser  ever  reached  "the  watershed  of  the  Columbia  be- 
fore Lewis  and  Clark ;  nor  did  Eraser  reach  the  watershed  of  the  Eraser  river 
before  Lewis  and  Clark  reached  the  headwaters  of  the  Columbia.  On  the  18th 
of  August,  1805,  Capt.  Lewis,  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  expedition,  reached  the 
headwaters  of  the  Columbia  river  in  what  is  now  the  state  of  Idaho.  But  put- 
ting the  most  favorable  interpretation  on  the  journals  of  Eraser  and  his  aid, 
Stuart,  Eraser  did  not  cross  the  Rocky  mountains  into  the  New  Caledonia  coun- 
try until  the  first  of  October,  1805. 

Returning  now  to  Eraser 's  second  expedition  across  the  Rocky  mountains  ,we 
find  him  in  Augi;st,  1806.  establishing  a  trading  post  on  Eraser  lake  in  a  com- 
manding position,  which  in  time  came  to  be  called  Eort  Eraser.  And  in  addi- 
tion to  this  post  Eraser  commenced  the  erection  of  ^another  fort  at  the  conflu- 
ence of  the  Stuart  and  Eraser  rivers,  which  he  named  Eort  George  in  honor  of 
the  King,  and  which  has  remained  an  important  trading  post  to  this  da.v. 

Eraser  did  not  return  back  over  the  mountains  to  the  headquarters  of  the 
fur  company  at  the  end  of  1806,  as  might  be  supposed ;  but  he  remained  in  New 
Caledonia,  not  a  large  district,  during  the  winter  of  1806-7,  and  continued  his 
work  for  the  company  in  gathering  furs  and  in  completing  the  building  of  the 
forts.  And  by  the  spring  of  1807  the  British  government  had  learned  of  the 
successful  expedition  of  Lewis  and  Clark  to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river  as 
a  militar,y  expedition,  and  its  safe  return  to  the  United  States.  This  aroused  the 
British  lion  to  action,  and  orders  were  dispatched  to  Canada  to  have  Simon 
Eraser  complete  the  exploration  of  the  Eraser  (as  they  supposed  the  Columbia) 
from  Port  George  to  the  Pacific  ocean.  Eor  if  Mackenzie  or  Eraser,  either, 
were  upon  the  headwaters  of  the  Columbia  river  prior  to  Lewis  and  Clark,  Eng- 
land intended  to  claim  the  whole  entire  Columbia  river  valley  from  the  Rocky 
mountains  to  the  Pacific  ocean  as  British  territor.y  by  right  of  both  discovery 
and  settlement.  Accordingly  orders  were  dispatched  to  Eraser  in  the  autumn 
of  1807,  two  years  after  he  had  crossed  the  Rocky  mountains,  to  make  all  due 


MACKENZIE'S  MAP 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  41 

preparation  for  an  early  start  in  1808,  and  explore  the  Fraser  (their  supposed 
Columbia)  from  Fort  George  to  its  mouth  at  the  ocean. 

Fraser  made  preparations  in  pursuance  of  his  orders,  and  about  the  last  days 
of  May  or  the  first  days  of  June,  1808,  set  adrift  in  his  canoes  on  the  boisterous 
river  with  twenty-one  men  and  four  large  canoes.  Within  a  few  hours  after 
starting  one  of  the  canoes  was  wrecked  and  lost.  Within  three  daj^s  from  start- 
ing Fraser  had  reached  the  point  where  Mackenzie  had  abandoned  the  river  en- 
tirely, and  struck  across  the  country'  on  foot  to  reach  the  ocean.  But  Simon 
Fraser  never  wavered  at  any  danger  or  difficulty.  With  perils,  dangers  and  ob- 
stacles to  overcome  that  Avould  have  paralyzed  any  ten  thousand  men  standing 
upon  a  line,  Fi-aser  pursued  the  course  of  the  wild  river  with  a  courage  that  would 
neither  halt  nor  consider  defeat.  Time  and  again  his  men  begged  him  to  alter 
his  course  and  leave  the  river,  and  the  Indians  repeatedly  warned  him  that  it 
was  impossible  to  follow  the  river  to  the  great  sea.  But  the  hero  of  the  expedi- 
tion was  inexorable ;  he  followed  the  river  along  its  banks ;  he  borrowed  canoes 
from  the  Indians  and  took  to  the  river  where  it  was  possible ;  he  packed  his 
goods  and  baggage  around  rapids,  waterfalls  and  impassable  canyons ;  he  hired 
horses  and  rode  along  the  side  of  the  seething  waters ;  and  he  followed  the  river 
until  its  troubled  waters  was  lost  in  the  boundless  ocean  by  many  mouths  a  few 
miles  above  where  the  British  Columbia  city  of  Vancouver  now  stands.  Simon 
Fraser  earned  the  honor  of  naming  the  second  largest  river  emptying  into  the 
Paeifie  ocean,  and  he  proved  to  the  British  government  that  his  river  was  not 
the  Columbia  river. 

Without  any  apparent  reason  or  excuse  the  authors  of  Bancroft's  history  of 
the  Northwest  has  condemned  Simon  Fraser  as  "an  illiterate,  ill-bred,  bickering, 
fault-finding  man,  of  jealous  disposition,  ambitious,  energetic,  witli  considerable 
conscience,  and  in  the  main  holding  to  honest  intentions."  However,  these  lit- 
erary carpet  knights  of  San  Francisco  are  to  be  both  pitied  and  excused  for 
their  judgments  of  men  and  things.  Never  having  seen  anything  worse  than 
the  lions  on  Seal  Rock  at  their  Golden  Gate,  or  charged  down  upon  a  greater 
danger  than  a  schooner  of  beer  in  the  haunts  of  the  Press  Club,  they  knew  noth- 
ing of  the  perils,  dangers  and  courage  of  the  heroic  men  and  women  who  rescued 
the  great  Northwest  from  the  barbarism  and  savagery  of  the  wilderness,  and 
set  up  therein  great  states  with  all  the  glories  of  attendant  civilization. 

As  has  been  stated,  Simon  Fraser 's  father,  also  named  Simon  Fraser,  was  a 
Tory  in  the  American  Revolutionary  war ;  joined  the  British  army  to  fight  the 
American  rebels,  was  captured  by  the  Americans,  and  died  in  prison.  Young 
Fraser  was  taken  by  his  mother  to  Montreal,  Canada,  and  educated.  At  the  age 
of  sixteen  he  joined  the  Northwest  Company  as  a  hired  man.  His  energy, 
industry  and  talents  were  soon  noticed  and  appreciated,  and  his  rise  in  the  serv- 
ice of  the  company  was  rapid.  He  lived  to  the  age  of  eighty-six  years  and  died 
at  St.  Andrews,  in  Ontario  Province.  Canada. 

ANDREW  HENRY — 1808 

The  next  man  to  make  a  plunge  into  the  great  western  wilderness  was  An- 
drew Henry,  who  was  born  in  Fayette  county.  Pennsylvania,  came  west  to  St. 
Louis  in  1807.  went  into  the  employ  of  Manuel  Lisa,  a  Spaniard,  who  was  en- 


42  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

gaged  in  fur  trading  to  the  Rocky  mountains  under  the  name  of  the  Missouri 
Pur  Compan^y.  Henry  took  charge  of  the  trapping  expedition  of  his  company 
to  the  Rocky  mountains  in  1808,  and  confined  liis  operations  to  the  upper  Mis- 
souri and  Yellowstone  rivers;  but  being  attacked  and  harassed  by  the  Black- 
feet  Indians,  he  passed  over  the  Rocky  mountains  in  the  spring  of  1809,  and 
built  a  cabin  on  the  far-east  branch  of  Snake  river,  which  ever  since  has  been 
known  as  Fort  Henry  on  Henry's  river.  This  cabin  was  the  first  structure  in 
the  shape  of  a  hou.se  erected  by  white  men  in  the  great  Columbia  river  valley. 
Henry  did  not  cross  the  mountains  for  the  sole  reason  of  getting  away  from  the 
Blackfeet.  His  original  orders  were  to  continue  his  explorations  westward,  and 
see  what  he  could  do  in  the  fur  trade  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains.  Not  suc- 
ceeding in  doing  any  business,  Fort  Henry  was  abandoned  in  1810,  and  when 
the  Wilson  Price  Hunt  party  came  along  in  1811  and  sought  to  rest  and  recruit 
at  the  Henry  cabin  they  found  it  abandoned  and  of  no  aid  to  them. 

The  next  we  hear  of  Henry  is  as  Alexander  Henry  in  company  with  Alex- 
ander Stuart  (whom  we  left  last  with  Simon  Eraser  at  the  Rocky  Mountain 
House  in  1807)  now  coming  down  the  Columbia  river  to  Astoria  with  two  big 
canoes  and  sixteen  voyageurs  in  the  employ  of  the  Northwest  Company,  on 
the  15tli  of  November,  1813.  Henry  had  left  the  service  of  the  Americans  some 
time  between  1810  and  gone  over  to  the  British.  By  the  time  Henry  and  Stuart 
reached  Astoria  the  Northwest  Company  had  concentrated  a  force  of  seventy- 
five  men  at  that  point  in  addition  to  the  sixteen  in  the  Henry  and  Stuart  flotilla. 
The  Northwest  Company  were  then  hotly  and  corruptly  pressing  their  scheme 
of  buying  out  for  a  song  all  the  property  of  Astor,  while  Hunt  was  absent,  and 
would  very  probably  not  have  hesitated  to  have  boldly  robbed  Astor  if  his  Cana- 
dian partners  had  not  betrayed  and  sold  him  out. 

The  next  we  hear  of  Henry  is  at  a  post  up  on  the  Willamette  river — Fran- 
chere  thought  in  his  book  somewhere  near  the  present  site  of  Corvallis — and  to  this 
post  the  remnant  of  the  Astor  party  went  to  spend  the  winter  of  1814,  probably 
because  Henry  was  an  American.  At  all  events;  they  lived  on  the  fat  of  the 
land,  fish,  deer  and  elk  being  too  numerous  to  mention,  and  captured  without 
trouble.    And  so  ends  the  Henry  expedition  to  Old  Oregon. 

EXPEDITION  OF  JONATHAN  W'lNSHIP — 1809 

The  next  year  after  Lisa's  Henry  venture,  Captain  Jonathan  Winship.  of 
Brighton,  Massachusetts,  organized  a  trading  expedition  to  the  Columbia  river 
by  the  way  of  Cape  Horn,  and  two  ships  were  secured,  one  of  which,  the  0  'Cain, 
was  commanded  by  himself  and  the  other,  the  Albatross,  was  commanded 
by  his  brother,  Nathan  Winship.  They  sailed  from  Boston  July  6,  1809, 
and  the  Albatross  reached  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river  May  25,  1810, 
being  over  ten  months  on  the  way.  The  ship  was  provided  with  a  com- 
plete outfit,  and  to  her  original  ■  company  of  twenty-five  white  men  were 
added  twenty-five  Kanakas,  picked  up  at  the  islands,  and  being  the  first  of  those 
islanders  imported  into  the  United  States.  For  want  of  charts,  which  did  not 
exist  on  the  Columbia  one  hundred  years  ago,  and  from  ignorance  of  the  chan- 
nel, and  the  stiff  current  of  the  spring  floods,  the  passage  up  the  Columbia  was 
beset  with  much  trouble  and  delay.    But  after  ten  days'  cruising  around  on  the 


THE  CENTENNIAL  IIISTOIIY   OK  OREGON  43 

hniacl  i-i\iT.  Wiiisliiii  sclccird  ( );ik  I'liiiit  on  tlic  south  side  of  llic  I'iver  for  a  suit- 
able phire  fur  a  sett  Iciiiciil.  This  was  so  caMnl  I'roiii  Ihc  oak  trees  growing- 
there,  Mild  it  is  hicatcd  opiMishc  Ihc  [)hicc  now  i-alh'il  Oak  Toint  landing  in  the 
state  of  Washiiit;toii.  Here  Wiiiship  cduarod  a  tract  of  hiiid,  [)ivpai'ed  it  for  a 
garden,  and  phmtrd  it  with  a  variety  of  seeds,  and  set  Ins  men  to  \voi'k  eiittin^' 
loos  I'o;- a  house  for  a  dwelling  and  Iradiiig  post,  and  they  had  the  strueture  well 
up  to  the  roof  when  the  rising  waters  of  the  river  overflowed  their  garden,  house 
loeatiou  and  all.  and  eoiupelled  their  removal  to  a  point  farther  down  the  Co- 
linnhia.  Here  the  party  stayed  in  a  temporary  camp  until  Julj-  18,  1810,  when 
they  sailed  from  the  Columbia  river,  and  having  learned  at  Drake's  bay  of 
Astor's  contemplated  adventure  to  the  river,  gave  up  the  project  of  making  a 
settlement  on  the  Columbia.  "Winship's  garden  at  Oak  Point  was  the  first  culti- 
vation of  the  soil  in  Oregon  for  garden  or  agricultural  purposes,  and  his  wa.s  tiie 
first  attempt  to  construct  a  house  in  Oregon  by  civilized  men. 

E.XI'EDITION  OF    DAVID   THOMPSON — 1810 

The  American  fur  trade  was  the  first  gold  mine  excitement  experienced  in 
the  United  States.  And  its  profits  were  so  large  in  the  opening  of  the  19th  cen- 
tury that  many  venturesome  and  energetic  men  were  attracted  to  the  business. 
And  by  the  year  1810.  John  Jacob  Astor,  of  New  York  City,  had  succeeded  so 
well  in  the  new  industry,  that  he  was  contemplating  not  only  a  transcontinental 
but  also  a  world-around  expansion  of  his  activities.  To  carry  out  his  ideas  in 
the  then  far  west,  he  thought  it  advantageous  to  interest  some  of  the  fur  traders 
in  Canada  who  were  better  informed  of  the  regions  of  the  Rocky  mountains  and 
beyond.  These  Canadians  were  making  money  in  the  business,  and  on  the  first 
mention  of  Astor's  ambitious  project  they  took  alarm.  They  did  not  want  any 
coiiiiietifiou  in  the  west,  and  especially  they  did  not  want  Astor  to  get  a  foothold 
on  the  Pacific.  And  this  for  two  reasons :  They  did  not  want  Astor  because  he 
was  a  very  energetic  man.  with  ample  capital  and  he  would  divide  up  the  busi- 
ness: and  also  because  he  was  a  citizen  of  the  United  States.  The  Canadians 
could  see.  if  the.v  had  not  already  been  informed  by  the  British  government. 
that  the  location  of  an  American  trading  post  in  Oregon  could  be  made  the  foun- 
dation of  a  claim  to  the  country  by  the  United  States.  And  so.  upon  the  first 
mention  of  John  Jacob  Astor  in  connection  with  a  hew  fur  company  to  operate 
in  distant  Oregon,  the  Canadians  controlling  the  Northwest  Company  took 
art  ion  and  at  once  secretly  dispatched  their  surveyor  and  scientific  man,  David 
Thompson,  to  the  Northwest,  with  instructions  to  make  all  possible  speed  and 
get  into  Oregon  before  Astor  or  his  men,  and  forestall  all  of  Astor's  plans. 

Accordingly,  in  June.  1810,  Surveyor  Thompson  organized  a  large  and  well 
equipped  party  for  this  hasty  expedition  to  Oregon,  proceeding  upon  the  usual 
route  up  the  Great  Lakes,  up  the  great  Saskatchewan  river  and  struck  the 
Rocky  mountains  and  entered  the  mountains  at  what  is  now  known  as  the  Yel- 
lowhead  Pass.  He  ignored  the  discoveries  of  Mackenzie  and  Fraser  and  kept 
fartiier  south,  relying  largely  on  his  own  judgment  of  the  rivers  and  mountains. 
But  surveyor  and  astronomer  as  he  was,  he  got  his  party  into  such  a  labyrinth 
of  mountains,  and  where  no  white  man  had  ever  been  before  him.  that  he  was 
completely  at  sea  witliout   uuide  or  compass.     Here  in  the  heart  of  the  Rocky 


44  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

mountains  his  party  mutinied,  and  all  but  eight  men  deserted  him,  carrying  off 
all  the  goods,  stores  and  food  supplies  they  thought  necessary  for  their  preserva- 
tion, and  took  the  back  track  to  Canada.  It  shows  the  character  and  capacity  of 
Thompson,  that  this  mutiny  did  not  disconcert  him.  It  was  now  winter,  Decem- 
ber, 1810,  and  Thompson  and  his  remaining  eight  faithful  men  set  to  work  to 
make  themselves  as  comfortable  as  possible  in  that  inhospitable  region,  building 
a  log  hut  and  laying  in  supplies  of  fish  and  game. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  1811,  Thompson  was  again  actively  at  work.  His  in- 
structions from  his  principals  were  to  build  forts  at  all  commanding  points,  make 
a  survey  and  map  of  the  country  and  watch  the  expected  expedition  of  Astor. 
Examining  the  region  about  him,  he  became  satisfied  that  he  was  in  a  country 
not  seen  by  either  Mackenzie  or  Eraser ;  and  determining  to  find  out  where  he 
was  and  how  he  could  get  farther  west,  he  constructed  a  canoe  and  launched  it 
on  an  unknown  river.  Then  caching  all  his  goods  he  broke  camp  and  bid  good- 
bye to  the  hoarj-  mountains.  He  floated  down  the  unknown  stream  to  its  mouth 
and  there  to  his  great  surprise  he — the  first  British  subject  to  see — discovered 
the  great  Columbia  river,  six  years  after  Lewis  and  Clark  had  descended  the 
Clearwater  branch  of  the  same  stream  nearly  four  hundred  miles  farther  south. 
Thompson  struck  the  Columbia  at  the  apex  of  the  gi'eat  northern  bend  of  the 
river  just  where  it  tuxms  to  run  southward  to  the  Arrow  Lakes.  He  was  over- 
joyed at  his  discovery,  and  continued  his  course  on  down  the  great  river  with 
his  eight  men  and  their  canoes,  through  the  Arrow  Lakes,  the  Little  Dalles,  the 
Great  Dalles,  the  Cascades,  on  down,  down,  until  he  reached  Astoria,  July  15, 
1811,  being  the  first  English  subject  to  traverse  the  whole  course  of  the  Colum- 
bia river.  In  his  trip  down  the  Columbia,  Thompson  faithfully  complied  with 
his  instructions,  and  at  various  points  along  the  river  stopped  and  built  little 
huts  sufficient  to  house  a  few  men,  and  raised  flags  over  them  in  the  name  of  the 
King  of  England. 

By  the  month  of  July,  Thom2:)son  had  reached  the  junction  of  the  Columbia 
and  Snake  rivers.  Here  he  found  at  the  abandoned  site  of  the  old  town  of  Ains- 
worth,  a  large  Indian  camp,  and  seeing  the  natural  and  strategic  advantages  of 
the  point,  erected  a  pole,  raised  the  British  flag  thereon  and  nailed  the  following 
notice  on  the  pole:  "Knoiu  hereby  that  this  country  is  claimed  by  Great  Britain, 
as  part  of  its  territories,  and  that  the  Northwest  Company  of  Merchants  from 
Canada,  finding  the  factory  of  this  people  inconvenient  to  them,  do  hereby  in- 
tend to  erect  a  factory  in  this  place  for  the  commerce  of  the  country  around." 
And  by  posting  these  muniments  of  title  it  is  seen  that  the  Northwest  Company 
■was  quite  as  loyal  to  old  England  as  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  although  it 
was  itself  a  trespasser  in  this  territorj-  as  against  its  rival,  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company. 

His  intention  was  unquestionably  to  take  symbolic  possession  of  the  country 
and  to  hold  it  by  such  rights, of  discovery  or  possession  as  could  be  set  up  by 
the  British  government. 

But  he  reached  Astoria  too  late.  The  Tonquiu,  Aster's  ship,  sailed  from 
New  York  on  September  8,  1810,  and  reached  a  landing  inside  the  Columbia 
river  at  Baker's  Bay  on  March  24,  1811. 

When  Thompson  reached  Astoria,  he  was  most  politel'''  received  by  Astor 's 
men,  and  assigned  comfortable  quarters  inside  the  fort;  but  the  Astorians  frilly 


ItAMSAY   CKiMlKES 

WILSON  i'i;n  i:  iii  nt 


III  SSKI.I.    KAHMIAM 
,lt»IIX  IlArriSTK  IIIAKI.KS  I,LC.\S 


Pro«iili<iit  .IplfiTKon"*  S«vr<'t   A^ront   nt 
St.  I^uU  mill  Ni"»  Orlrnns 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  4') 

comprehended  his  mission.  They  had  already,  on  June  15,  thirty  days  before 
Thompson  had  reac?hed  Astoria,  received  a  visit  from  two  Indians  (one  of  which 
turned  out  to  be  a  white  woman  in  disguise),  clothed  in  the  dress  of  Indians  of 
the  east  side  of  the  Rocky  mountains,  bearing  a  letter  from  Finnan  McDonald, 
a  clerk  of  the  Northwest  Company  at  a  post  on  the  Spokane  river.  This 
letter  was  addressed  to  John  Stuart  in  New  Caledonia;  but  the  bearers  of  the 
letter,  getting  lost,  wandered  around  among  Indian  tribes  until  they  finally 
turned  up  at  Astoria,  having  learned  from  other  Indians  that  there  were  white 
men  at  that  point.  Defeated  in  the  main  object  of  his  expedition,  Thompson 
made  the  best  excuse  possible  and  proposed  to  Astor's  representatives  that  he 
would  leave  the  fur  trade  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains  to  Astor's  company,  pro- 
vided Astor  would  not  interfere  with  the  trade  of  the  Northwest  Company 
on  the  east  side  of  the  mountains.  And  if  this  offer  was  declined  then  the  North- 
west Company  could  do  nothing  less  than  to  press  western  occupation  of  the 
whole  region,  and  to  that  end  had  already  dispatched  a  large  force  of  men  to  the 
new  field,  freely  distributing  the  British  flag  to  the  natives  along  the  route. 

Right  here  the  contest  between  England  and  the  United  States  for  the  posses- 
sion of  old  Oregon  commenced  in  earnest.  The  English  had  sought  through 
the  cloak  of  their  fur  company  to  seize  the  country  by  strategy.  Thompson  had 
performed  a  wonderful  feat  crowded  with  perils,  mishaps  and  treachery  of  his 
own  men.  But  he  was  nearly  four  months  too  late.  The  agents  of  Astor  were 
beforehand.  They  had  built  their  fort,  mounted  their  cannon  and  run  up  the 
stars  and  stripes.  The  country  and  its  great  river  was  secured  for  the  United 
States  for  all  time,  with  the  added  inestimable  value  of  a  foothold  on  the  great 
Pacific  ocean.  The  services  of  these  valiant  Americans  were  worth  more  to  the 
nation  than  that  of  a  thousand  President  James  K.  Polks. 

A  more  extended  notice  of  the  building  of  this  Astoria  fort  will  be  given  in 
connection  with  the  chapter  on  fur  companies. 

THE  ASTOR,   PRICE   HUNT   EXPEDITION — 1811 

On  the  23d  of  June,  1810,  John  Jacob  Astor,  the  founder  of  the  wealthy 
Astor  family  of  New  York,  a  native  of  Heidelberg,  Germany,  and  a  citizen  of 
the  United  States,  then  residing  at  New  York  City,  organized  the  Pacific  Pur 
Company;  and  while  a  private  corporation  in  name,  it  was  nothing  more  than 
a  general  partnership.  Astor  had  been  very  successful  in  the  fur  trade  in  the 
regions  east  of  the  Rocky  mountains,  and  this  latest  venture  was  planned  on  a 
scale  far  more  extensive  than  any  other  American  enterprise.  A  ship  was  to  be 
dispatched  from  New  Y'ork  to  the  Columbia  river  at  regular  intervals  with  all 
the  necessary  goods  for  the  Indian  trade  and  supplies  for  a  fort  and  corps 
of  outfield  trappers.  And  after  discharging  cargo  at  the  fort  and  station  to 
be  established  at  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia,  the  ship  was  to  take  in  the  furs 
there  on  hand  and  then  proceed  up  the  northwest  coast  visiting  all  the  stations 
of  the  Russian  Fur  Company,  cultivating  their  friendship,  trading  for  their 
furs,  and  after  securing  a  ship's  cargo,  proceed  to  Canton,  China,  sell  their  furs, 
and  take  in  a  cargo  of  tea  and  China  goods  for  New  York  city.  It  was  a  grand 
scheme;  and  here  was  the  commencement  of  the  present  vast  ocean-going  com- 
merce of  the  state  whose  history  we  are  now  recording.    It  is  worth  considering 


46  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

that  from  this  humble  commencement  of  one  or  two  ships,  handling  only  the 
pelts  of  fur-bearing  animals,  just  one  hundred  years  ago,  when  this  paragraph 
is  written  that  commerce  has  developed  into  an  importing  and  exporting  trade 
of  fifty  millions  of  dollars  annually,  and  of  which  Astor  's  big  item  of  pelts  does 
not  now  amount  to  more  than  one  hundredth  part  of  one  per  cent. 

But  the  enterprising  German  was  not  to  have  easy  sailing.  Knowing  full 
well  the  great  influence,  wealth  and  success  of  the  Northwest  Company  of 
Canada,  and  that  said  company  had  no  trading  posts  west  of  the  Rocky  moun- 
tains, south  of  the  headwaters  of  Eraser  river,  Astor  made  known  to  them  his 
plans  and  invited  them  to  join  him  in  his  new  enterprise,  offering  them  a  third 
interest  in  his  company.  But  instead  of  receiving  this  friendly  offer  in  the 
spirit  in  which  it  was  tendered,  the  Canadians  pretended  to  take  the  matter 
under  advisement  in  order  to  gain  time,  and  then  hastily  sent  out  a  party  under 
the  lead  of  their  surveyor,  David  Thompson,  as  stated  above,  with  instruction  to 
occupy  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  with  a  trading  post  of  their  own,  and  to  ex- 
plore the  river  to  its  headwaters,  and  seize  all  advantageous  positions.  But  fully 
aware  of  this  treacherous  return  for  his  friendly  offer,  Astor  prosecuted  his  en- 
terprise with  renewed  vigor.  He  associated  with  him  as  ]iartners  Alexander 
McKay,  Duncan,  MacDougal,  Donald  Mackenzie,  David  and  Robei-t  Stuart,  and 
Ramsay  Crooks,  all  men  of  experience,  taken  from  the  Canadians,  and  with 
them  John  Clarke  of  Canada,  and  "Wilson  Price  Hunt  and  Robert  McLellan,  citi- 
zens of  the  United  States.  The  McKay  named  above  had  accompanied  Alexander 
jMackenzie  in  both  of  his  previously  described  voyages  of  discovery. 

The  articles  of  co-partnership  provided  that  Mr.  Astor,  as  head  of  the  com- 
pany, should  remain  at  New  York  and  manage  its  affairs,  and  supply  vessels, 
goods,  supplies,  arms,  ammunition  and  every  other  thing  necessary  to  the  success 
of  the  enterprise  at  first  cost,  providing  that  such  advances  should  not  in  any  one 
year  require  an  outlay  of  more  than  four  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  stock 
of  the  company  was  divided  into  one  hundred  shares  of  which  Astor  held  fifty. 
The  business  was  to  be  carried  on  for  twenty  years,  Astor  to  bear  all  the  losses  of 
the  first  five  years,  after  that,  losses  to  be  borne  ratably  b}'  the  partners ;  but  if 
not  profitable  for  the  first  five  years,  it  might  be  dissolved  at  the  end  of  that 
period.  The  chief  agent  of  the  company  on  the  Columbia  was  to  hold  his  posi- 
tion for  five  years,  and  Wilson  Price  Hunt  was  selected  for  the  first  term.  Four 
of  the  partners,  twelve  clerks  (among  whom  was  Gabriel  Franehere,  who 
wrote  a  narrative  of  the  voyage),  five  mechanics  and  thirteen  Canadian  trap- 
pers, were  to  go  to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  b}'  the  way  of  Cape  Horn  and  the 
Sandwich  Islands,  as  stated  above,  and  commence  work  until  Hunt,  the  chief 
agent,  with  his  part.y,  shoiild  go  overland  to  the  same  point.  The  ship,  Tonquin, 
two  hundred  and  ninety  tons  burthen,  commanded  bj"-  Jonathan  Thorn,  a  lieu- 
tenant of  the  United  States  navJ^  on  leave,  was-  made  ready  for  the  trip  and 
sailed  for  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  on  the  8th  day  of  September,  1810.  The 
ship  carried  a  full  assortment  of  Indian  trading  goods,  supplies  of  provisions, 
timbei's  and  naval  stores  for  a  schooner  to  be  built  on  the  Columbia  for  coast- 
wise trading  tools,  garden  seeds,  and  everything  else  to  start  a  self-sustaining 
settlement.  And  as  England  was  then  dogging  the  infant  republic  to  pick  a 
quarrel  for  the  "War  of  1812,  and  Mr.  Astor  had  got  an  intimation  thjit  his  ship, 
designed  for  peaceful   commerce  and  settlement  in  distant  Oregon,   might   be 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  47 

iutt'iii'|iti'(l  \>y  n  Hritish  privateer,  the  secretary  of  the  navy  sent  Captain  Isaac 
Hull,  with  the  United  States  frigate  (Constitution,  to  eseort  tlie  Toncpiin  licvdnd 
danuer.  'I'he  Tonquin  reached  the  ("ohunhia  on  tlie  24tli  day  of  March,  ISlI, 
and  anchored  in  Haker's  Bay.  This  first  ship  had  sad  luck  in  getting  inlci  llic 
river  on  this  fii'st  vo3'age  to  start  the  mighty  current  of  coiumutcc,  for  cighl  oT 
the  crew  were  lost  in  examining  the  shores  and  bays  of  the  river  to  mark  oul 
its  channel.  On  the  12t,h  of  April,  the  ship's  launch,  with  sixteen  men  and  sup- 
plies crossed  over  the  river  from  Baker's  Bay  to  Point  George,  and  there  and 
then  commenced  a  settlement  on  the  present  site  of  the  city  of  Astoria,  and  gave 
it  the  name  it  bears  in  honor  of  the  projector  of  the  enterprise.  It  was  nine 
months  after  the  arrival  of  the  Tonquin  before  Hunt,  with  a  remnant  of  his 
party,  reached  Astoria,  having  been  harassed  by  the  bitter  opposition  of  tlie 
Canadian  Fur  Company,  which  had  contrived  to  send  a  party  ahead  of  him  and 
arouse  the  opposition  of  the  Indians  to  him,  and  which  party  under  the  lead  of 
Thompson,  reached  Astoria  in  a  canoe,  flying  the  British  flag  just  ninety  days 
after  the  American  flag  had  been  hoisted  on  Point  George. 

The  overland  expedition  of  "Wilson  Price  Hunt  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
in  the  annals  of  pioneer  adventure;  and  in  its  benefits  to  succeeding  immigra- 
tions to  Oregon  was  the  most  beneficial  of  all  the  fur  traders'  contributions  to 
the  settlement  of  this  country.  While  Astor  had  but  little  difficulty  in  getting 
his  ship  off  from  New  York,  he  was  harassed  by  bitter  opposition  to  every  step 
of  his  effort  to  organize  the  overland  party.  While  cruising  the  western  towns 
of  Canada  and  the  United  States  for  suitable  material  to  make  up  a  party  he 
knew  he  would  be  beset  with  great  trials.  Hunt  was  harried  by  the  bitter  op- 
position of  both  the  Northwest  Company  of  Canada  and  the  Missouri  Fur 
Company  of  St.  Louis.  He  finally  gathered  a  party  of  sixty  men  together  and 
went  into  camp  where  the  city  of  St.  Joseph,  in  Missouri,  now  stands,  on  <>r 
about  the  first  of  September.  1810.  Here  was  completed  all  the  details  for  the 
journey  to  be  accomplished  in  1811.  In  this  assemblage  of  bold  border  men 
were  four  partners  in  Astor 's  new  company.  Donald  Mackenzie,  who  had  been 
ten  years  in  the  service  of  the  Northwest  Company,  accustomed  to  every  phase 
of  border  danger  and  trial,  familiar  with  all  the  tactics  of  Indian  warfare,  and 
a  braAc  man.  There  was  also  a  young  Scotchman.  Ramsay  Crooks,  formerly 
with  the  Northwest  Company,  of  great  enterprise,  and  whose  son.  Colonel 
William  Crooks  was  for  years  a  citizen  of  Oregon  and  assistant  to  A.  L.  Mohler. 
president  of  the  Oregon  Railway  and  Navigation  Company.  Also  Joseph  Miller,  a 
native  of  Baltimore,  an  army  oiifieer  and  a  trapper ;  and  the  fourth  man,  Robert 
McLellan,  a  fearless  man,  of  large  experience  in  fighting  Indians  and  the  hero 
of  many  battles.  There  was  also  John  Day,  a  powerful  Virginia  backwoodsman, 
a  giant  in  stature,  and  for  whom  John  Day  river  of  Eastern  Oregon  and  John 
Day  in  Clatsop  county  are  named.  Pien-e  Dorion,  the  Frenchman  whose  father 
had  accompanied  Lewis  and  Clark  as  interpreter,  was  also  in  the  party;  together 
witli  two  scientists,  John  Bradbury  and  Nuttall,  the  botanist,  both  Englishmen. 

Having  everything  in  readiness  the  party  broke  camp  on  the  20th  of  Ajjril, 
1811.  and  commenced  poling  their  boats  iip  the  Missouri  river  ten  years  before 
any  steamboats  were  seen  in  that  region.  They  had  got  only  a  few  days'  advance 
up  tlie  river  until  the  men  commenced  deserting  on  account  of  the  fear  of  the 
Indians.     Hunt  had  planned  to  follow  the  route  of  Lewis  and  Clark  as  far  a.« 


48  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

possible ;  but  learning  of  the  hostility  and  numbers  of  the  Blaekfeet  Indians  who 
had  given  noticfe  that  they  would  destroy  the  whole  party,  he  decided  to  stop 
with  tlie  Riearees  at  their  villages  on  the  river,  purchase  an  outfit  of  horses  and 
cross  the  mountains  near  the  head  of  Platte  river  away  south  of  the  Lewis  and 
Clark  trail,  and  thus  avoid  the  hostile  Blaekfeet.  Hunt  must  have  left  the 
Missouri  river  about  fifty  or  seventy-five  miles  above  the  site  where  the  city  of 
Omaha  now  stands. 

Having  disposed  of  his  boats  and  superfluous  baggage,  Hunt  and  his  party 
left  the  Missouri  river  on  the  18th  of  July,  1811,  and  struck  out  west  into  the 
trackless,  boundless  prairies  of  Nebraska  with  forty-eight  men,  one  Indian 
woman  and  two  children,  and  eighty-two  pack  horses  loaded  with  luggage,  goods 
and  all  sorts  of  supplies  to  carry  them  from  the  Missouri  river  to  Astoria,  Ore- 
gon; nearly  all  the  men  being  on  foot  and  carrying  their  arms  ready  for  an 
Indian  fight  at  any  time.  When  the  party  reached  the  country  of  the  Cheyennes, 
they  obtained  thirty-six  more  horses  and  divided  up  the  packs  and  gave  a  horse 
to  ride  and  tie  alternately  to  each  two  men.  Here  bearing  to  the  north  the  party 
skirted  around  the  Black  Hills  in  Wyoming  and  passed  over  the  great  coal  and 
gold  region  of  that  country  without  seeing  anything  but  Indians  and  buffaloes, 
and  then  struck  westward  along  the  dividing  ridge  between  the  watersheds  of  the 
Missouri  and  Yellowstone  rivers.  By  the  end  of  August  they  had  reached  the 
Big  Horn  mountains  and  were  in  the  country  of  the  Crow  Indians.  Continuing 
on  westward  until  they  struck  Wind  river  valley  they  followed  up  that  stream 
for  five  days.  But  finding  no  game  and  their  food  supplies  running  short,  the 
party  changed  its  course  to  the  southwest  until  it  struck  a  branch  of  the  Colo- 
rado, now  called  Green  river,  and  once  called  Spanish  river,  because  of  the  fact 
that  the  Spaniards  lived  far  south  at  the  mouth  of  the  river.  From  a  high  ele- 
vation in  this  vicinity  from  which  Mr.  Hunt  made  observations  in  all  directions, 
he  discovered  the  Three  Teton  mountain  peaks,  and  made  out  the  guess  that 
these  mountains  were  at  the  head  of  the  Columbia  river. 

Tlie  party  were  now  in  the  country  of  the  Shoshone  Indians;  and  turning 
north  from  Green  river  they  followed  up  a  small  branch  of  that  stream  to  its 
source  and  passed  over  the  dividing  ridge  between  the  watershed  of  the  great 
Colorado  of  the  south  and  the  still  greater  Columbia  of  the  north.  Hunt  had 
no  knowledge  of  this  region  save  what  he  could  gather  from  a  straggling  Indian 
band,  and  the  meagre  facts  gathered  by  Henry  while  he  was  on  the  Henry  brajieh 
of  the  Snake  river  in  the  summer  of  1808 ;  although  Henry  himself  did'  not 
know  at  that  time  that  he  was  on  a  branch  of  the  Columbia  river. 

The  Hunt  party  had  now,  September,  1811,  reached  the  south  branch  of  the 
Snake  river,  and  finding  it  a  rough  stream  for  canoes,  pushed  on  north  over  the 
divide  to  the  north  branch  called  Henry  river,  and  found  it  a  beautiful  stream 
three  hundred  feet  wide  and  apparently  easy  of  navigation.  They  now  thought 
all  their  labors  and  trials  at  an  end.  For  concluding  that  this  stream  ran 
smoothly  down  to  the  Pacific  ocean,  although  a  thousand  miles  distant,  all  they 
had  to  do  was  to  build  canoes,  load  in  their  baggage  and  float  with  the  stream  un- 
til they  landed  at  Astoria.  Never  were  men  more  bitterly  disappointed.  They 
had  absolutely  no  knowledge  of  what  was  before  them.  No  civilized  man  had 
ever  been  through  the  region  ahead  of  them  and  returned  alive  to  tell  the  tale 

With  high  hopes  and  willing  hands    the  whole  party  set  to   work  to    make 


No.   1— Xiithanicl   WvL'tli 
No.  3— (-11(1  F.irt   Hail 


Xo.  2— Kit   Ciirson 

No.  4 — Liout.  Honiu'ville 


TTTK  CENTENNTAT.  TTISTOEY  OP  OREGON  Ht 

ready  for  wlint  they  fully  believed  the  last  and  most  pleasant  part  of  their  great 
undertukiiitr.  Some  were  set  to  felling  the  big  trees  and  making  the  canoes, 
others  were  sent  out  in  pairs  to  get  furs  and  game  for  food,  and  still  others  to 
mending  their  battered  and  torn  clothing.  There  being,  as  they  thought,  no 
further  use  for  the  pack  horses,  they  were  all  turned  over  to  the  Shoshones  to 
look  after,  if  perchance  any  of  the  party  should  ever  return  that  way  and  need 
a  horse.  By  the  19th  of  October,  fifteen  canoes  had  been  completed,  and  every- 
thing being  ready  the  whole  merry  party  of  adventurers  embarked  on  the  Snake 
river  and  struck  out  for  the  Pacific  ocean. 

They  had  one  good  day's  run,  the  loaded  canoes  gliding  swiftly  down 
the  placid  river,  passing  the  confluence  of  the  two  branches  of  the  stream  and 
enabling  the  party  to  camp  before  night  on  the  banks  of  the  main  river.  But 
the  next  day  brought  trouble  and  danger.  From  a  broad  unruffled  stream  tlic 
river  changed  into  a  series  of  dangerous  rapids  in  one  of  which  one  canoe  was 
wrecked  and  another  filled  with  water  and  the  goods  damaged.  The  next  day 
the  dangers  multiplied;  a  laborious  and  dangerous  portage  was  made,  and  later 
on  a  waterfall  of  the  whole  river  required  another  portage,  and  still  farther  on 
another  canoe  was  wrecked  and  one  man  lost  his  life.  Dangers  thus  multiplying, 
it  was  decided  to  send  ahead  scouts  to  examine  the  river  before  again  trusting 
their  canoes  and  lives  to  the  boiling  whirlpools.  Accordingly  two  parties  were 
sent  out  to  examine  the  stream ;  one  down  the  left-hand  side  and  the  other  down 
the  right  side,  and  at  the  end  of  four  days,  after  examining  the  river  for  forty 
miles,  they  returned  and  reported  Snake  river  a  succession  of  dangerous  rapids, 
whirlpools  and  waterfalls  that  no  canoe  could  ever  pass.  Here  was  a  misad- 
venture calculated  to  appall  the  stoutest  heart,  and  well  nigh  seemed  to  be  a  ca- 
tastrophe that  would  wreck  the  whole  undertaking.  In  the  heart  of  what  seemed  a 
boundless  desert,  on  a  wild  stream  that  forbid  even  a  crossing,  without  a  single 
pack  horse,  with  rapidly  vanishing  supplies  of  food,  at  the  near  approach  of 
winter,  and  utterly  ignorant  of  the  country  before  them  to  be  traversed  before 
reaching  their  goal,  a  more  hopeless  situation  covild  hardly  be  imagined.  That 
they  survived  and  overcame  dangers  and  obstacles  that  could  not  be  foreseen  or 
imagined,  shows  the  fibre,  courage  and  endurance  of  men  whose  like  or  equal  has 
never  been  seen  in  any  other  part  of  the  world. 

On  reaching  this  jumping-oif  place  on  the  river,  a  picture  of  which  is  given 
on  another  page,  it  was  called  ''Caldron  Linn,"  but  on  parting  with  it  in  disgust 
they  named  it  "The  Devil's  Scuttle  Hole."  Bravely  facing  the  inevitable.  Hunt 
and  his  men  set  to  work  to  march  a  thousand  miles  to  Astoria  on  foot,  not  calcu- 
lating on  any  aid  from  Indians  or  canoes.  After  concealing  in  caches  the  goods 
they  could  not  pack  the  men  divided  into  four  parties.  Crooks  with  five  men 
should  return  to  Fort  Henry,  over  two  hundi-ed  miles,  get  their  horses  and  re- 
turn as  quickly  a.s  possible  to  relieve  the  situation.  IMackenzie  with  five  men 
°!i(nild  strike  northward  and  find  another  branch  of  the  Columbia  river;  Reed 
with  three  men,  and  ilcLellan  with  three  men,  should  descend  the  river,  one 
party  on  each  side,  while  Hunt  with  the  balance  of  the  party — thirty -one  men 
anil  the  Indian  wife  and  children  of  Pierre  Dorion — would  advance  through  the 
sag(^  brush  desert  of  Idaho.  But  they  had  scareel.v  completed  the  arrangements 
for  their  march  when  the  Crooks  party  suddenly  returned  accounting  it  as 
hopeless  to  recover  the  horses  and  return  to  the  party  before  deep  snow  would 


50  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

set  in.  And  soon  Reed's  men  returned  reporting  it  imiDossible  to  descend  tlie 
river  by  land  or  water.  Tlien  altering  tlieir  plans  it  was  agreed  that  Hunt,  with 
eighteen  men,  Dorion  and  his  family,  should  follow  down  the  right  bank  of  the 
river  and  Crooks  and  the  remainder  of  the  party  should  follow  down  the  left 
bank  of  the  river,  and  in  that  way  possibly  get  some  food  from  Indians  on  either 
side.  The  pack  of  each  man  to  carry  was  now  reduced  to  twenty  pounds,  with 
not  more  than  seven  and  a  half  pounds  of  food  to  the  man,  while  yet  a  thousand 
miles  lay  between  them  and  Astoria. 

The  record  of  the  trials  and  sufferings  of  these  men  slowly  toiling  along 
through  sage  brush,  over  rocks,  sand  and  a  trackless  desert  without  chart  or 
guide  is  one  that  can  scarcely  be  considered  possible.  Often  they  suffered  for 
water,  although  the  water  in  the  boiling  river  lay  below  them  behind  perpendic- 
ular walls  of  rock.  Occasionally  they  could  get  a  few  dried  fish  from  half 
starved  Indians,  or  a  dog  or  skeleton  horse.  Anything  and  everything  to  sustain 
life  was  food  to  them  as  they  toiled  along  with  torn  moccasins  and  bleeding  feet 
making  sometimes  thirty  miles  and  again  only  three  miles  a  day — sleeping  with- 
out shelter  on  the  bare  ground  under  rocks  or  trees,  anywhere — and  to  all  this 
was  added  the  distress  of  the  cold  rains  and  snows  of  bleak  December  days.  One 
morning  about  a  month  after  Crooks  and  Hunt  had  separated,  Hunt  heard 
feeble  cries  across  the  river  and  looking  up  beheld  the  emaciated  form  of  Crooks 
on  the  other  side  of  the  river  begging  for  food.  Crooks  and  his  men  had  been 
reduced  to  the  verge  of  cannibalism.  They  had  lived  on  the  carcass  of  one 
beaver  for  days.  On  the  carcass  of  a  dog  for  other  days.  Had  eaten  all  the 
wild  berries  to  be  found  and  finally  eaten  their  moccasins.  A  boat  was  hastily 
improvised  out  of  a  horse  hide  stretched  over  willow  sprouts  and  food  was  sent 
across  the  river  to  the  starving  men.  One  of  the  men  desired  to  return  with  the 
boat  and  was  taken  in ;  but  as  he  neared  the  shore  the  sight  of  cooking  food  upset 
his  mind  and  with  a  gibberish  laugh  and  shouf  he  toppled  out  of  the  boat  and 
was  drowned.  Crooks  had  gone  down  the  Snake  river  canyon  as  far  as  it  was 
possible  for  men  to  go  and  had  been  compelled  to  retrace  his  steps  when  he  was 
thus  discovered  by  Hunt.  On  hearing  this  report  from  Crooks,  Hunt  resolved 
to  turn  back.  This  he  did.  Crooks  still  keeping  on  the  west  side  of  the  river. 
Both  parties  then  returned  up  the  river  to  a  point  afterwards  known  as  "Olds 
Perry,"  a  picture  of  which  is  given  on  another  page,  and  where  many  thousands 
of  immigrants  in  after  years  crossed  over  to  Oregon,  Here  they  found  an  In-' 
dian  camp  and  set  to  work  to  get  their  aid  to  help  or  show  the  way  to  the  Colum- 
bia river.  An  Indian  was  found  that  could  act  as  a  guide,  but  he  was  loth  to 
make  the  venture.  Every  argument  and  inducement  that  could  be  thought  of 
was  offered  him  for  his  services,  but  nothing  seemed  to  move  him.  They  would 
furnish  horses  to  carry  the  party  over^  the  first  ridge  of  mountains,  but  no  guide 
would  go.  Finally  Hunt  offered  a  blanket  full  of  trinkets,  three  knives,  two 
horses  for  the  guide,  a  gun  and  a  pistol.  The  guide  was  the  poorest  man  in  his 
tribe.  To  accept  this  offer  he  would  be  at  once  the  richest  man  in  the  tribe. 
Filthy  lucre  was  too  great  a  temptation,  and  the  barbarian  yielded  and  became 
the  guide,  led  the  famishing  party  of  explorers  through  the  valleys  of  what  is 
now  Baker  county,'  through  the  beautiful  Grande  Ronde  valley,  over  the  Blue 
mountains,  and  reaching  the  grassy  slopes  of  sunshine  of  the  Umatillas  on  the 
8th  of  January,  1812 — and  the  Hunt  party  was  saved — saved  by  the  red  man. 


TII1<:  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  .-)! 

The  party  of  live  led  by  Reed  and  JIackeiizie  had  sueceeded  bettei'  tiian  ail 
I  lie  others.  By  piisliing  down  the  east  side  of  the  Snake  while  they  were  fresh  and 
st  I'ong  they  got  past  the  worst  of  the  mountains  before  the  snows  fell  on  them ; 
iTossed  over  Salmon  river,  find  down  the  long  ridge  over  the  great  Florence  gold 
mine  (le[)osits.  (Hi  dnwii  tn  Camas  prairie  where  the  town  of  Graugeville  now 
ildurislies,  and  cm  ihiwii  lo  tlic  towns  of  the  Nez  Perce  Indians.  Here  they  were 
received  as  friends  and  all  their  wants  for  food  freely  and  fully  supplied ;  and 
w  hen  rested  and  recuperated,  were  furnished  witii  canoes  on  which  they  floated 
down  the  Clearwater  to  the  Snake,  and  down  the  Snake  to  the  great  Columbia, 
and  down  the  Columbia  to  Astoria  where  they  M'ere  the  first  of  the  Hunt  ])arty 
to  report    for    duty,    reaching    Fort   Astoria    on    the    18th   of   January,    1812. 

Returning  again  to  Hunt  where  he  was  left  with  the  Indians  on  the  Umatilla 
(in  the  Stli  of  January,  wc  find  liiiii  busy  repairing  damages  and  getting  horses 
and  provisions  to  push  on  down  the  river.  On  January  20th,  Hunt  and  his  re- 
maining men  left  the  Umatilla  on  horses  and  pushed  on  to  The  Dalles,  and  there 
getting  canoes  from  the  Indians  at  once  dropped  down  the  Columbia  where  they 
all  arrived  on  the  l.'ith  of  February,  1812,  having  been  ten  months  lacking  five 
days  since  the.v  broke  camp  on  the  Missouri  river  for  their  world-renowned  trip 
across  the  western  \vilderness  of  America.  Counting  the  crooks  and  bends  of 
their  route  tlie.v  traveled  over  thirty -five  hundred  miles  in  ten  months  of  hard- 
ships and  perils  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The  two  parties  met 
at  Astoria  with  inexpressible  joy.  and  the  bronzed  heroes  of  the  mountains  em- 
braced each  other  with  tears  and  kisses  like  children. 

The  War  of  1812  with  England  breaking  out  soon  after,  and  before  any  suf- 
ficient effort  could  be  made  to  prove  the  practical  success  of  the  enterprise,  and 
while  Mr.  Hunt  was  absent  to  Alaska  on  a  trading  expedition  with  the  Beaver — 
a  second  ship  that  Astor  had  sent  out  with  suppli'es  and  men — two  of  Aster's 
partners,  Macdougall  and  ]\IacTavish,  turned  traitor  to  the  enterprise  and  sold 
it  out  to  the  Canadian  Company  for  fifty-eight  thousand  dollars,  propertj'  which 
had  cost  Astor  over  two  hvindred  and  fifty  thousand,  together  with  a  large 
amount  of  fixrs  that  had  been  accumulated.  They  had  not  onl.v  betrayed  and 
roljbed  their  partner  of  his  property  in  the  absence  of  his  American  agent,  but 
they  conspired  to  turn  the  fort  and  all  its  property  and  advantages  over  to  the 
British  government,  pi'ohibiting  the  young  American  employees  from  raising 
the  stars  and  stripes  over  their  own  fort.  The  whole  disgraceful  chapter  of 
treachery  and  dishonesty  to  Astor  and  enmity  to  the  United  States  ending  with 
the  seizure  of  the  fort  bv  the  British  man-of-war  Raccoon,  on  December  1.  1S1:! 

This  chapter  of  perfidy  to  Astor  and  seizure  of  an  American  fort  and  coin- 
mercial  post,  practically  put  an  end  to  all  American  settlement  in  Oregon  for 
thirty  years.  There  were  independent  American  trappers  who  sold  their  fui's  to 
the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  which  succeeded  the  Canadian  Companj^  but  there 
was  not  a  single  American  trading  post,  merchant  or  establishment  in  all  Oregon 
that  dared  fly  the  American  flag  until  Joe  Meek,  led  off  at  (^hampoeg,  in  an  a]i- 
peal  to  ''Rally  around  the  flag,  boys,"  in  1843. 

After  the  ruin  of  the  Astoria  enterprise,  Russell  Farnham,  one  of  Astor 's 
men,  conferred  with  Wilson  Price  Hunt  and  it  was  agreed  between  them  that 
Farnham  should  undertake  to  get  back  to  New  Yoi-k  by  crossing  the  Pacific  ocean 
and  making  his  way  across  Siberia  and  Russia  to  Euro]H'.     This  trip  around  the 


52  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

eartli  Farnham  uudertook  and  safely  carried  out.  He  took  passage  on  the  ship 
Pedlar  and  crossed  over  to  Siberia.  On  entering  Siberia,  Farnham  crossed  the 
eastern  continent  to  St.  Petersburgh,  where  the  American  minister  to  the  Rus- 
sian court  presented  him  to  Emperor  Alexander  as  the  bold  American  who  had 
traveled  across  his  empire.  The  Emperor  received  him  with  great  kindness  and 
consideration,  and  sent  him  on  his  way  to  Paris.  After  great  exposures  to  dan- 
gers, toils  and  sufferings,  such  as  no  other  man  voluntarily  submitted  himself 
to  for  his  countrymen,  he  reached  New  Toi-k,  delivered  his  papers  to  Astor,  ap- 
prising him  of  his  losses  and  the  ruin  at  Astoria,  and  then  made  his  way  back  to 
St.  Louis,  where  he  was  received  as  one  risen  from  the  dead. 

INDEPENDENT   TRAPPING  EXPEDITIONS 

But  while  the  American  enterprise  was  thus  crushed  out  west  of  the  Rocky 
mountains,  the  hardy  pioneers  were  pushing  out  from  St.  Louis,  to  the  east  side 
of  the  Rocky  mountains.  In  1823  General  William  H.  Ashley  led  an  expedition 
across  the  plains.  He  met  with  resistance  from  the  Indians,  and  lost  fourteen 
men  in  battle.  In  1824  Ashlej^  discovered  a  southern  route  through  the  Rocky 
mountains,  led  his  expedition  to  Great  Salt  Lake,  explored  the  Utah  valley,  and 
built  a  fort.  Two  years  later  a  six  pounder  cannon  was  hauled  from  the  Mis- 
souri river  across  the  plains  and  over  the  mountains,  twelve  hundred  miles  to 
Ashley's  Fort.  A  trail  was  made;  many  loaded  wagons  passed  over  it,  and 
within  three  years  Ashley's  men  gathered  and  shipped  back  to  St.  Louis  over  two 
hundred  thousand  dollars  worth  of  furs.  Ashley  was  a  native  of  Virginia,  com- 
menced selling  goods  and  trading  in  the  West  before  he  was  eighteen  j'-ears  of 
age,  and  manufactured  saltpeter  for  powder  before  he  went  into  fur  trading  in 
the  West.  The  Indians  in  the  employ  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  made  war 
on  him,  on  the  upper  Missouri,  and  he  gathered  an  army  of  border  men  and 
drove  the  Indians,  Hudson's  Ba3'  men  and  all  over  into  Montana. 

Jim  Bridger — whose  portrait  we  give  on  another  page — is  another  St.  Louis 
contribution  to  the  winning  of  the  west  by  the  fur  trading  route.  Bridger  was 
another  old  Virginia  boy,  born  in  1804.  When  ten  years  old,  his  father  and 
mother  having  died,  the  boy  began  earning  a  living  for  himself  and  sister  In- 
working  on  a  fiat  boat.  Stories  from  the  wilderness  west  stirred  the  lad,  and 
when  he  was  eighteen  he  joined  a  party  of  trappers  and  took  to  the  Rocky  moun- 
tains, and  continued  in  a  wandering,  trapping,  exploring  life  for  twenty-five 
years.  He  discovered  Great  Salt  Lake  in  1824 ;  the  south  pass  in  1827 ;  visited 
Yellowstone  lake  and  the  gej'sers  in  1830 ;  founded  Fort  Bridger  in  1843 ;  opened 
the  overland  route  by  Bridger 's  pass  to  Great  Salt  Lake;  a  guide  to  the  United 
States  exploring  expedition  under  General  Albert  Sidney  Johnston  in  1857 ; 
aided  G.  M.  Dodge  to  locate  the  line  of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad,  and  acted 
as  guide  to  the  army  in  the  campaign  against  the  Sioux  Indians.  1865-6 ;  and 
received  honorable  burial  at  his  death  and  a  handsome  monument  over  his  re- 
mains in  Mount  Washington  Cemetery  by  the  people  of  Kansas  City.  In  every 
respect  Bridger  was  a  typical  pioneer  American,  plunging  into  the  depths  of  the 
wilderness  for  the  excitement  of  it,  and  to  gratify  a  curiosity  to  see  what  was  in 
the  great  beyond.  He  was  the  friend  of  the  immigrants  to  Oregon,  and  wandered 
far  out  of  his  way  to  warn  them  against  marauding  savages  and  guide  them  on 


THE  CENTENNIAL   lllSTOin'   ()E  ORIOGON  na 

tlieir  course,  ^l^'  was  never  lost.  Father  DeSiiiet  prouounceil  Jii'idger  oue  of  the 
truest  specimens  of  the  real  IJouky  mouutain  trapper.  LJridger's  peak  was  named 
iu  his  honor;  and  in  the  capitol  building  of  the  state  of  ^Minnesota  is  the  painting 
of  a  trapper  in  full  dress,  of  which  Bridger  was  the  original.  He  aided  Dr. 
Whitman  on  his  first  trip  to  Oregon,  and  in  return,  the  Doctor  c\it  an  iron  arrow- 
head out  of  Bridger "s  shoulder,  which  had  been  fired  into  him  l)y  a  Blackfoot 
Indian.  Nevertheless,  the  trapper  retained  no  grudge  against  the  led  race,  and 
took  a  Shoshone  woman  for  a  wife. 

There  were  many  others  engaged  in  pioneering  into  the  western  wilderness 
toward  Oregon  for  furs  and  Indian  trade.  There  were  the  four  Sublette  Bi-oth- 
ers,  all  able,  energetic  men  in  their  manner  of  life.  Captain  Sublette  served 
with  Ashley  and  brought  him  out.  He  had  a  rare  faculty  of  managing  the  In- 
dians, but  when  he  had  to  fight  them,  they  always  got  the  worst  of  it.  Sublette 
was  the  first  man  to  tame  the  Blackfeet.  After  a  desperate  fight  with  them  at 
"Pierre's  Hole,"  renowned  among  the  Rocky  mountain  men  as  the  greatest  bat- 
tle with  the  Indians,  the  Blackfeet  submitted  to  Sublette  and  helped  him  cele- 
brate a  sort  of  Roman  triumph  on  his  return  to  St.  Louis  with  a  pack  of  Indian 
ponies,  a  mile  long,  laden  with  peltries.  One  of  the  Sublettes  drifted  as  far 
west  as  California,  as  one  of  the  foi-ty-niners,  and  there  got  into  a  fight  with  a 
grizzly  bear,  killed  the  bear,  but  died  afterwards  from  the  wounds  inflicted  by 
the  beast. 

And  about  this  time  there  were  scores  of  adventurous  spirits  pushing  out  from 
St.  Louis  to  all  points  ranging  from  the  headwaters  of  the  Missouri  down  to 
Santa  Fe  and  on  to  California.  Kit  Carson  was  probalily  the  most  noted  of 
these  hunters  and  Indian  fighters. 

EXPEDITION    OF   JEDEDIAH   S.    SMITH — 1S24-S 

In  the  .suHuner  of  1824,  Jedediah  S.  Smith,  who  was  born  in  the  state  of 
New  York  in  1804,  went  to  St.  Louis  and  found  employment  with  Ashley  and 
Henry.  And  iu  the  ensuing  winter  they  made  their  headquarters  and  home  at 
the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  post  among  the  Flathead  Indians.  In  1825  Smith 
returned  to  St.  Louis,  and  in  the  following  year  came  back  to  Snake  river  with  a 
still  larger  company  of  trappers.  Pushing  his  way  west  and  south,  trapping  as 
he  went,  passing  probably  down  through  the  Harney  Valley  and  Klamath  Lake 
regions  to  the  head  of  the  Sacramento  river,  he  is  found  on  San  Francisco  bay 
in  1827.  After  sizing  up  the  California  region  and  not  liking  the  rule  of  the 
Spaniard  and  the  priest,  Smith  with  nineteen  men  left  California,  and  pro- 
ceeded along  up  the  Pacific  coast  trapping  as  he  went.  This  expedition  is  re- 
markable in  that,  standing  alone,  it  is  the  only  expedition  of  a  large  company 
that  made  the  trip  between  Oregon  and  California  along  the  sea  coast,  instead 
of  by  the  more  open  and  far  easier  route  by  the  Sacramento,  Umpqua  and 
Willamette  valleys. 

This  adventure  of  Smith  i)roved  a  most  disastrous  affair  to  him  and  his  men. 
By  the  time  the  party  had  reached  the  Umpqua  river  they  had  taken  furs  to  the 
amount  of  twenty  thousand  dollars  in  value.  But  here  they  came  in  contact 
with  with  a  relentless  foe — the  Rogue  River  Indians.  The  Rogue  Rivers,  having 
their  home  in  the  beautiful  Rogue  River  valley  in  Jackson  county,  roved  over 


54  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

the  whole  region  west  to  the  Pacific  ocean,  and  dominated  all  the  lesser  tribes  of 
the  Umpqua,  Coos  Baj^  and  the  Coquille.  Smith  and  his  partj'  were  received 
with  outward  signs  of  friendship,  and  spent  one  night  on  an  island  near  the 
mouth  of  the  Umpqua  river.  The  next  morning  after  breakfast  Smith  and  one 
of  his  men  left  camp  to  find  a  foi'ding  place  to  cross  the  river,  and  no  sooner 
were  they  out  of  sight  of  the  camp  than  an  attack  was  made  by  a  concealed  band 
of  Indians  and  fifteen  men  killed  outright.  Hearing  the  shouts  and  yells  Smith 
hastily  returned  to  camp  only  to  see  his  men  killed  and  his  furs  seized  by  the 
Indians.  He  could  do  nothing  but  seek  safety  in  flight.  He  fled  across  the  river 
with  his  one  man,  and  after  many  trials  and  great  suffering  they  both  reached 
Fort  Vancouver  in  safety.  Two  other  men  of  the  party,  Arthur  Black  and  a 
man  named  Turner  succeeded  in  getting  away  with  their  lives  after  a  terrific 
hand  to  hand  fight  with  the  savages.  Turner  killed  four  of  the  Indians  with  a 
club,  and  Black,  a  physically  powerful  man,  with  bare  hands  knocked  the  sav- 
•  ages  right  and  left  until  he  got  into  the  forest  and  escaped.  Both  of  these  men 
also  succeeded  in  reaching  Fort  Vancouver  nearly  naked,  having  only  shirt  and 
trousers  on,  and  living  for  ten  days  on  snails,  toads  and  fern  roots. 

And  now  it  is  seen  what  sort  of  a  man  Dr.  John  McLoughlin  was.  When 
poor  Smith,  a  rival  trapper  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  crept  into  the  recep- 
tion hall  of  Fort  Vancouver  bareheaded  and  barefooted,  McLoughlin  listened  at- 
tentively to  his  tale  of  woe.  All  sorts  of  stories  have  been  given  by  Oregon  histo- 
rians, not  only  about  this  massacre  of  the  Smith  party,  but  also  of  the  conduct 
of  the  Hudson 's  Baj-  Company  in  relation  thereto.  Judgment  can  only  be  fairly 
rendered  upon  known  and  indisputable  facts.  On  hearing  Smith's  story,  Mc- 
Loughlin promptly  ordered  his  field  captain,  Thos.  McKay,  to  take  fifty  men 
with  twenty  pack  horses  and  go  to  the  Umpqua  river  to  the  scene  of  the  mas- 
sacre with  all  possible  haste  and  recover  Smith's  furs  from  the  Indians.  This 
McKay  did,  notwithstanding  Smith  thought  it  useless  because  he  thought  it 
would  be  impossible  to  recover  the  furs.  McKay  did  as  ordered,  and  within  two 
weeks  was  back  again  to  Vancouver  with  nearlj^  all  the  furs  that  had  been  stolen. 
Now  if  McLoughlin  had  been  so  minded,  it  would  have  been  easy  for  him  to 
have  forced  hard  terms  on  poor  Smith.  Btit  he  took  no  advantage  of  the  situa- 
tion. But  for  the  horses  that  were  lost  on  the  trip  McLoughlin  charged  four 
dollars  each,  and  for  the  time  of  his  men  he  charged  at  the  rate  of  sixty  dollars 
a  year,  and  gave  Smith  a  draft  on  London  for  the  market  price  of  the  furs  in 
Oregon.  Mrs.  Victor  in  her  book  entitled  ' '  The  River  of  the  West, ' '  referring  to 
this  experience  of  Smith  with  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  says  (p.  35)  :  "That 
George  Simpson,  the  governor  of  the  Hudson's  Ba.y  Company,  chanced  to  be 
spending  the  winter  at  Vancouver,  and  offered  to  send  Smith  to  London  the  fol- 
lowing summer  in  the  company 's  vessel,  where  he  might  dispose  of  his  furs  him- 
self to  advantage;  but  Smith  declined  this  offer,  sold  the  furs  to  McLoughlin, 
and  returned  in  the  spring  to  the  Rocky  mountains. ' '  -Joe  Meek  is  undoubtedly 
her  authority  for  this  statement;  and  Joe  Meek  was  never  a  partisan  of  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company.  Smith  was  a  man  of  great  energy  and  perseverance.  No 
sooner  had  he  got  paid  for  these  furs  seized  by  the  Indian  murderers,  but  he  was 
off  again  to  distant  St.  Louis  to  organize  another  expedition.  But  Smith  not  re- 
turning to  St.  Louis  as  his  partners  expected,  a  party  was  sent  out  to  hunt  him 
lip.    The  party  proceeded  to  the  head  of  Snake  river  where  Smith  and  his  men 


I 


Upper    Man— PETER   II.  BURXETT.    Pi-ovisioiial    Suprrme    Judge   of    Oregon,   ami    Fir.%t 

American   Governor   of   California 

Lower   Left   Hand — PIO   PICO.  Last   Mexican   Governor   of   California 

Lower    Right    Hand— LIEUT.  FREMONT.    Who    Overthrew   the    Mexican    Governor    and 

Hoisted   the   American   Flag   in    California 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  55 

were  last  Iwiwtl  I'l'diii  in  1S27.  and  Smith  was  foiuul  alom-  in  "  I'ici'iv's  Hole,"  ;i 
deep  mountain  valley  at  tiu'  fountain  head  of  Snake  river.  The  redoubtable  .)oe 
Meek,  then  a  stripling,  was  one  of  the  party  to  rescue  Smith  from  the  wilderness. 
Smith  returned  to  St,  Louis  and  witii  his  partners,  Jackson  and  Sublette,  or- 
ganized and  sent  out  the  lii'st  train  of  wagons  from  the  Missouri  to  the  Uockv 
mountains,  July  16,  1829. 

Jedediah  Smith's  contril)ution  to  the  settlement  of  Oi-egon  was  not  lar'ge. 
but  lie  unquestionably  did  add  largely  to  the  interest  in  Oregon  liy  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  country  given  to  fur  traders  and  other  business  men  at  St.  Louis. 
Misfortune  seemed  to  pursue  him  throughout  his  career.  His  last  venture  was 
from  St.  Louis  to  Santa  Fe,  during  which  he  got  into  a  battle  with  the  Comanche 
Indians  on  the  Cimmaron  river  and  lost  his  life  in  183L 

CAPTAIN    N-.   J.    WYETH'«  EXPEDITIONS — 1.S32 

Another  successful  explorer  was  Cajjtain  Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth,  of  Massachu- 
setts, who  made  two  overland  expeditions  to  Oregon.  These  were  nest  to  Astor's 
the  second  purely  commercial  ventures  to  Oregon  by  American  citizens.  At  the 
same  time  he  started  his  first  party  overland  to  Oregon,  he  dispatched  a  ship 
from  Boston  ladened  with  goods,  estimating  that  the  ship  would  reach  the 
Columbia  river  about  the  time  the  overland  party  would  reach  the  Willamette 
valley.  The  ship  was  never  heard  from  afterwards,  and  the  overland  party 
reached  Fort  Vancouver  on  the  29th  of  October,  1832.  It  was  Wyeth 's  plan  to 
take  salmon  from  the  Columbia,  salt  or  dry  them  for  the  Boston  market,  trade 
for  all  the  furs  he  could  get,  and  in  that  way  get  a  return  cargo  for  his  ship  and 
do  a  profitable  business.  The  loss  of  the  ship  defeated  his  first  expedition.  But 
it  brought  out  some  men  who  took  root  and  grew  up  with  the  country.  John 
Ball  was  one  of  them,  and  he  is  the  man  that  opened  the  first  school  (at  Van- 
couver) in  all  the  vast  region  of  old  Oregon  November,  1832.  The  school  was 
not  a  success,  but  it  was  a  starter.  Then  Solomon  H.  Smith,  another  one  of  the 
Wyeth  party,  in  ^larch,  1833,  opened  a  school  at  old  Vancouver  under  an  en- 
gagement with  Dr.  McLoughlin,  chief  factor  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  to 
teach  for  six  months.  Smith  expected  to  teach  an  English  school,  but  found  a 
great  confusion  of  tongues.  The  pupils  came  in,  all  speakin.s'  their  native  tongues 
and  each  different  from  the  other,  Cree,  Nez  Perce,  Chinook,  Klickitat,  etc. ;  and 
the  only  boy  who  could  understand  the  English  of  the  teacher  rebelled  off-hand. 
Dr.  McLoughlin  coming  into  the  school  in  the  midst  of  the  difficulty  pi-oceeded 
to  enforce  the  law  himself,  and  gave  the  little  rebel  such  a  thrashing  as  secured 
perfect  discipline  thereafter.  Smith  taught  this  school  of  twenty-five  Indian 
hoys  for  eighteen  months  in  which  time  they  learned  to  speak  English  well  and 
the  rudiments  of  the  primary  branches  of  a  common  school  education.  They 
had  but  one  copy  of  an  arithmetic  in  the  whole  school,  and  of  this  each  pupil 
made  a  complete  copy  which  was  used  afterwards  by  other  pupils.  And  so 
education  started  in  the  land  where  there  are  now  more  colleges,  high  schools 
and  universities  to  the  population  than  in  any  other  region  in  the  United  States. 

Wyeth 's  first  expedition  was  a  financial  failure,  but  not  disheartened,  he 
returned  to  Boston  overland  and  renewed  his  efforts  to  establish  direct  trade 
between  the  Columbia  river  and  his  home  city.    And  having  procured  the  ship 


56  THE  CENTEiNNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

;May  Dacre  and  filled  her  up  with  all  sorts  of  goods  and  supplies  for  this  coun- 
try, the  ship  sailed  for  the  Coumbia  via  Cape  Horn,  while  Wyeth  again  enlisted 
a  party  of  two  hundred  men  and  started  overland  from  Independence,  Missouri, 
on  April  24,  1834.  "With  that  party  came  the  first  missionaries  to  Oregon — 
Jason  and  Daniel  Lee.  On  his  way  across  the  continent,  Wyeth  stopped  and 
erected  Fort  Hall,  in  which  he  stored  his  trading  goods  for  the  interior.  He  and 
his  party  reached  Fort  Vancouver  about  the  same  time  his  ship  came  into  the 
Columbia  and  proceeding  down  to  the  lower  end  of  the  Wappatoo  island  (now 
called  Sauvies  island),  Wyeth  established  a  salmon  fishery  and  built  a  trading 
house  which  he  named  Fort  William.  The  salmon  fishery  was  not  much  of  a  suc- 
cess, but  it  was  the  commencement  of  salmon  packing  on  the  Columbia,  an  in- 
dustry that  now  brings  in  many  million  dollars  yearly. 

In  his  journal  of  April  3,  1835,  Wyeth  writes:  "On  arriving  here  I  set  about 
preparing  for  fishing.  Have  commenced  a  house-boat  seventy  feet  long  for  con- 
veyance about  the  different  fisheries.  Have  finished  a  canoe  sixty  feet  long, 
three  feet  wide  and  two  and  a  half  feet  deep,  out  of  one  tree  which  has  not  a 
shake  or  knot  in  it ;  and  this  is  by  no  means  a  large  tree  here.  I  think  I  could 
find  trees,  free  from  shakes  and  knots,  that  would  sqiiare  four  feet  one  hundred 
feet  long. 

' '  This  Wappatoo  Island  I  have  selected  for  our  establishment  is  fifteen  miles 
long  and  three  miles  wide.  It  consists  of  woodlands  and  prairie,  and  on  it  many 
deer,  and  those  who  could  spare  time  to  hunt  might  live  well ;  but  a  sickness  has 
carried  off  to  a  man  its  inhabitants  (Indians),  and  there  is  nothing  to  attest  that 
they  ever  existed  here  but  their  decaying  houses,  their  graves,  and  their  un- 
buried  bones  of  which  there  are  piles  and  heaps." 

Wyeth  proceeded  to  lay  out  a  town  ^vith  streets,  blocks,  parks,  etc.,  which 
was  the  first  candidate  for  the  great  city  of  this  region.  A  half  a  cargo  of  sal- 
mon was  caught,  dried  and  salted,  the  ship  sailed  for  Boston  in  1838,  and  never 
returned  to  the  Columbia.  Disheartened  with  disease  on  the'  island  and  his 
commercial  failure,  Wyeth  returned  to  Massachusetts.  While  Wyeth 's  expedi- 
tions were  disastrous  to  himself  financially,  they  were  of  immense  value  to  the 
United  States.  He  prepared  a  memoir  to  Congress,  setting  forth  the  character 
and  resources  of  the  country  which  secured  the  attention  of  the  American  people, 
and  from  that  day  on  it  was  but  a  question  of  time  and  courage  uf)on  the  part  of 
the  few  settlers  that  here  should  be  an  American  state  and  not  a  British  province. 

In  his  memoir  to  Congress,  Wyeth  says:  "In  conclusion,  I  will  observe  that 
the  measures  of  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company  have  been  conceived  with  wisdom, 
steadily  pursued,  and  have  been  well  seconded  by  their  government;  and  their 
success  has  been  complete;  and  without  being  able  to  charge  upon  them  gross 
violations  of  existing  treaties,  a  few  years  will  make  the  country  west  of  the 
raoiuitains  as  English  as  they  could  desire.  The  Americans  are  unknown  as  a 
Nation ;  and  as  individuals  their  power  is  despised  by  the  natives.  A  population 
is  growing  out  of  the  occupancy  of  the  country  that  is  not  with  us ;  and  before 
many  years  they  will  decide  to  whom  the  country  belongs,  unless  in  the  meantime 
the  American  government  shall  make  their  power  felt  and  seen  to  a  greater  degree 
than  has  yet  been  the  case. ' ' 

Wyeth  could  see  no  hope  for  American  control  but  in  the  active  intervention 
of  Congress ;  and  yet  within  four  years  from  the  time  he  penned  the  above  lines, 


TllK  ('KNTKXNIA1>   IIIS'I'OIJV   (»K  olJI'XJON  .-,7 

the  Jew  "despised"  Americans  had  met  at  Champoeg  and  oi'j^aiiized  an  independ- 
ent government  flying  the  American  flag — and  saved  tiie  country.  Yet  Wyeth 
I'cndered  an  immense  service  to  the  country.  The  island  he  located  on  was  for 
many  years  Jjnown  as  Wyeth 's  Island,  and  is  so  recorded  in  legal  records  in  Wash- 
ington county.  And  to  Wyeth 's  energy,  money  and  sacrifices,  more  than  to  all 
others  is  due  the  opening  of  the  Oregon  trail.  The  large  force  of  men  he  brought 
out  in  1834  did  thorough  work  not  only  in  exploring  for  the  best  route,  but  in 
smoothing  down  some  of  the  worst  places.  Wyeth  was  never  a  fur  trader.  He 
took  a  higher,  nobler  and  farther  look  ahead;  and  to  him  also  belongs  part  of  the 
honor  of  bringing  the  first  Christian  missionaries  to  the  people  on  the  west  side  of 
the  Rocky  ^lountains — Jason  and  Daniel  Lee — in  18:34. 

CAPTAIN  Bonneville's  expedition ~l<S:Jii 

The  most  notable  venture  was  made  by  Captain  Bonneville  of  the  U.  S.  army 
on  leave,  who  led  a  party  of  one  hundred  and  ten  men  in  1832  into  Utah,  Nevada 
and  Oregon.  Want  of  experience  in  the  business  he  had  undertaken  resulted  in 
many  errors  and  severe  losses  which  were  increased  by  the  active  and  unrelenting 
opposition  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  already  established  in  this  field. 
Bonneville  had  projected  his  expedition  on  the  basis  of  making  scientific  observa- 
tions as  much  as  for  trade.  And  the  government  had  given  him  a  furlough  for 
two  years  on  the  condition  that  he  should  not  only  pay  all  the  expenses  of  his  ex- 
pedition, but  also  that  he  must  provide  suitable  maps  and  instruments,  and  that 
he  should  be  careful  to  find  out  how  many  warrior  Indians  there  were  in  the 
regions  he  might  explore,  and  ascertain  the  nature  and  character  of  these  na- 
tives, whether  wai-like  or  disposed  to  peace,  their  manner  of  making  war  and 
their  instruments  of  warfare.  Proceeding  on  this  basis,  Bonneville  got  as  far 
west  as  the  present  city  of  Walla  Walla,  with  twenty  wagons  in  the  year  1832. 
Bonneville  found  out  a  good  deal  about  the  countiy,  all  of  which  is  most  charm- 
ingly written  up  by  Washington  Irving;  but  he  lost  his  entire  investment  in 
goods  from  the  opposition  and  sharp  practices  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company. 

the  wilkes'  expedition — 1842 

In  1838,  Capt.  Charles  Wilkes  of  the  United  States  Navy  was  sent  out  by  the 
U.  S.  government  for  a  cruise  around  the  world  in  the  interests  of  American  com- 
merce, and  during  which  he  visited  Oregon  in  the  year  1841,  and  made  some 
examination  of  the  countrj'  and  the  condition  of  the  American  settlers  in  the 
Willamette  valley.  This  was  practically  the  first  sign  of  our  government  to 
take  official  notice  of  the  American  settlements  in  Oregon ;  and  although  it  was 
inspired  and  directed  by  a  genuine  spirit  and  desire  to  promote  the  interests  of 
the  nation  and  the  welfare  of  the  American  settlers  in  Oregon,  it  was  not  at- 
tended with  marked  success. 

On  reaching  the  Columbia  river  in  June.  1841,  Wilkes  very  naturally  fell  in 
to  the  company  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  whose  agents  were  only  too  well 
pleased  to  entertain  a  U.  S.  naval  officer  and  make  the  most  favorable  impression 
possible.  And  so  in  the  wilderness  of  Oregon,  Captain  Wilkes  found  himself 
most  hospitably  entertained  b.y  gentlemen  accustomed  to  all  the  graces  of  polite 


58  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

society.  This,  however,  did  not  recommend  him  to  the  free-handed  trapper  and 
pioneer,  or  the  straight-coated  missionary ;  but  rather  otherwise ;  and  he  was 
subjected  to  groundless  suspicions  from  the  company  he  kept.  Dr.  McLoughlin, 
head  man  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  furnished  Wilkes  and  his  part}'  with 
a  comfortable  boat,  well  provisioned  and  men  to  man  and  propel  it,  for  a  trip 
up  the  AVillamette  river  to  see  the  great  valley  and  its  settlers  and  missions.  At 
the  AVillamette  Falls  the  distinguished  party  was  most  hospitably  entertained 
by  Rev.  A.  F.  AA'^aller  (the  man  of  the  old  gray  hat  and  for  long  years  agent  of 
the  Willamette  University)  and  his  charming  wife,  who  played  the  part  of  cook 
and  hostess  equal  to  any  city  lady.  After  the  dinner,  all  hands  repaired  to  the 
"Falls"  then  in  all  their  natural  beauty  unmarred  by  the  hideous  work  of  paper 
mill  plutocrats  in  their  rage  for  more  money,  and  there  witnessed  the  native 
Indian  spearing  the  salmon  as  he  had  done  for  uncounted  centuries.  Proceeding 
up  the  Willamette  the  Wilkes  party  was  entertained  again  at  old  Champoeg  by 
William  Johnson,  one  of  the  Champoeg  heroes  of  1843.  Johnson  had  an  Indian 
woman  for  a  wife  which  Wilkes  declared  to  be  worth  six  civilized  wives ;  and 
notwithstanding  everj'thing  was  very  raw  and  crude,  Wilkes  was  soon  on  the 
most  familiar  terms  in  Johnson's  cabin,  for  Johnson  himself  had  formerly  been 
a  "Man  of  War's  Man"  in  the  U.  S.  navy,  having  fought  on  the  Constitution — 
"Old  Ironsides" — in  the  War  of  1812.  Here  they  left  their  boats  and  took  to 
horses,  provided  bj^  the  settlers  eager  to  show  Wilkes  everything  and  proceeded 
by  land  over  the  open  prairies  up  the  valley,  and  made  their  first  stop  at  the  Cath- 
olic Mission  of  St.  Paul,  then  presided  over  by  Rev.  Francis  Norbert  Blanchet, 
afterwards  the  Catholic  archbishop  of  Oregon  Cit}'. 

From  the  Catholic  mission  the  Wilkes  party  extended  its  trip  farther  south 
to  the  Methodist  mission  which  was  then  located  about  twelve  miles  north  of  the 
present  eitj'  of  Salem.  Here  the  party  was  entertained  by  Abernethy,  Babcock, 
and  other  leading  Methodists.  Proceeding  farther  south  the  party  visited  the 
flouring  mill  erected  by  the  Methodists;  and  from  this  point  they  crossed  over 
the  Willamette  river,  near  the  present  village  of  Wheatland  and  returned  back 
to  the  Falls  of  the  Willamette  after  visiting  American  settlers  in  the  settlements 
where  now  is  found  old  Lafayette,  Dayton,  McMinnville,  Yamhill  and  Newberg. 
From  the  settlers  at  all  these  points,  and  from  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  em- 
ployees, probably  not  more  than  forty  or  fifty  white  men  all  told,  Wilkes  gleaned 
all  the  information  he  could  about  the  country.  And  while  he  did  not  himself  see 
any  of  the  country  east  of  the  Cascade  mountains,  he  sent  his  subordinate,  Dray- 
ton, up  the  Columbia  as  far  east  as  Dr.  Whitman's  mission,  to  gather  all  the  in- 
formation possible.  Wilkes  obtained  from  Peter  Skene  Ogden  a  full  description 
of  all  the  Oregon  country  east  of  the  Cascade  mountains ;  and  Ogden  was  at  that 
time  the  most  reliable  and  best  informed  man  in  all  the  Oregon  country  as  to  all 
its  characteristics  and  resources.  In  addition  to  his  trip  up  the  Willamette  valley, 
Wilkes  made  an  excursion  into  the  valley  of  the  Cowlitz,  going  as  far  as  the  Hud- 
son's Bay  Company's  farms.  The  only  other  work  done  bj'  Wilkes  Avorthy  of 
mention  was  a  survey  of  the  Columbia  river  for  navigation  purposes.  The  surve.y 
amounted  to  nothing  in  value,  although  the  party  had  ample  means  to  have  charted 
the  river  and  rendered  a  great  service  to  Oregon  and  the  country.  Beyond  this 
work  was  a  trip  into  the  Yakima  country  by  Lieut.  Johnson,  and  an  overland  trip 
to  California  by  Lieutenant  Emmons.    On  all  this  there  was  a  large  sum  of  goV' 


JOHN  C.  FKEM()XT 
Oregon   Explorer,  and  Republican  Camiidate  for  President   in   1S56 


THE  CENTKNXIAL  IllSTOKY  Ol-'  (JliKGON  59 

(■rniiiciil    iiKincy  rxpiiiilcd.  ;iii(l   iicitliiiiL:'  dt'  \;iliic  scciiitiI    I'di'  tlif  si-ltlrfs  or  tlic 
cuuntry. 

Hut  wlirii  it  i-Miih'  Id  iiijikiiii;'  n  rrpiirt  tu  tlic  i;()\i'riiiiiriit.  W'ilki's  srciiicil  lu 
JVul  llic  I'lil!  lorcr  mill  rcs|>misiliilil\-  of  liis  mission,  ami  says :  "  iraviny  hi'cn  well 
awaiT  of  tile  little  iiil'ormatioii  in  possession  of  the  government  relative  to  the 
Mofthciii  sn-tioii  of  this  (Oregon!  i-ountry  I  thought  it  proper,  from  its  vast  im- 
poitaiHc  in  the  settlement  of  the  boundary  question,  to  devote  a  large  portion  of 
my  time  to  a  tliorough  survey."  The  value  and  completeness  of  this  survey  may 
he  Judged  of  from  his  report  on  the  Columbia  river,  as  to  which  lie  says:  ''The 
entrance  to  the  Columbia  is  impracticable  two-thirds  of  the  year;  and  the  dil- 
fieiilty  of  leaving  the  river  is  equally  great."  His  report  as  to  the  climate,  soil. 
<  rops,  fisheries  and  timber  is  good.  As  to  the  Willamette  valley,  a  region  he  actu- 
al l.\'  examined,  he  reports  it  as  the  finest  portion  of  the  country  with  a  settlement 
of  some  sixty  families  that  appear  to  be  industrious  and  prosperous,  and  that  a 
man  could  earn  three  times  as  much  by  his  labor  here  in  a  given  time  as  he  eould 
in  the  United  States.  As  to  the  missionai-ies,  "Wilkes  reports  that  little  had  been 
etfeeteil  I>y  them  in  Christianizing  the  Indians.  They  (the  missionaries)  are  prin- 
cii>ally  engaged  in  the  cultivation  of  the  mission  farms,  and  in  the  care  of  their 
own  stock  in  order  to  obtain  flocks  and  herds  for  themselves,  most  of  them  havini; 
selected  lands.  And  as  far  as  my  pei-sonal  observation  went,  in  the  part  of  the 
country  where  the  missionaries  reside,  there  are  very  few  Indians,  and  they  (tlie 
missionaries)  seem  more  occupied  with  the  settlement  of  the  country  and  in  agri- 
cultural pursuits  than  missionary  labors."  This  is  the  testimony  of  an  impartial 
observer  as  to  both  Protestant  and  Catholic,  and  it  is  probably  true  and  just. 
Wilkes  concluded  his  report  on  general  conditions  by  saying:  "That  few  por- 
tions of  the  globe,  in  my  opinion,,  are  to  be  found  so  rich  in  soil,  diversified  in 
surface,  or  capable  of  being  rendered  the  happy  abode  of  an  industrious  and 
civilized  community." 

FREMONT  'S  EXPEDITION — 184)3 

On  the  16th  day  of  December,  1841,  Lewis  F.  Linn,  United  States  senator 
troin  Missouri,  introduced  in  congress  a  bill  to  take  United  States  government 
])ossession  of  Oregon.  The  preamble  to  this  bill  declared  the  title  to  the  countr.v 
to  be  in  the  United  States,  that  it  ought  not  to  be  abandoned,  that  measures  should 
lie  adopted  to  take  possession  of  and  occupy  the  country,  and  that  the  laws  of  the 
Cnited  States  should  be  extended  over  it.  On  the  4th  day  of  January,  1842,  Sen- 
ator Linn  introduced  in  the  senate  a  resolution  requesting  the  President  to  give 
notice  to  the  British  government  of  an  intention  to  terminate  the  treaty  of  joint 
occupancy  of  Oregon  under  the  treaty  of  1827. 

Senator  Linn's  proposed  act  of  congress  furthermore  authorized  the  President 
to  erect  a  line  of  forts  from  the  Missouri  river  into  "the  best  pass  for  entering  the 
v:ille,v  of  the  Oregon,"  and  also  a  fort  at  or  near  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia 
liver ;  and  also  granting  six  hundred  and  forty  acres  of  land  to  every  white  male 
inhabitant  who  was  eighteen  years  of  age  and  over  who  should  settle  in  Oregon 
and  cultivate  the  same  for  five  years.  This  bill  of  Senator  Linn's  never  became  a 
law:  but  it  was  the  excuse  to  send  out  a  military  government  expedition  under 
Lieut.  -John  C.  Fremont  in  1843. 


60  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

This  expedition  of  Fremont 's  never  amounted  to  anything  in  Oregon ;  but  it 
had  a  vast  circulation  in  the  Eastern  states.  Fremont  was  the  son-in-lav?  of 
Thomas  H.  Benton;  Benton  was  United  States  senator  from  Missouri,  and  a  great 
and  good  friend  of  Oregon ;  and  that  excused  Fremont 's  shortcomings  to  the  Mis- 
sourians  in  Oregon,  and  made  him  a  national  figure  under  the  title  of  the  ' '  Path 
Finder, ' '  and  upon  which  capital  he  was  finally  nominated  the  second  candidate 
of  the  republican  party  for  the  presidency  of  the  United  States.  The  writer  of 
this  book  cast  his  first  vote  for  president  for  John  C.  Fremont. 

Fremont's  expedition  to  Oregon  left  the  Missouri  river  at  the  point  where 
Kansas  City  is  located  on  the  29th  of  May,  1843,  and  traveled  along  the  Oregon 
trail  just  behind  the  Oregon  emigration  of  that  year.  At  the  big  bend  of  Bear 
river,  Fremont  turned  south  and  visited  Great  Salt  Lake,  and  after  some  examin- 
ation of  that  salt  sea  returned  again  to  the  Oregon  trail  and  followed  along  after 
the  Oregon  immigrants  until  he  reached  the  Dalles.  There  he  left  his  party  and 
came  down  to  Fort  Vancouver  in  a  canoe  and  purchased  supplies  for  a  southerly 
extension  of  his  travels  from  the  Dalles  to  California.  These  supplies  were  sent 
up  to  him  at  the  Dalles  by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company.  That  Fremont's  trip 
across  to  Oregon  from  the  Missoviri  river  was  whollj'  destitute  of  any  merit  and 
without  a  single  event  to  entitle  kim  to  any  praise  is  evident  from  the  oft-quoted 
testimony  of  Oregon's  distinguished  pioneer  and  statesman,  James  W.  Nesmith. 
In  his  address  to  the  Oregon  Pioneer  Association  in  1875,  Senator  Nesmith  says : 
"I  have  often  been  asked  in  the  Eastern  states  how  long  it  was  after  Fremont 
discovered  Oregon  that  I  emigrated  to  that  country.  It  is  true  that  in  1843,  Fre- 
mont, then  a  lieutenant  in  the  engineer  corps,  did  cross  the  plains,  and  brought 
his  party  to  the  Dalles  in  the  rear  of  our  emigration.  His  outfit  contained  all  the 
conveniences  and  luxuries  that  a  government  appropriation  could  procure,  while 
he  'roughed  it'  in  a  covered  carriage,  surrounded  by  servants  paid  from  the  pub- 
lie  purse.  The  path  he  found  was  that  made  by  the  hard}'  frontiersman  who  pre- 
ceded him  to  the  Pacific,  and  who  stood  by  their  rifles  and  held  the  country 
against  hostile  Indians  and  British  threats  without  government  aid  or  recogni- 
tion until  1849,  when  the  first  government  troops  came  to  our  relief." 

Returning  now  to  Fremont  at  the  Dalles,  with  his  larder  well  filled  from  the 
stores  of  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company,  we  find  him  on  November  25,  1843,  starting 
south  from  the  Dalles  with  twenty-five  men,  nearly  all  of  whom  were  Canadian 
French  trappers,  but  among  whom  was  the  celebrated  guide,  explorer  and  Indian 
fighter.  Kit  Carson.  The  party  kept  up  the  south  side  of  the  Des  Chutes  river, 
passing  through  the  points  now  known  as  Dufur,  Tygh  Valley,  Wapanitia,  Warm 
Springs  and  on  up  to  the  point  where  the  railroad  junction  is  to  be  at  the  town 
of  Crescent.  Fremont  was  following  the  old  trappers'  trail,  and  his  object  was 
to  explore  the  Klamath  Lake  region.  Crossing  the  Des  Chutes  near  Crescent  he 
kept  on  south  until  his  carriage  struck  Klamath  marsh,  on  December  10,  1843, 
and  was  compelled  to  stop  or  turn  aside. 

At  Klamath  marsh  the  party  turned  east,  exploring  the  country  on  both  sides. 
Fremont  claims  to  have  discovered  and  named  in  succession  Summer.  Abert  and 
Christmas  lakes  in  Lake  county ;  but  while  some  of  his  men  may  have  been  at 
Summer  and  Silver  lakes,  it  is  clear  from  his  own  map  that  Fremont  never  saw 
either  Summer,  Silver  or  Christmas  lake.  The  Fremont  party  struck  the  Che- 
waucan  river  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  site  of  Paisley,  and  kept  on  down  the 


TIIK  (.'KNTIONNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  (il 

river  and  ils  tiiarsh  until  they  rounded  the  south  eud  of  Abort  lake.  Thence  pro- 
ceeding north  along  the  east  side  of  Abert  lake  for  about  one-half  its  length,  the 
party  ascended  the  ridge  and  passed  over  the  divide  between  Abert  lake  and  the 
Warner  lake  valley,  and  then  turned  south  and  followed  the  Warner  lake  valley 
lakes  and  marshes  down  into  what  is  now  the  state  of  Nevada.  That  is  substan- 
tially the  whole  of  Fremont's  expedition  to  Oregon.  It  was  of  no  value  to  the 
immigrants,  to  the  future  state,  or  to  the  United  States.  And  yet  Fremont's  al- 
leged discoveries  in  Oregon  were  more  talked  about  than  that  of  all  the  other  ex- 
plorers who  did  in  fact  render  great  service  to  the  country.  And  as  Senator 
Nesmith  forcibly  states  the  fact,  for  this  trifling  service  Fremont  achieved  the 
fame  of  "The  Path  Finder,"  and  was  rewarded  thereafter  with  the  nonnnation 
for  president  of  the  United  States. 

It  has  always  been  claimed  by  his  partisans  that  Fremont  was  entitled  to 
great  credit  in  wresting  California  from  the  Mexicans  in  1846.  But  a  careful 
examination  of  the  history  of  that  Mexican  province  will  not  support  that  claim. 
The  California  Mexicans  themselves  had  been  prior  to  Fremont's  advent,  in  a 
state  of  chronic  rebellion  against  the  Mexican  Republic  on  account  of  the  deport- 
ment of  Mexican  convicts  to  that  province.  Micheltorena,  Castro  and  Pio  Pico 
had  been  competing  rivals  for  supremacy,  until  the  California  settlers,  mostly 
American  adventurers  and  hangers-on  of  the  Swiss  leader,  John  A.  Sutter,  were 
incited  and  emboldened  into  an  attempt  to  set  up  an  independent  government 
under  the  name  of  "The  California  Republic."  At  that  time  Mexico  was  in- 
debted to  England  and  English  bondholders  to  the  amount  of  fifty  millions  of 
dollars,  and  IMexico  was  apparently  willing  to  pay  the  debt  by  a  transfer  of  Cali- 
fornia to  the  English,  and  England  was  ready  to  .lump  at  the  oi¥er.  The  Ameri- 
can government  was  fully  informed  of  the  scheme,  and  on  June  24,  1844,  George 
Bancroft,  secretary  of  the  navy,  wrote  Commodore  Slnat,  in  command  of  the 
American  squadron  in  the  Pacific,  as  follows: 

"The  ^lexican  ports  on  the  Pacific  are  said  to  be  open  and  defenceless.  If 
you  ascertain  with  certainty  that  Mexico  has  declared  war  against  the  United 
States,  you  will  at  once  possess  yourself  of  the  poi-t  of  San  Francisco,  and  block- 
ade or  occupy  such  other  ports  as  your  force  may  permit." 

In  pursuance  of  that  order,  on  July  7,  1846,  Commodore  Sloat  with  his  war 
ships  then  in  San  Francisco  bay,  landed  250  marines,  and  issued  the  following 
proclamation : 

"We  are  about  to  land  on  the  territory  of  Mexico  with  whom  the  United 
States  are  at  war.  To  strike  her  flag  and  to  hoist  our  own  in  place  of  it  is  our 
duty.  It  is  not  only  our  duty  to  take  California,  but  to  preserve  it  afterward  as 
a  part  of  the  United  States  at  all  hazards.  To  accomplish  this,  it  is  of  the  first 
importance  to  cultivate  the  good  opinion  of  the  inhabitants,  whom  we  must  rec- 
oncile. '" 

Prior  to  this,  on  June  l-"),  1846.  twenty-four  American  settlers,  disgusted  with 
the  anarchy  and  misrule  of  the  IMexican  population  and  their  rival  governors, 
had  gathered  at  Sonoma  and  seized  the  Mexican  post  at  that  point,  issued  a  proc- 
lamation of  independence  as  stated  above  for  a  republic,  and  had  made  and  raised 
the  celebrated  ' '  Bear  Flag, ' '  with  a  lone  star  upon  it,  with  William  B.  Ide  as  their 
coiiiniander-in-chief.  These  twenty-four  rebels  had  endeavored  to  get  Fremont 
and  his  party  of  explorers  to  join  them ;  but  Fremont  held  aloof  from  the  move- 


62  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

ment  until  Commodore  Sloat  had  landed  his  marines  and  raised  the  American 
flag.  Then  Fremont  became  the  leader  of  the  Ide  rebels  and  rendered  some  as- 
sistance in  making  California  an  American  state. 

To  the  men  and  women  of  this  age  the  account  of  the  Hunt  party  and  others 
will  not  appear  as  fairy  stories,  but  rather  as  a  hideous  phrensy  of  a  diseased  or 
intoxicated  imagination.  But  few  people  can  comprehend  it,  and  not  a  few  may 
disbelieve  it  altogether.  But  only  by  such  dangers,  trials  and  privations  of  those 
fearless,  self-sacrificing  heroes  was  Oregon  saved  to  the  United  States.  There  is 
now  no  more  West ;  there  is  no  more  wilderness ;  there  is  no  more  privation, 
danger  or  heroism.  The  palace  car  glides  swiftly  from  the  Missouri  to  the  great 
Pacific  ocean ;  the  traveler  reclines  on  luxurious  couches ;  a  colored  porter  attends 
to  every  whim  of  a  satiated  appetite ;  instead  of  deserts,  mountains,  savages  and 
grizzlies,  he  sees  but  a  procession  of  peaceful  homes  and  bustling  cities.  There 
is  no  other  West,  or  desert,  or  mountains,  savage  beast  or  Indian  foe  to  conquer 
and  reclaim — and  no  more  heroes. 

We  have  given  this  much  of  the  first  expeditions  to  Oregon,  and  the  fortunes 
of  the  first  commercial  venture  to  open  commerce  with  this  country  and  the  strug- 
gles of  the  brave  and  invincible  men  who  did  this  pioneering,  so  that  those  now 
here  in  great  prosperity  from  that  feeble  beginning  of  trade,  and  those  who  go 
down  to  the  sea  in  ships  may  see  how  the  great  work  was  started,  and  all  the  more 
appreciate  and  honor  the  sturdy  men  who  started  it.  Persons  who  would  like  to 
read  the  whole  story  of  Astor's  venture  to  the  Columbia  and  the  betrayal  and  loss 
of  his  property  at  Astoria,  will  find  it  most  interesting  reading  and  fully  and 
graphically  portrayed  in  Franchere's  narrative,  and  in  Washington  Irving 's  As- 
toria. Mr.  Elwood  Evans,  in  his  history  of  the  northwest,  fairly  and  .justly  sums 
up  the  character  of  Astor  's  enterprise  as  follows : 

"The  scheme  was  grand  in  its  aim.  magnificent  in  its  breadth  of  purpose  and 
area  of  operation.  Its  results  were  naturally  feasible  and  not  ovei'-anticipated. 
Astor  made  no  miscalculation,  no  omission ;  neither  did  he  permit  a  sanguine 
hope  to  lead  him  into  any  wild  or  imaginary  venture.  He  was  practical,  gener- 
ous, broad.  He  executed  what  Sir  Alexander  Mackenzie  urged  as  the  policy  of 
British  capital  and  enterprise.  That  one  American  citizen  should  have  individu- 
ally undertaken  what  two  mammoth  British  companies  had  not  the  courage  to 
try,  was  but  an  additional  cause  which  had  intensified  national  prejudice  into 
embittered  jealousy  on  the  part  of  bis  British  rivals. ' ' 


CHAPTER  III 

1792—1840 

THE    INDIANS,    THEIR    FAMILIES.    TRIBES    AND    DISTRIBUTION — THEIR    ANCIENT    STO.NIi 

AGE   DESCENT    ANB    IMPLEMENTS — THEIB    MYTHS,    HABITS    AND    RELIGION TllKlK 

NUMBERS  AND  WEAKNESS THE   JARGON  LANGUAGE — THE   INDIAN  IDEA  OF   LAND 

TENURE. 

Wlien  the  wliite  man  discovored  Oresi'on  lie  found  a  lar^c  population  of  In- 
dians scattered  in  groups,  families  and  tribes  over  the  entire  country  from  the 
Rocky  monntains  to  the  Paeilic  ocean,  and  from  California  np  to  the  Alaska  line. 
The  first  comers  detected  no  differences  among  these  people  of  the  forest  and 
plain.  They  were  all  simply  Indians.  As  time  and  experience  brought  the  In- 
dians more  and  more  under  the  observation  of  traders  and  naturalists,  marked 
differences  were  discovered,  and  such  distinction  as  the  various  tribes  themselves 
maintained  and  enforced.  By  the  study  of  the  langiiage  and  dialects  of  these 
families  and  tribes,  and  by  investigation  of  their  beliefs  in  the  supernatural,  and 
their  regulation  of  the  social  and  family  life,  scientists  versed  in  the  principles  of 
ethnology  were  able  to  arrange  and  segregate  this  apparently  heterogeneous  pojiu- 
lation  of  wild  men  into  such  a  classification  as  would  be  intelligible  to  students 
of  Indian  life.  This  has  been  accomplished  for  this  history,  and  for  the  first  time 
given  to  the  general  reader  not  only  in  printed  form  but  also  on  a  map  of  the 
location  of  all  the  Indian  families  described.  For  this  invaluable  service  the 
history  is  indebted  to  the  Rev.  J.  Neilson  Barry,  of  Baker,  Oregon,  and  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Advisory  Board  of  the  History  for  the  Inland  Empire  Section. 

THE  INDIANS  OF  THE  OLD  OREGON  COUNTRY 

There  were  fifteen  ki"ou])s  or  families  of  Indian  tribes  in  that  part  of  the  Old 
Oregon  country  which  is  now  occupied  by  Oregon.  Washington  and  Idaho. 

I.       THE  ATHAPASCAN   FAMILY 

(1)  Kical-hi-n-qiiii  tribe,  so  called  Iiy  the  ("liinooks.  meaning  "'at  a  lonely 
place- in  the  woods:"  tiii'>-  livrd  nn  the  AVillo]>ab  river.  I^rwis  cdunty,  AVasliiiii!:- 
ton. 

(2)  Tlalsldiiiii.  lived  on  the  Clatskanie  riviM-.  Columbia  county.  Orc^dn:  a 
warlike  tribe ;  the  early  Hudson's  Bay  trappers  did  not  dai'e  to  jiass  their  posses- 
sions in  less  numliers  than  sixty  armed  men. 

(3)  J' III jt-qiui,  lived  on   the   rm|U|ua  river.   Douglas  counly.   Oregon. 

68 


64  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

(4)  Coquille,  or  Mishiklnvtitmetumie,  lived  on  the  Coquille  river  in  Coos 
county,  Oregon. 

(5)  Tal-tush-tun-tude,  lived  on  Galiee  creek,  a  tributary  of  Rogue  river,  in 
Josephine  county,  Oregon. 

(6)  Chas-ta-costa,  lived  on  the  north  side  of  the  Rogue  river  in  Curry  and 
Josephine  counties,  Oregon. 

(7)  Tu-tut-ni,  lived  on  Rogue  river  near  its  mouth  in  Curry  county,  Oregon. 

(8)  Chet-co.,  lived  on  the  Chetco  river,  Currj^  county,  Oregon.     A  number 
of  their  villages  were  destroyed  bv  the  whites  in  1853. 


II.  CHIMAKUAN 

(1)  Quil-eute,  on  the  Quillayute  river  in  Clallam  county,  AVashington. 

(2)  Chim-a-kum,  occupied  the  peninsula  between  Hood's  canal  and  Port 
Townsend,  Jefferson  county,  Washington. 

III.  CHINOOKAN 

This  family  of  Indians  occupied  the  shores  of  the  Columbia  from  its  mouth 
to  the  Dalles,  and  the  Willamette  from  Oregon  City  to  its  junction  with  the  Co- 
lumbia.   They  artificially  deformed  their  heads. 
A. — Lower  Ghinookan — ■ 

(1)  Cliin-ook,  lived  at  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  in  Pacific  county,  Wash- 
ington. Their  language  formed  the  basis  of  the  Chinook  jargon  and  has  given 
the  name  for  the  Chinook  wind. 

(2)  Clatsop,  the  name  means  "dried  salmon;"  lived  along  the  Columbia 
from  its  mouth  to  Tongue  Point  and  along  the  coast  to  Tillamook  Head  in  Clat- 
sop county,  Oregon. 

B. — Upper  Ghinookan — These  were  visited  by  an  epidemic  called  ague  fever 
in  1829,  which  in  a  single  summer  swept  away  four-fifths  of  the  people.  (The 
heaps  of  unburied  bones  of  these  people  on  Sauvie's  island  is  mentioned  by 
Wyeth  and  by  other  early  settlers  on  this  island. ) 

(1)  CatJi-la-coni-O'-tup,  resided  on  the  south  side  of  Sauvie's  island  in  Mult- 
nomah county.  Oregon. 

(2)  Cath-la-cum-up,  lived  on  the  west  bank  of  the  lower  mouth  of  the  Wil- 
lamette river,  Columbia  county,  Oregon. 

(3)  Cath-la-ka-he-kit,  lived  at  the  Cascades  of  the  Columbia  in  Hood  River 
county,  Oregon,  and  Skamania  county,  Washington. 

(4)  Cath-la-mef,  on  the  lower  Columbia  from  Tongue  Point  to  Puget  island 
in  Clatsop  count}',  Oregon. 

(5)  Cath-la-nah-qui-ali,  lived  on  the  southwest  side  of  Sauvie's  island,  Mult- 
nomah county,  Oregon. 

(6)  Cath-la-potle,  lived  in  Clark  county,  Washington. 

(7)  Cath-lath-la-las,  lived  on  the  Columbia  below  the  Cascades  in  Skamania 
county,  Washington,  and  Multnomah  county,  Oregon. 

(8)  Chak-ivay-al-ham,  lived  near  Pillar  Rock  on  the  Columbia  river,  Clatsop 
county,  Oregon. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  65 

(9)  Char-cow-a,  lived  on  tlie  Williiiiu'tte  rivrr  just  above  the  falls  in  Claeka- 
tiias  county,  Oregon. 

(10)  Chil-luk-itle-qunw,  lived  along  the  Cohnnbia  river  in  Klickitat  and 
Skamania  counties,  Wasliington. 

(11)  Chit-pan-chick-chick,  lived  on  the  Columbia  in  Klickitat  county,  Wash- 
ington, nearly  opposite  the  Dalles. 

(12)  Clack-a-ma,  lived  on  the  Clackamas  river,  Clackamas  county,  Oregon. 

(13)  Clah-dcl-lah,  lived  near  the  foot  of  the  Cascades  on  the  Columbia, 
Oregon. 

(.li)  Clah-na-quaJi,  lived  on  Sauvie's  island  on  the  Columbia  river,  below 
the  upper  mouth  of  the  Willamette  river,  in  Multnomah  county,  Oregon. 

(15)  Clan-in-na-tas,  lived  on  the  southwest  side  of  Sauvies  island,  Multno- 
mah county,  Oregon. 

(16)  Clat-a-cuf,  lived  in  Klickitat  county,  Washington,  ten  miles  below  The 
Dalles. 

(17)  Clow-we-wal-la,  resided  at  the  falls  of  the  Willamette  river,  Clackamas 
county,  Oregon. 

(18)  Clonaic,  lived  on  the  Columbia  river  below  the  mouth  of  Cowlitz  river 
in  Columbia  county,  Oregon. 

(19)  Vush-ook,  lived  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Willamette  river,  just  below  the 
falls  in  Clackamas  county,  Oregon. 

(20)  Dalles,  resided  at  The  Dalles,  Wasco  county,  Oregon,  and  on  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  Columbia  river  in  Klickitat  county,  Washington. 

(21)  Uh-kye-ma-mit-is,  lived  in  Klickitat  county,  Washington,  nearly  oppo- 
site The  Dalles. 

(22)  Kas-e-nos,  lived  at  the  junction  of  Scappoose  creek  with  the  Willamette 
Slough  in  Columbia  county,  Oregon. 

(23)  Kat-lag-u-lak,  lived  on  the  Columbia  river  two  miles  below  Rainier  in 
Columbia  county,  Oregon. 

(24)  Kat-la-min'i-min,  occupied  the  south  end  of  Sauvie's  island  in  ^lultno- 
mah  county,  Oregon. 

(25)  Kil-lax-tho-klc,  lived  on  Shoal  Water  Bay  in  Pacific  county,  Washing- 
ton. 

(26)  Kle-mi-ak-sa.c,  lived  near  the  present  site  of  the  city  of  Hood  River. 

(27)  Know-il-a-tno-waii,  a  village  twenty-five  miles  from  the  Dalles  (care  Lee 
and  Frost  Ore.  p.  176,  1844). 

(28)  Kt-l-aeshaf-l-kik.  lived  at  the  present  site  of  Cathlamet,  Wahkiakum 
county,  Washington. 

(29)  Kiviil-kwul 

(30)  Lak-stak 

Not  determined,  but  probably  on  the  Columbia  river. 

(31)  Mult-no-mah,  meaning  "down  river,"  a  tribe  living  on  the  upper  end  of 
Sauvie's  island,  Multnomah  county,  Oregon.  The  term  is  also  used  to  include  all 
the  tribes  living  on  or  near  the  lower  Willamette  river. 

(32)  Na-mo-it,  lived  on  the  Columbia  side  of  Sauvie's  island  near  its  lower 
end,  Columbia  county.  Oregon. 

(33)  Xaij-ak-a-u-kaui ,  lived  at  the  present  site  of  St.  Helens,  Columbia 
county,  Oregon. 


66  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

(34)  Nech-a-co-kee,  lived  a  short  distance  below  the  mouth  of  the  Sandy 
river,  Multnomah  county,  Oregon. 

(35)  N e-coot-i-meigh,  lived  at  the  Dalles  (Ross,  Fur  Hunters  I,  p.  186, 
1855). 

(36)  Neer-cho-ki-oon,  lived  on  the  Columbia  river  a  few  miles  above  Sauvie's 
island,  Multnomah  county,  Oregon. 

(37)  Ne-mal-quin-ner,  lived  at  the  falls  of  the  Willamette  river  in  Clackamas 
comity,  Oregon,  and  also  had  a  temporary  house  on  the  north  end  of  Sauvie's 
island  in  Multnomah  county,  Oregon,  where  they  went  occasionally  to  collect 
wap-pa-too  roots. 

(38)  Ne-Looth-lect,  lived  twenty-eight  miles  from  The  Dalles  on  the  Colum- 
bia river. 

(39)  Scal-tal-pe,  lived  a  short  distance  above  the  Cascades  on  the  Columbia 
river,  Oregon  (Lee  and  Frost,  Ore.,  p.  176,  1844). 

(40)  Sha-ha-la,  lived  on  the  Columbia  river  from  the  Cascades  to  Sauvie's 
island. 

(41)  Sho-to,  lived  in  Clark  county,  Washington,  nearly  opposite  the  mouth 
of  the  Willamette  river. 

(42)  Skil-loot,  lived  on  both  sides  of  the  Columbia  river  near  the  mouth  of 
the  Cowlitz  river  in  Cowlitz  county,  Washington,  and  Columbia  county,  Oregon. 

(43)  Smack-sJwp,  lived  on  the  Columbia  river  from  Hood  river  to  the  Dalles. 

(44)  Te-i-ak-ho-choe,  lived  in  Columbia  county,  Oregon,  about  three  miles 
above  Oak  Point. 

(45)  Thlak-a-lam-a,  lived  at  the  mouth  of  Kalama  river,  Cowlitz  county, 
Washington. 

(46)  Tlak-at-la-la,  lived  in  Cowlitz  county,  Washington,  about  three  miles 
above  Oak  Point  on  the  Columbia  river. 

(47)  Tlak-luit,  lived  in  Klickitat  county,  Washington,  from  about  the  pres- 
ent site  of  Spedis  to  the  White  Salmon  river,  their  most  noted  village  near  Spedis 
was  called  Wishram,  but  properly  Nix-lu-dix. 

(48)  Tla-le-gak,  lived  near  Pillar  Rock,  on  the  Columbia  river. 

(49)  Tlash-ge-ne-morki,  lived  in  Wahkiakum  county,  Washington,  below 
Skamokawa. 

(50)  Tle-gu-lak,  lived  near  the  present  site  of  Hudson,  Columbia  county, 
Oregon. 

(51)  Wake,  lived  at  the  head  of  the  Cascades  on  the  Columbia  river. 

(52)  Wah-ki-a-cicm,  lived  in  Wahkiakum  county,  Washington.  They  were 
originally  a  part  of  the  Chinook  tribe,  but  had  separated  and  moved  up  the  river 
from  the  Chinook  territory  to  Oak  Point. 

(53)  Wak-a-na-si-si  (or  Ga-lak-a-na-si-si)  lived  in  Clark  county,  Washing- 
ton, opposite  the  mouth  of  the  Willamette  river. 

(54)  "Wap-pa-too"  is  a  name  given  to  the  tribes  on  and  around  Sauvies 
island. 

(55)  Was-co,  or  (Ga-Us-go) ,  means  "cup  or  bowl,"  from  a  cup-shaped  rock 
near  the  main  village  near  the  Dalles,  Wasco  county,  Oregon. 

(56)  Wat-la-la,  lived  near  Hood  river,  Oregon. 

(57)  Will-o-pah,  lived  on  the  lower  part  of  the  Willopa  river.  Pacific  county, 
Washington. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  67 

(58)  Wilt-wil-luk,  lived  near  Rainier,  Columbia  county,  Oregon. 

(59)  Ye-huk,  lived  just  above  the  Cascades  on  the  Columbia  river. 


IV.       KALAPOOIAN 

The  Kalapooian    families   occupied    the   Willamette   valley    above   the   falls. 
They  practiced  the  flattening  of  the  head,  and  lived  on  game  and  roots. 

A.  The  following  tribes  are  known  to  belong  to  this  division: 

(1)  Ahant-chu-yuk,  lived  on  Pudding  river,  a  tributary  of  the  Willamette 
river.  Oregon. 

(2)  At-ful-a-tu  (or  Tu-al-a-ti),  on  the  Tualitin  river  and  vicinity  in  Wash- 
ington county,  Oregon. 

(3)  Cal-a-poo-ya,  occupied  the  watershed  between  the  Umpqua  and  Willam- 
ette rivers  in  Lane  and  Douglas  counties,  Oregon. 

(4)  Che-la-nie-la,  lived  on  Long  Tom  creek,  a  tributary  of  the  Willamette 
river,  in  Lane  and  Benton  counties,  Oregon. 

(5)  Che-pe-na-fa,  lived  at  the  forks  of  St.  Mary's  river  near  Corvallis,  Ben- 
ton county,  Oregon. 

(6)  Lak-imdt,  lived  on  the  Lakmuit  (Luckiamute)  river,  a  tributary  of  the 
Willamette,  in  Polk  county,  Oregon. 

(7)  San-ti-am,  lived  on  the  Santiam  river,  Linn  county,  Oregon. 

(8)  Yam-ti,  lived  on  the  Yamhill  river,  Yamhill  county,  Oregon. 

(9)  Y on-kal-la,  lived  on  Elk  creek  and  Calapooya  creek  in  Douglas  county, 
Oregon. 

B.  The  following  tribes  are  supposed  to  have  also  belonged  to  the  Kalapoo- 
ian family : 

(1)  Che-ma-pho,  is  mentioned  in  the  Dayton  treaty  of  1855  as  a  Kalapooian 
band. 

(2)  Che-mc-ke-ias,  is  supposed  to  have  lived  near  Salem,  Marion  county, 
Oregon. 

(4)  Chil-ly-Chan-dizc,  lived  on  the  Willamette  river  (Ross'  Adventures,  p. 
236,  1847). 

(5)  Lai>-tam-hif,  lived  on  the  ]\Iohawk  river.  Lane  county,  Oregon. 

(6)  Leesh-te-losh,  lived  near  the  headwaters  of  the  Willamette  river,  Ore- 
gon. 

(7)  Pee-you,  lived  on  the  Willamette  river,  Oregon. 

(8)  Shee-hees,  is  mentioned  by  Ross  (Adventures,  p.  236,  1849). 

(9)  Shook-an-y,  mentioned  by  Ross  (Adventures,  p.  236,  1849). 

(10)  Win-ne-fel-ly,  tribe  participated  in  the  Dayton  treaty  of  1855. 


V.      KIT-U-N-A-HAN 

(1)  The  upper  Kute-nai  (or  Kit-o-naqua)   (Kootenais). 

(2)  The  Lower  Ku-te-nai  (or  Ako-qtl-at-l-go). 

These  tribes  lived  mostly  in  British  Columbia,  but  also  in  Northern  Idaho 
and  the  Northwestern  corner  of  Montana. 


68  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

VI.      KU-SAN 

A  small  family  of  Indian  tribes  residing  in  the  neighborhood  of  Coos  bay 
and  on  the  lower  part  of  the  Coquille  river,  Coos  county,  Oregon. 

(1)  Me-lu-kitz,  on  the  north  side  of  Coos  bay. 

(2)  Mul-luk,  on  the  north  side  of  the  Coquille  river. 

,  .   (3)     Nah-su-mi,  on  the  south  side  of  the  Coquille  river. 

VII.      TUT-UA-MIAN 

This  family  claimed  as  their  hunting  ground  all  the  Klamath  county,  and 
part  of  Lake  and  Crook  counties,  and  a  strip  of  California  along  the  Oregon 
border. 

(1)  Klam-ath,  resided  chiefly  on  the  Upper  Klamath  lake  in  Klamath  county, 
Oregon. 

(2)  Mo-doc,  resided  on  the  lakes  along  the  border  of  Oregon  and  California; 
in  1864  the  Modocs  joined  with  the  Klamaths  in  ceding  their  territory  to  the 
United  States,  and  both  divisions  were  put  on  the  Klamath  Indian  reservation; 
but  in  1870  a  chief  named  "Kintpuash,"  but  commonly  called  "Captain  Jack," 
led  a  portion  of  the  Modocs  back  to  the  California  border,  and  the  attempt  to 
bring  them  back  brought  on  the  Modoc  war  of  1872  and  3. 

VIII.      SAL-ISH-AN 

The  name  Salish  was  originally  applied  to  the  Flathead  tribe  in  Montana,  and 
was  afterwards  applied  to  other  tribes  speaking  their  language.  Those  in  Wash- 
ington, Oregon  and  Idaho  were : 

A.  Okinagan  group : 

(1)  0-kin-a-gan,  occupied  Okinagan  county,  "Washington,  west  of  the  Okin- 
agan river. 

(2)  Colville,  lived  in  Stevens  county,  Washington,  from  Kettle  falls  to  the 
Spokane  river. 

(3)  Nes-pe-lim,  or  San-poil,  lived  on  the  Sans-Poil  river  in  Ferry  county, 
and  across  the  Columbia  river  in  Lincoln  county,  Washington. 

(4)  8en-i-jex-tee,  or  Snai-chek-stik,  lived  on  both  sides  of  the  Columbia  river 
from  Kettle  falls  to  the  international  boundary,  in  Ferry  and  Stevens  counties, 
Washington. 

B.  Flathead: 

(1)  Spo-kan,  the  name  applied  to  several  small  bodies  of  Indians  on  and 
near  the  Spokane  river  in  Stevens,  Spokane  and  Lincoln  counties,  Washington. 

(2)  Kal-is-pel,  or  Pend  d'Oreilles,  lived  in  Bonner  county,  Idaho,  and  the 
eastern  part  of  Stevens  county,  Washington. 

C.     Skits-wish,  or  Goeur  d'Alenes,  lived  in  Kootenai  county,  Idaho.    They  are 
known  as  the  Coeur  d  'Alenes,  the  French  word  for  ' '  Awl  Heart, ' '  an  expression 
used  by  some  chief  to  express  the  size  of  a  trader 's  heart. 
D.     The  Columbian  Groups: 

(1)  Pis-quow,  or  We-nat-chi,  lived  on  the  Wenatchee  river,  in  Kittitas  and 
Okinagan  counties,  Washington. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  m 

(2)  Sin-ki-usc,  livcil  ou  the  east  side  ol'  the  ("oliiinl)ia  river  in  Washiiifitoii, 
from  Fort  Okiuakane  to  Point  Eaton. 

(3)  Me-thow,  lived  ou  the  Melhovv  river  in  Okiuagan  eouiity,  and  around 
Lake  Chelan  in  Chelan  county,  Washington. 

E.  Son-gish  Group: 

(1)  CM-lam,  lived  on  the  south  side  of  Puget  Sound. 

(2)  Lum-mi,  lived  in  Whatcom  county,  Washington. 

(3)  Sani-ish,  lived  on  the  Samish  river,  Skagit  county,  Washington. 

(4)  Sem-i-ali-)n()n.  lived  around  Saniiahmoo  Bay,  AVhatcom  county,  Wash- 
ington. 

F.  Nis-qHal-li  (iroap: 

(1)  Nis-qual-li,  lived  on  the  Nisijualli  river  in  Thurston  and  Pierce  counties, 
Washington. 

(2)  Dwam-ish,  lived  near  Seattle,  Washington,  which  was  named  from  a 
ciiief  of  this  and  the  Suquamish  tribes. 

(3)  Puy-al-lup,  lived  in  Pierce  county,  Washington. 

(4)  Skag-it,  lived  in  Skagit  county,  Washington. 

(5)  Sno-qual-mi( ,  or  Sno-quam-ish,  occupied  the  upper  branches  of  the  Sno- 
qualmie  river.  King  county,  Washington. 

(6)  Squax-an,  lived  on  the  peninsula  between  Hood's  Canal  and  Case  Inlet, 
Mason  county,  Washington. 

G.  Twan-a  Group: 

The  Twana  lived  along  both  sides  of  Hood's  Canal,  Mason  county,  Wash- 
ington. 
H.     Che-ha-lis  Group: 

(1)  Quin-ault,  lived  in  Clielialis  county,  Washington. 

(2)  Quait-so,  lived  on  the  coast  in  Chehalis  county,  Washington. 

(3)  Eump-tu-lips,  lived  on  the  Humptulips  river,  in  Chehalis  county,  Wash- 
ington. 

(4)  Lower  Che-lta-lis,  lived  around  Gray's  harbor,  Chehalis  county,  Wash- 
ington. 

(5)  Sat-sop,  lived  on  Satsop  river,  a  tributary  to  the  Chehalis. 

(6)  Upper  Che-lia-lis   (Kiva-i-a-ilk),  on  the  upper  courses  of  the  Chehalis 
river. 

(7)  Goiv-litz,  lived  on  the  Cowlitp;  river  in  Lewis  and  Cowlitz  counties,  Wash- 
ington. 

/.     TiU-a-mook  Group: 

(1)  Till-a-mook,  lived  in  Tillamook  county.  Oregon. 

(2)  Si-let z,  lived  on  the  Siletz  river,  Lincoln  county,  Oregon. 

IX.      SHAHAPTIAN  FAMILY 

also  called  the  Sciatogas,  or  Sait-u-ka. 

(1)     Nez  Perces  (Sahaptin  or  Chopunnish),  was  the  most  prominent  tribe 
of  which  the  following  bands  are  most  noted : 

(a)  Al-pcnv-a,  in  Garfield  and  Asotin  counties,  Washington. 

(b)  As-su-ti,  living  on  Assuti  creek  (Asotin  county,  Washington). 
They  joined  Chief  Joseph  in  the  Nez  Perce  war  of  1877. 


70  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

(e)     Ea-mi-ah,  lived  at  the  present  site  of  Kamiali,  Lewis  county,  Idaho. 

(d)  Lam-ta-ma,  living  on  White  Bird  creek,  a  tributary  of  the  Salmon  river, 
Idaho  county,  Idaho. 

(e)  Lap-wai,  living  on  Lapwai  creek,  Nez  Perce  county,  Idaho. 

(f )  WH-le-wah,  living  in  Wallowa  county,  Oregon,  who  under  chief  Joseph 
were  the  leaders  of  the  Nez  Perce  war  of  1877. 

(2)  Elick-i-tat,  lived  in  Klickitat  and  Skamania  counties,  Washington. 

(3)  Pa-loose,  lived  on  the  Palouse  river  and  the  northern  side  of  the  Snake 
river  in  Whitman,  Adams  and  Franklin  counties,  Washington,  and  Latah  county, 
Idaho. 

(3)  Ten-i-no,  occupied  the  valley  of  the  Des  Chutes  river  in  Wasco,  Sher- 
man, Crook,  Gilliam  and  Morrow  counties,  Oregon. 

(4)  Ty-i-gh,  occupied  the  Tygh  river  and  its  tributaries  in  Wasco  county, 
Oregon. 

(5)  TJm-a-til-la,  lived  on  the  Umatilla  river  in  Umatilla  county,  Oregon. 

(6)  Wal-la  Wal-la,  lived  on  the  lower  part  of  the  Walla  Walla  river  and  on 
the  east  side  of  the  Columbia  river  in  Walla  Walla  county,  W^ashington. 

(7)  Yak-im-a  (or  Cut-sah-7nhi) ,  lived  along  the  Columbia  river  and  on  the 
upper  branches  of  the  Yakima  and  the  Wenatchee  rivers  in  Benton,  Grant,  Doug- 
las, Chelan,  Kittitas  and  Yakima  counties,  Washington. 


X.      SHOSHONEAN 

This  family  was  widely  extended  over  several  states. 

(1)  Shoshone,  occupied  the  entire  central  and  southwestern  part  of  Idaho. 

(2)  Ban-nocks:  (a)  occupied  the  eastern  part  of  Idaho.  Bannock,  Bear, 
Bingham,  Bonneville,  Fremont  and  Oneida  counties,  (b)  Occupied  the  Salmon 
river,  these  in  1878  revolted  and  caused  a  war. 

(3)  Snakes  ("Pai-ute"),  consisting  chiefly  of  the  Yahuskin  and  Wal-papi 
bands  who  occupied  Southeastern  Oregon. 


XI.      SHASTAN 

This  family  of  Indians  extended  from  California  into  Jackson  county,  Ore- 
gon, in  the  vicinity  of  Medford. 

XII.       TA-KEL-MAN 

A  small  family  of  Indian  tribes,  sometimes  called  the  Upper  Rogue  River 
Indians,  living  in  Josephine  county,  and  adjoining  parts  of  Curry,  Jackson  and 
Douglas  counties,  Oregon. 

Xni.      WA-KAS-HAN 

The  name  is  derived  from  their  word  ' '  good, ' '  which  Captain  Cook  heard  at 
Friendly  Cove,  Nootka  Sound,  and  supposed  to  be  the  name  of  the  tribe.  These 
Indians  pursued  and  killed  the  whale.  Some  of  the  tribes  extended  into  the  west- 
ern part  of  Clallam  county,  Washington. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  71 

XIV.      WAIILATPUAN 

(1)  Cay-use,  lived  on  the  headwaters  of  the  UiiiatiUa,  WaUa  WaUa  and 
Grande  Ronde  rivers  in  UmatiUa  and  Union  counties,  Oregon,  and  Walla  Walla 
county,  Washington.  Their  territory  also  extended  from  the  Blue  mountains  to 
the  Ues  Chutes  river.  It  was  some  of  these  Indians  who  murdered  Dr.  Whitman 
in  1847. 

(2)  Mo-la-la,  lived  from  Mount  Hood  to  ilount  Scott  and  on  Molala  river, 
Clackamas  county,  Oregon. 

XV.      YAKONAN 

(1)  Ya-quin-a,  lived  about  Yaquina  bay  and  river,  Lincoln  county,  Oregon. 

(2)  Al-se-a,  lived  along  the  Alsea  river  in  Lincoln  county,  Oregon. 

(3)  Si-w-slaiv,  lived  along  the  Siuslaw  river  in  Lane  county,  Oregon. 

(4)  Ku-i-tish,  lived  along  the  lower  Umpqua  river  in  Douglas  county,  Ore- 
gon. 

Witli  the  origin  or  advent  of  the  Indians  of  Old  Oregon  this  work  is  not 
concerned.  The  tirst  white  man  to  appear  in  ships  on  the  sea  coast  found  the 
Indians  here  before  him.  Lewis  and  Clark  found  them  here  everywhere  when  the 
great  e.xpedition  came  over  the  Rocky  mountains.  How  long  the  Indian  had  been 
here  before  the  white  man  put  in  an  appearance  there  is  no  data  from  which  to 
make  an  estimate.  The  Indian  of  this  region  constructed  no  roads,  built  no  mon- 
uments and  left  no  traces  on  the  face  of  nature  to  mark  his  existence  or  indicate 
the  lapse  of  time.  The  temporary  habitation  he  created,  even  when  he  had  any, 
might  have  been  for  one  or  a  dozen  years,  but  not  for  even  the  span  of  a  single 
life. 

Yet,  but  only  a  superficial  examination  of  the  different  tribes  of  Indians  of 
the  Pacific  coast  shows  that  there  were  not  only  distinct  but  wide  differences  be- 
tween the  Indians  of  California,  Oregon  and  Alaska ;  but  also  between  the  Indians 
of  the  sea  coast  and  those  of  the  great  interior  basin  of  the  Columbia  river  valley. 
The  Eskimo  and  some  of  the  other  tribes  of  Alaska  show  that  they  might  be  re- 
lated to  the  Japanese ;  and  might  have,  as  it  were  easily  possible,  at  some  time  in 
the  distant  past,  come  across  from  the  east  shores  of  Asia  to  west  shores  of  North 
America.  The  reverse  might  also  have  been  the  fact,  as  there  is  no  positive 
knowledge  to  the  contrary.  Since  this  chapter  was  written  a  Norwegian  explorer 
has  found  tribes  of  red-haired  people  in  the  far  north  on  the  .Arctic  ocean,  show- 
ing a  connection  with  European  peoples  in  the  far  distant  past.  The  testimony 
of  the  rocks,  the  ancient  geology  of  Oregon,  shows  that  the  horse,  the  camel,  the 
rhinoceros  and  the  mastodon  were  native  to  this  part  of  the  globe.  Why  not 
man  also  1  Mankind  is  primarily  an  ethnological  unit.  There  is  only  one  specie 
of  men.  Attempts  which  have  been  made  to  separate  mankind  into  several  species 
of  the  genus  Homo  always  failed.  There  being  but  one  specie  of  man  he  could  have 
but  one  origin.  There  are  different  races  of  men  which  have  been  produced  by 
environment,  and  they  each  interbreed  with  the  others.  Different  species  of  ani- 
mals are  not  fertile  with  other  species ;  and  this  proves  the  one  single  origin  of  all 
men.  And  whether  the  Indians  came  over  from  Europe  or  Asia ;  or  whether  the 
Asiatics  and  Europeans  went  over  from  America  is  not  now  important.    The  mi- 


72  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

gration  might  have  been  from  either  side  on  the  solid  ice  cap  that  once  furnished 
an  unobstructed  highway  between  Siberia  and  Alaska ;  or  it  might  have  been  by 
some  primitive  makeshift  of  a  boat  floating  down  a  Siberian  river  and  blown 
across  to  the  Aleutian  Islands  of  Alaska.  But  on  all  the  Indian  population  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  and  from  the  Arctic  to  the  Equator,  the  influence  of 
environment,  of  food,  climate  and  shelter  is  plainly  manifest.  Where  it  was  easy 
to  absorb  a  physical  support  from  the  bounties  of  nature  the  Indian  was  a  lazy 
vagabond.  Whenever  he  had  to  fight  or  struggle  to  maintain  an  existence  he  was 
a  rugged,  assertive  savage.  Where  he  got  an  easy  living  from  fishing  he  paddled 
around  in  a  canoe ;  and  where  he  had  to  capture  the  buffalo  he  rode  a  wild  horse 
and  brought  down  his  game  with  a  spear.  And  everywhere  in  Old  Oregon  when 
the  white  man  came  he  found  the  Indian  clad  in  the  skins  and  furs  of  wild  ani- 
mals. It  was  not  an  unusual  thing  for  the  first  fur  traders  to  find  Indians  clad 
in  furs  that  would  excite  the  envy  of  an  European  princess  and  sell  for  thou- 
sands of  dollars. 

One  hundred  years  ago  the  Indian  owned  the  whole  country.  He  might  well 
have  sung  with  Robinson  Crusoe : 

"My  right  there  is  none  to  dispute; 

Prom  the  center  all  round  to  the  sea 
I  am  Lord  of  the  fowl  and  the  brute." 

The  Indian  was  the  stone  age  man.  The  relics  picked  up  all  over  Oregon, 
or  unearthed  by  deep  mining  operations,  irrigation  canal  works  and  deep  wells, 
and  sent  to  the  Historical  Society's  rooms  at  Portland,  contain  the  mute  but  in- 
disputable story  of  the  centuries  of  occupation  of  Oregon  by  our  native  Indians. 

The  stone  axes,  chisels,  hammers,  mortars,  grinding  mill  stones,  arrow  points 
and  spear  heads  exhibit  the  patience,  skill  and  perseverance  with  which  the  In- 
dian had  to  contend  for  an  existence  against  rival  tribes,  wild  beasts  and  the  in- 
hospitality  of  the  uncultivated  earth.  He  was  purely  a  child  of  nature,  and 
harbored  no  selfishness  but  the  satisfaction  of  his  immediate  wants.  He  believed 
in  a  Great  Spirit  who  had  made  the  stars  and  the  earth,  and  who  had  given  the 
land  and  the  water  and  all  therein  to  all  his  children  in  common.  The  Indian 
was  the  original  socialist — the  man  who  lived  as  a  socialist,  fought  for  his  lands 
as  a  socialist,  divided  the  fruits  of  all  his  labors  as  a  socialist,  and  died  in  the 
conviction  that  the  white  man  had  robbed  him  of  his  God-given  birthrights. 

The  Indian  had  no  standard  of  values.  He  estimated  everything  he  parted 
with,  or  what  he  obtained  by  barter,  by  his  desires  for  what  he  wanted  and  his 
ability  to  replace  what  he  parted  with.  In  disposing  of  his  rich  furs — otter  skins 
now  worth  five  hundred  dollars  each — he  had  no  more  idea  of  their  money  value 
than  a  five-year-old  child ;  as  for  example  his  giving  in  one  instance  to  a  sea  cap- 
tain fur  trader  otter  skins  worth  eight  thousand  dollars  for  a  chisel  that  cost  in 
England  one  dollar.  In  the  grasp  of  his  mind  he  could  catch  more  otter  and  get 
more  skins,  but  he  might  never  have  another  chance  to  get  a  chisel  that  would  be 
far  more  useful  to  him  in  carving  a  canoe  out  of  a  cedar  log  than  the  stone  axe 
he  had  made  himself. 

In  addition  to  the  primitive  stone  axe,  hammer  and  grinding  mill  already 
mentioned,  the  Indian  had  very  little  property  outside  of  the  skin  clothing  to 


THE  CENTFA'NIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  73 

cover  his  body  and  the  skins  tliat  formed  his  bed.  The  Indians  that  lived  by  the 
river  side  and  the  ocean,  possessed  canoes  on  whieli  tliey  set  great  value.  And  in 
the  interior  far  from  the  navigable  rivers,  Indians  possessed  large  numbers  of 
hoi'ses  of  the  size  of  ponies.  And  on  these  they  traveled  from  place  to  place, 
fi'eqnently  making  long  excursions  where  there  was  no  danger  of  war.  The  In- 
dians of  the  Snake  river  valley,  Shoshones,  would  go  cast  beyond  the  Rocky 
mountains  to  hunt  or  trade  for  bufifalo  beef  and  skins.  The  Indians  of  the  Rogue 
river  valley  in  Southern  Oregon  would  come  over  into  the  Willamette  valley,  and 
the  Klickitats  of  White  Salmon  and  the  Yakima  would  range  all  over  the  coun- 
try everywhere  on  horse  trading  expeditions,  and  when  no  favorable  trades  were 
offered  would  not  hesitate  to  steal.  The  word  Klickitat  is  said  to  mean  "ma- 
rauder" or  "robber."  The  Indians  of  Southeastern  Alaska  would  come  down 
to  PugeL  Sound  (as  they  do  yet  to  pick  hops)  by  the  hundreds  in  the  finest  canoes 
in  the  world,  to  trade  and  barter  with  the  Puget  Sound  Indians.  The  Indian 
women  of  all  the  tribes,  and  especially  of  those  in  Alaska,  were  skilled  in  making 
baskets  of  willows  and  grasses,  many  of  them  water-tight,  and  that  would  last  a 
lifetime.  They  were  also  not  only  skillful,  but  also  artistic  in  weaving  feathers 
and  beads  into  ornaments  to  distinguish  the  "chief,"  or  add  to  their  own  per- 
sonal charms.  And  some  even  had  attained  to  the  art  of  spinning  in  a  rude  way 
the  wool  of  the  mountain  sheep  and  weaving  it  into  serviceable  shawls  and 
blankets. 

The  idea  of  a  "Great  Spirit"  that  ruled  all  the  universe  that  the  Indian 
could  see  or  comprehend  was  universal  with  all  the  Indians  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific  ocean.  And  it  must  be  conceded  that  this  idea  must  have  been  evolved 
from  the  inner  consciousness  of  the  Indian  himself,  or  it  must  have  come  to  him 
from  some  foreign  land  so  far  back  in  the  past  that  there  is  no  history  or  dis- 
tinction of  the  fact.  This  universal  idea  assumed  dilferent  names  and  meanings 
with  different  tribes,  and  in  consequence  thereof,  there  came  to  be  a  lot  of  petty 
deities,  or  subsidiary  gods,  in  the  Indian  theology.  But  over  and  above  all  these 
petty  deities  the  Indian  recognized  one  God  subordinate  to  the  Great  Spirit, 
whose  name  was  in  some  tribes  Talipas,  or  Tullipas,  and  in  others  "Coyote."  In 
relating  the  wonderful  things  performed  by  "Coyote"  the  Indian  will  go  into 
many  fanciful  details.  And  sometimes  he  will  vary  the  particulars  of  the  story 
to  suit  what  he  may  think  is  the  fancy  of  his  auditor.  One  story  is  as  good  as 
another  to  show  the  trend  of  the  Indian  mind  in  referenc-e  to  the  supernatural. 
Here  is  the  most  prevalent  one  as  to  how  there  came  to  be  different  tribes  of  In- 
dians in  this  Old  Oregon  country. 

"A  long  time  ago,"  said  an  old  Klickitat  chief  and  medicine  man.  "when  all 
kinds  of  animals  could  talk  like  men,  and  before  any  of  the  present  tribes  of  In- 
dians lived  on  the  earth,  there  was  a  mighty  beaver,  '  Wish-poosh,'  who  lived  in 
Lake  Cle-el-lum.  This  big  beaver  was  the  god  of  the  lake,  and  claimed  all  the  fish 
in  the  lake  and  all  the  trees  around  about  the  lake.  He  lived  in  the  bottom  of  the 
lake  and  had  eyes  like  balls  of  fire,  and  immense  nails  on  his  big  claws  as  bright 
as  silver.  But  like  some  other  gods  of  the  Indians  he  was  a  bad  character,  and 
killed  many  things,  and  made  the  lake  a  place  of  terror,  because  he  had  killed  and 
eaten  everything  that  had  come  in  his  way.  To  the  animals  he  could  not  kill  he 
denied  the  privilege  of  catching  fish  in  the  lake  of  which  there  was  plenty  for  all. 
All  over  the  country  the  Indians  were  hungry  for  fish,  but  not  a  fish  could  they 


74  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

get.  And  then  along  comes  '  Coyote '  and  found  the  poor  Indians  in  this  bad  fix, 
and  their  condition  moved  him  to  do  something  for  the  poor  people.  Coyote 
would  kill  Wish-poosh ;  but  as  other  gods  had  tried  to  destroy  him  Coyote  knew  he 
had  a  big  job  on  hand,  and  so  he  armed  himself  for  the  dangerous  battle.  He 
procured  a  great  spear  with  a  long  strong  handle,  and  bound  it  to  his  wrist  with 
strong  cords  of  Indian  flax,  and  thus  armed  he  went  down  to  the  lake  and  finding 
old  Wishpoosh  drove  the  spear  into  his  body.  The  wounded  and  maddened  water 
god  plunged  into  the  lake  and  down  to  the  bottom;  and  the  cord  of  the  spear 
handle  being  fast  to  Coyote 's  wrist  he  was  dragged  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  lake 
and  dragged  around  by  the  infuriated  monster  until  the  lake  was  churned  up  like 
foam  upon  the  ocean ;  and  from  the  lake  Wishpoosh  whisked  Coyote  away  to  the 
mountain  side,  and  in  the  awful  battle  the  two  gods  tore  a  hole  through  the  moun- 
tains making  the  Stampede  pass  where  the  railroad  now  goes  through ;  and  from 
the  great  gap  in  the  mountain  the  fighting  monsters  rushed  down  into  the  sea 
that  covered  the  Yakima  valley,  and  turning  about  rushed  over  towards  the  Co- 
lumbia river  making  a  channel  for  the  White  Salmon  river  to  run  down  from 
Mt.  Adams.  And  still  the  mighty  beaver  god  dragged  poor  Coyote  along  who 
was  now  getting  the  worst  of  the  battle.  Coyote  grabbed  the  trees  as  Wishpoosh 
dragged  him  along  and  the  trees  were  pulled  up  like  stubble;  he  clawed  at  the 
rocks  and  they  tumbled  down  upon  him.  Nothing  could  stay  the  mighty  power  of 
Wishpoosh.  Exhausted  and  more  dead  than  alive  Coyote  finally  found  himself 
in  the  breakers  of  the  ocean  at  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river — and — and — 
Wishpoosh  was  dead.  Finally  dragging  himself  to  shore,  and  the  dead  body  of 
Wishpoosh  with  him.  Coyote  wiped  the  water  from  his  face  and  eyes  and  decided 
to  cut  up  the  beaver  god 's  body  and  make  it  into  different  tribes  of  Indians.  And 
proceeding  to  do  so  he  cut  out  the  belly  and  of  it  made  the  Chinook  Indians,  say- 
ing as  he  did  so  'you  shall  always  be  short  and  fat  and  have  great  bellies.'  Of 
the  legs  he  made  the  Cayuses,  saying  'you  shall  be  fieet  of  foot  and  have  strong 
limbs.'  Of  the  head  and  brains  he  made  the  Nez  Perces,  saying  'you  shall  be 
men  of  wisdom  and  strong  in  battle. '  Of  the  ribs  he  made  the  Yakimas,  saying, 
'you  shall  be  the  protectors  of  the  poor  Indians.'  Of  the  remainder  of  the 
body  of  Wishpoosh — some  scraps,  blood  and  entrails,  he  made  the  Snake  In- 
dians, saying  'you  shall  always  be  the  people  of  treachery,  blood  and  violence.'  " 

The  above  is  onlj^  one  of  twenty  or  more  mythical  stories  which  the  Indians 
have  handed  down  from  father  to  son  for  unknown  generations  past.  As  well 
as  the  above  story,  which  is  "Speelyai,  the  Coyote,"  they  have  Speelyai  and  his 
wonderful  dog,  Amash  the  Owl,  the  Legend  of  the  Lick,  The  Rabbit  and  the  Sun, 
the  Frog  and  the  Moon,  the  Origin  of  Fire,  Wawa  the  Mosquito,  Castiltah  the 
Crawfish,  Wak-a-Poosh  the  Rattlesnake,  the  Tumwater  Stone  God,  Coyote's  Ride 
to  the  Star,  how  the  Coyote  and  the  Eagle  bring  the  dead  back  from  the  Spirit 
Land,  and  the  Island  of  the  Dead. 

Now  here  is  a  real  ti-ue  Indian  story  which  the  author  of  this  book  vouches  for 
himself.  Four  years  ago  as  Mr.  Maximilian  Tuerck,  who  has  a  fruit  farm  on 
Cook's  Addition  near  the  town  of  White  Salmon  in  the  state  of  Washington, 
was  driving  home  from  town  he  had  to  pass  along  a  road  running  through  a  for- 
est for  half  a  mile.  As  he  drove  along  suddenly  a  coyote — the  sneaking,  chicken- 
stealing,  lamb-killing,  little  gray  wolf  of  eastern  Oregon — came  out  of  the  brush 
and  trotted  alongside  the  team  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile.    Mr.  Tuerck  had  nothing 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  75 

with  whicili  he  could  attack  the  animal  and  so  took  notice  of  all  his  movements. 
Every  few  minutes  the  coyote  would  look  up  at  the  man  apparently  Tearing 
nothing  and  making  no  effort  to  part  company.  As  the  woods  was  passed  and 
tlie  open  field  closed  in  the  coyote  left  the  highway  and  disappeared  in  the  brush. 
Before  Mr.  Tuerck  reached  his  home  he  met  on  the  road,  Joe  Hunt,  an  Indian 
about  seventy-five  years  of  age,  and  the  son  of  Timotsk,  whose  likeness  appears 
on  another  pag(!  of  this  book.  Stopping  his  team  Mr.  Tuerck  relat(!d  his  strange 
experience  with  the  coyote.  Hunt  immediately  showed  great  an.xiety  and  with 
much  excitement  said  to  Tuerck,  who  had  in  many  cases  shown  him  friendship, 
■'That  is  bad  news,  very  bad  news,  the  coyote  knows,  he  brings  you  bad  news, 
Indian  know  the  coyote  no  lie.  Now  you  see  some  of  your  friend  die,  may  be 
now,  may  be  tomorrow — you  see,  sure  you  see."  Mr.  Tuerck  could  only  smile 
at  the  simple  minded  faith  of 

"The  poor  Indian!  whose  untutored  mind 
Sees  God  in  clouds,  or  hears  him  in  the  wind;" 

but  on  reaching  his  home  was  shocked  and  overwhelmed  by  a  telephone  message 
from  Portland  announcing  the  sudden  death  of  his  mothel-  a  few  hours  previous. 

But  not  all  of  the  Indians  believed  in  the  grossness  of  the  myths  represented 
by  the  foregoing.  Some  of  them  had  ideas  of  more  refinement  if  not  of  progress. 
A  few  years  ago  Mr.  Silas  B.  Smith,  of  Clatsop  county,  who  was  himself  a  half 
blood  Indian,  and  an  educated  man — an  attorney — prepared  a  statement  of  the 
beliefs  of  the  Indians  which  he  had  gathered  from  Indians  personally.  Speak- 
ing generally  of  the  Indians  west  of  the  Cascade  mountains  Mr.  Smith  said  they  . 
were  slave  holders;  but  that  their  slaves  were  obtained  from  the  tribes  north 
of  the  Straits  of  Fuca,  or  from  .southern  Oregon  or  northern  California;  and 
that  there  were  no  flatheads  among  the  slaves.  From  this  fact  it  is  concluded 
that  the  flattening  of  the  head  was  considered  a  mark  of  nobility — among  the 
Willamette  and  coast  Indians.  Another  interesting  fact  Mr.  Smith  gives  is  that 
the  Indian  men  of  the  leading  families  always  sought  wives  from  tribes  other 
tlian  their  own.  And  this  shows  that  the  Oregon  Indian  understood  the  danger 
of  interlireeding  with  relatives,  and  in  this  respect  they  were  more  enlightened 
than  the  British  aristocracy. 

The  Oregon  Indians,  says  Mr.  Smith,  believed  in  one  Supreme  Being,  the 
creator  of  all  things,  and  they  called  him  "E-cah-nie. "  They  have  subordinate 
gods,  and  the  principal  one  is  "Tal-i-pas. "  This  divinity 'possessed  some  cre- 
ative power,  and  he  came  among  men  to  teach  them  ways  of  living,  and  in  his 
travels  he  would  assume  the  form  of  the  coyote,  hence  his  name  (Tal-i-pas,  pro- 
nounced by  some  tribes  as ' '  Tul-li-pas, ' '  being  the  name  of  the  coyote) .  He  taught 
the  people  the  art  of  building  canoes  and  of  navigation,  of  making  nets  and 
seining  for  salmon,  of  building  houses  for  their  dwellings,  and  all  the  various 
customs  and  rites  which  they  observed.  On  account  of  his  creative  qualities  his 
character  is  sometimes  blended  in  with  the  Supreme  Being,  and  at  such  times, 
in  referring  to  him,  they  award  him  the  title  of  "E-cah-nie." 

And.  again,  they  have  divinities  presiding  over  certain  special  interests,  such 
as  the  run  of  fish  and  the  like.  The  heart  of  the  salmon  must  never  be  given  to 
a  dog  to  be  eaten,  as  on  account  of  his  base  nature  it  would  be  an  act  of  im- 


76  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

purity,  which  would  provoke  the  disfavor  of  the  god  presiding  over  the  des- 
tinies of  the  sahnon,  and  would  cause  a  failure  of  the  season's  run  of  fish. 

The  ' '  Ta-man-a-was  "  is  a  tutelary  or  guardian  spirit  or  god  who  is  supposed  to 
see  to  the  welfare  of  its  subject  and  to  give  warning  of  approaching  events  of  a 
portentious  character.  Every  person  having  a  tamanawas  is  not  necessarily 
a  doctor  or  medicine  man  or  woman,  but  every  medicine  man  must  have  a'  ta- 
manawas. These  personal  gods  were  not  considered  to  possess  equal  attributes — 
some  were  supposed  to  be  endowed  with  greater  qualities  than  others.  Some 
individuals  claimed  that  their  gods  could  disturb  the  elements  of  nature ;  that  is, 
could  cause  storms  to  arise,  the  lightnings  to  flash  and  the  thunders  to  rumble, 
and  other  disturbances  as  well. 

These  people  believe  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul ;  they  believe  in  a  spirit 
life  and  in  a  spirit  land;  they  believe  that  the  spirits  of  other  animals  go  to  the 
spirit  land  as  well  as  that  of  men.  Their  conception  of  the  spirit  land  is  quite 
beautiful  and  pleasing.  There  it  is  always  spring  or  summer ;  the  fields  are  per- 
petually green,  flowers  blooming;  fruit  ripening,  and  running  waters  diversify 
the  scenery  of  the  beautiful  landscapes,  with  always  an  abundant  supply  of 
game,  and  of  course  the  inhabitants  are  in  a  continuous  state  of  felicity. 

They  believe  that  when  a  person  becomes  very  sick  the  spirit  leaves  the  body 
and  seeks  the  shores  of  the  spirit  land,  and  unless  it  is  recaptured  and  returned 
to  its  original  tenement,  the  person  will  of  course  surely  die.  In  such  cases  the 
services  of  a  skillful  tamanawas  doctor  are  engaged,  and  an  assistant  is  fur- 
nished him  to  accompany  him  on  his  journey  of  discovery  to  the  land  of  the 
dead.  The  assistant  is  given  a  baton,  ornamented  in  the  upper  part  with  plumes 
of  birds  and  claws  of  beasts.  The  doctor  manipulates  his  assistant  until  he  has 
him  mesmerized ;  also  the  baton,  which  is  in  a  continuous  state  of  agitation ;  he 
then  places  himself  in  a  trance  state,  meanwhile  keeping  up  a  vigorous  chant, 
and  they  start  on  their  excursion  to  the  shadowy  shores.  If  they  should  be  for- 
tunate enough  to  find  the  absconding  spirit,  the  doctor  seciires  it  and  brings  it 
back  with  him,  oftentimes  keeping  it  over  night,  and  restoring  it  to  the  patient 
next  day.  Should  the  patient  recover  it  is  proof  of  the  gi'eat  powers  of  the  doe- 
tor,  but  if  on  the  contrary,  the  patient  pass  away,  it  is  evidence  that  the  spirit  ran 
away  the  second  time.  And  so  strong  is  the  regard  of  the  Indian  for  the  coyote 
(wolf)  that  he  will  not  kill  one  of  them  to  this  day. 

Among  all  the  Indians  of  the  Old  Oregon  country,  four  tribes  stand  out  with 
distinguished  prominence.  The  Platheads  of  the  Bitter  Root  valley  in  the  Rocky 
mountains  were  distinguished  for  their  religious  convictions  and  practice,  and 
continued  peace  with  the  white  men.  The  Nez  Perces  were  also  remarkable  for 
their  attachment  to  religious  teaching,  but  were  equally  noted  for  their  courage 
and  sense  of  justice.  The  Cayuses  were  as  much  noted  for  their  dishonesty  and 
treachery  as  their  neighbors  were  for  good  conduct.  The  Snakes  (Shoshones) 
were  the  irreclaimable  vagabonds.  If  the  white  man  got  a  favor  from  them  he  had 
to  first  pay  for  it  and  then  execute  the  contract  by  a  demonstration  of  superior 
force.  Speaking  of  the  moral  character  of  the  Flatheads  and  Nez  Perces,  Bonne- 
ville says  that  they  exhibited  strong  and  peculiar  feelings  of  natural  religion ; 
and  that  it  was  not  a  mere  supposititious  fear  like  that  of  most  savages — they 
evince  abstract  notions  of  morality,  a  deep  reverence  for  an  overruling  spirit, 
and  a  respect  for  the  rights  of  their  fellowmen.    They  (the  Flatheads)  hold  that 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  77 

the  Great  Spirit  is  displeased  witli  all  nations  who  wantonly  engage  in  war;  they 
abstain  from  all  aggressive  hostilities.  Wyeth  gave  the  Flatheads  equal,  or  even 
greater  praise,  saying  he  had  never  known  an  instance  of  theft  among  them ;  and 
neither  quarreling  or  lying ;  and  that  they  were  brave  when  put  to  the  test,  and 
more  than  a  mateh  for  the  Blackfeet  in  battle.  And  the  same  praise  is  due 
e(|ually  to  the  Nez  Perces.  The  Cayuses  made  loud  pretentions  to  religion  for 
a  while  after  the  missionaries  earae  but  fell  from  grace  with  the  murder  of  Dr. 
Whitman  by  members  of  their  tribe.  With  the  exceptions  of  the  Flatheads  and 
Kez  Perces  it  is  quite  reasonable  that  the  Indian's  native  idea  of  religion,  or  a 
Great  Spirit,  arose  from  his  inability  to  comprehend  the  forces  of  nature  about 
him  on  all  sides.  But  the  example  of  the  Flathead  and  the  Nez  Perce  shows  what 
might  have  been  developed  out  of  those  tribes  if  they  could  have  been  handled 
and  taught  by  uniformly  honest  and  ,iust  men.  For  these  Indians  had  in  them 
the  germs  of  a  vigorous  civilization  which  could  have  been  so  trained  and  ex- 
panded as  would  have  produced  teachers  and  governors  of  all  other  tribes,  and 
saved  the  nation  millions  of  dollars  and  thousands  of  valuable  lives  in  suppress- 
ing Indian  wars. 

So  far  as  the  British  and  their  agent,  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  was  con- 
cerned, the  morals  and  religious  teaching  of  the  Indians  was  a  matter  of  no  im- 
portance or  concern  of  theirs  unless  it  affected  the  fur  trade.  One  religion  was 
just  as  good  as  another  to  them,  and  no  religion  was  better  than  either.  An  In- 
dian that  would  not  go  out  and  hunt  for  furs  and  come  in  and  trade  his  pelts 
for  trinkets  was  to  the  fur  company  a  very  poor  Indian.  When  the  British 
agents,  Warre  and  Vavasour,  visited  Oregon  in  1845,  they  reported  the  Indians 
as  a  very  superstitious  race,  and  declared  "that  neither  the  Roman  Catholic  nor 
the  Methodist  missions  had  done  much  toward  reclaiming  the  Indian  population, 
who  are  an  idle,  dissolute  race." 

The  Indian  population  of  the  Oregon  country,  according  to  estimates  made 
by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  was  in  the  year  1842  as  follows: 

Port  Vancouver  locality    200 

Umpqua   Valley  locality    800 

Cape  Disappointment  locality    100 

Chinook   Point   locality    -. 100 

Coweeman  on  Columbia  locality 100 

Champoeg   on   Willamette   locality    150 

Nisqually  Puget  Sound  locality   500 

Cowlitz  County  Valley  locality  250 

Port  Colville,  Upper  Columbia  locality  800 

Pend  d  'Oreille,  Idaho,  locality  400 

Flatheads.  Bitter  Root  Valley  locality 500 

Kootenais — Kootenai   rivei',    Idaho,    locality 500 

Okanogan,    Upper   Columbia  locality 300 

Walla  Wallas,  Walla  Walla  Valley  locality 300 

Port  Hall — Eastern  Idaho  locality    200 

Port  Boise,  Boise  Valley  locality    200 

Port  Victoria.  Vancouver  Island  locality 5,000 

Port  Rupert.  Vaucouvei'  Island  locality 4,000 


78  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Nanaimo,  Vancouver  Island  locality 3,000 

Fort  Langley,  Eraser  River  locality 4,000 

Fort  Simpson,  N.  W.  Coast  locality 10,000 

Kamloops,  Upper  Columbia,  B.  C,  locality  2,000 

Total 33,400 

In  a  population  of  this  size  there  must  have  been  five  or  six  thousand  fighting 
men.  But  there  was  no  organization,  no  co-operation,  and  scarcely  sympathy  of 
one  tribe  with  another.  One  tribe  might  rally  a  few  hundred  at  one  time  for  a 
single  battle  to  rob  a  party  of  white  men  or  attack  a  ship.  Their  weakness  was 
pitiful.  And  so  the  white  traders  and  trappers  ranged  the  vast  country  over 
with  scarcely  a  noticeable  resistenee;  the  massacre  of  the  Smith  party  on  the 
Umpqua  and  of  the  crew  of  the  Tonquin  at  Clayoquot  being  the  only  example  of 
concerted  action  of  the  natives  to  destroy  the  white  men.  And  after  the  Indian 
had  learned  the  use  of  firearms,  combinations  of  tribes  to  resist  the  aggression 
of  the  white  man  was  formed,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Rogue  River  Indian  war,  the 
Yakima  war,  and  the  memorable  resistenee  of  Chief  Joseph  in  his  effort  to  retain 
the  ancient  home  of  his  family  in  the  Wallowa  Valley.  (An  account  of  the  In- 
dian wars  will  be  given  in  the  order  of  time  of  occurrence  in  another  chapter.) 

Probably  the  most  effective  agency  to  get  access  to  the  Indian  mind,  and  to 
unify  their  relations  to  the  white  settlers  and  promote  trade,  peace  and  good 
fellowship  with  all  the  tribes  was  the  invention  and  construction  of  the  "Jar- 
gon" or  "Chinook"  language.  Of  all  the  spoken  languages  in  America  or  in 
the  world  the  "Jargon"  is  the  most  unique.  Its  origin  is  not  definitely  known. 
When  Lewis  and  Clark  reached  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river  in  1805,  they 
found  the  "Jargon"  in  use  among  the  Indians  at  that  point.  It  is  supposed  to 
have  been  originated  by  the  first  voyagers  to  the  Oregon  coast  in  search  of  furs, 
and  was  added  to  from  time  to  time  by  Indians,  travelers  and  fur  traders.  It 
contains  some  real  Indian  words  of  the  Wasco  tribe,  and  some  corrupted  French 
and  English  words,  but  most  of  it  is  pure  fiction.  Some  of  the  words  have  gone 
into  general  use  among  the  pioneer  Oregonians  and  have  got  into  good  company" 
with  people  who  prefer  forcible  languages,  for  instance  the  word  "cultus"  mean- 
ing utterly  worthless,  irreclaimably  bad. 

Below  is  given  samples  of  the  language,  with  definitions  from  Gill's  standard 
dictionary  of  the  "Jargon." 

CHINOOK  JARGON 

Conversational  Phrases 

English  Chinook 

Good  morning   Klahowya,  six  ? 

Good  evening or 

Good  day Klahowyam. 

How  do  you  do  ? 

Come  here Chahco  yahwa. 

How  are  you?   Kahta  mika? 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  79 

Are  you  sick  ? Mika  sick  ? 

Are  you  hungry  ? Nah  olo  mika  ? 

How  did  you  come  ?  Kalita  mika  cliahco  ? 

Are  you  thirsty  ? Nah,  olo  chuck  mika? 

What  ails  you  1   Kahtah  mika  ? 

Would  you  like  something  to  eat? iMika  tikeh  inuckainuck? 

Do  you  want  work? Jlika  Tikeh  mamook? 

To  do  what  ? 

What  do  you  want  me  to  do  ? Iktah  mika  mamook  ? 

Cut  some  wood  Mamook  stick  ? 

Certainly    Nawitka. 

How  much  do  you  want  for  cutting  that  Kansee  dolla  spose  mika  mamook  kono- 

lot  of  wood ? way  okoke  stick? 

That  is  too  mucli.     I   will   give  half  a   Ilyas    mahkook,    nika    potlatch    sitkum 

dollar   dolla. 

No !    Give  three  quarters Wake,  six  !     Potlatch  klone  quahtah. 

Very  well ;  get  to  work Kloshe  kahkwa  ;  mamook  alta. 

Where  is  the  axe  ? Kah  lahash  ? 

There  it  is   Yah-wa. 

Cut  it  small  for  the  stove Jlamook  tenas,  spose  chickamin  pah. 

Give  me  a  saw Potlatch  lasee. 

I  have  the  saw ;  use  the  axe Halo  lasee ;  is  'kum  lahash. 

All  right Nawitka. 

Bring  it  inside Lolo  stick  kopa  house. 

Where  shall  I  put  it  ? Kah  mika  marsh  okoka  ? 

There Yahwa. 

Here  is  something  to  eat Hahkwa  mitlite  mika  muckamuek. 

Here  is  some  bread Hahkwa  mitlite  piah  sapolil. 

Now  bring  some  water Klatawa  iskum  chuck. 

Where  shall  I  get  it  ? Kah  nitka  iskum  ? 

In  the  river  there  Kopa  ikhol  yahwa. 

Make  a  fire Mamook  piah. 

Boil  the  water Mamook  liplip  chuck. 

Cook  the  meat   Mamook  piah  ohoke  itwillee. 

Wash  the  dishes Wash  ohoke  leplah. 

What  shall  I  wash  them  in  ? Kopa  kah  ? 

In  that  pan Kopa  ohoke  kettling. 

Come  again  tomorrow Chahco  weght  tomolla. 

Good-bye  Klahowya. 

Come  here,  friend Chahco  Yahkwya,  six. 

What  do  you  want? Iktah  mika  tikeh ? 

I  want  you  to  do  a  little  job  in  the  morn-  Spose  mika  mamook  tenas  mamook  tenas 

ing sun  ? 

Come  very  early Chahco  elip  sun. 

At  six  o'clock Chahco  yahkwa  tahkum  tintin. 

Oh,  here  you  are ! Alah !    Mika  chahco. 

Carry  this  box  to  the  steamer Lolo  okoko  lecasset  kopa  piah  ship. 

Take  this  bag  also Lolo  weght  lesac. 


80  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

What  will  you  pay  ? Iktah  mika  potlatch  ? 

A  quarter  ?   Ikt  Kwahtah  ? 

Very  well,  and  something  to  eat? Kloshe  kahkwa;  pee  tenas  muckamuck? 

It  is  pretty  heavy Hyas  till  okoke. 

Is  that  man  your  brother  ? Yahka  nah  mika  kahpo  okoke  man  ? 

He  can  help  you,  too Yahka  lolo  leeasset  kopa  mika. 

I  will  give  him  something,  too Nika  potlatch  weglit  yahka. 

Can  you  carry  it  ? Nah  skookum  mika  lolo  okoke. 

Is  it  very  heavy  ? Hyas  till  okoke  ? 

Oh,  no !    We  shall  do  it Wake !  Nesika  mamook. 

Are  you  tired  1 Mika  chalico  till  ? 

How  far  is  it,  this  ship  ? Koonsee  siah,  okoke  ship  ? 

Not  much  farther Wake  siah  alta. 

That  is  all Kopet. 

Do  you  understand  English  ? Kumtux,  mika  Boston  wawa. 

No,  not  very  much Wake  hiyu. 

Will  you  sell  that  fish  ? Mika  tikeh  mahkook  okoke  pish  ? 

Which  of  them? Klaxta? 

That  large  one Okoke  hyas. 

What  is  the  price  of  it  ? Konsee  chickamin  tikeh  ? 

I  '11  give  you  two  bits Nika  potlatch  mox  bit. 

I  '11  give  you  half  a  dollar Nika  potlatch  sitkum  dolla. 

No,  that  is  not  enough Wake,  okoke  hiyu. 

Where  did  you  catch  that  trout  ? Kali  mika  klap  okoke  opalo  ? 

In  Skamokaway  river Kopa  Skamokaway  Ikhol. 

Are  there  many  fish  there? Nah  hiyu  lepish  yahwa? 

Not  many;  too  much  logging Wake ;  klaska  mamook  hiyu  stick  alta. 

Well,  I  won 't  buy  it  today Abba,  wake  tikeh  iskum  okoke  sun. 

What  do  you  think  of  this  country  ? . . . .  Iktah  mika  tumtum  okoke  illahee  ? 
It  is  very  pleasant  when  it  does  not  rain .  Hyas  koshe  yahkaw  spose  wake  snass. 
Not  always;  it  is  worse  when  it  snows  Wake  kw.onesum.    Chahco  weght  peshak 
and  freezes  spose  cole  snass  pee  selipo. 

How  long  have  you  lived  here?     (How 

many  years  ? )   Konsee  cole  mitlite  yahkwa  mika  ? 

Many  years ;  I  forget  how  many Hiyu  cole ;  kopet  kumtux  konsee. 

I  was  born  at  Skipanon Chee  tenas  nika  kopa  Skipanan. 

Did  you  get  your  wife  there  ? Nah,  mika  iskum  nika  kloochman  yah- 
kwa ? 
No ;  she  is  a  Tillamook  woman.    I  mar-  Wake ;    Tillamook    kloochman,    Yakha. 

ried  her  at  Nehalem Nika  malleh  yahka  kopa  Nehalem. 

How  many  children  have  you  ? Konsee  tenas  mika  ? 

We  have  three  boys  and  one  little  girl..  .Klone  tenas   man  nesika  pee   ikt  tenas 

likp ;  ho. 
I  will  send  you  some  things  for  them  Nika  mamook  chahco  iktas  Kimta  nika  ko 
when  I  get  home nika  illahee. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  81 

A   GRACE   AT  TAULIC 

From  lice  &  Frost's  "Ten  Years  in  Oregon" 

0  Scheie  Isthumah,  etokete  inikah ;  loweali  ekokete  itlhullam  Mikah 
minchelute  eopa  ensikah.  Kadow  quonesuni  miuchteauieet  ensikah,  Uminshee- 
tali  conawa  etoweta  eopa  raikali,  emehan.  0  God,  good  art  Thou;  this  good  food 
Thou  hast  given  to  us.  In  like  manner  always  look  upon  us,  and  give  all  good 
things  to  us,  for  the  sake  of  Jesus  Christ.    Amen. 


A  IIYilN  IN  JARGON 

From  Lee  &  Frost 

Aka  eglahlam  Ensikah 

Mika  Ishtamah  emeholew 
Kupet  mikam  toketa  mimah 

Mika  quonesim  kadow 
Mikah  ekatlah  gumohah 

Mika  dowah  gumeoh 
Konawa  etoketa  tenmah 

Mika  ankute  guratoh. 

Translation 

Here  we  now  unite  in  singing 

Glory,  Lord  unto  thy  name. 
Only  good,  and  worthy  praising. 

Thou  are  always.  Lord,  the  same. 
Of  the  sun,  Thou  are  Creator, 

And  the  light  was  made  by  thee ; 
And  all  things  good,  yea  every  creature. 

At  the  first,  Thou  made'st  to  be. 

THE  lord's  PRAYER 

Nesika  Papa  klaxta  mitlite  kopa  Sahalee,  Kloshe  kopa  nesika  tumtum  mika 
nem.  Nesika  Hiyu  Tikeh  cahco  mika  ilahee ;  Mamook  ]\Iika  kaloshe  tumtum 
kopa  okoke  ilahee  Kahwa  kopa  Shalee.  Potlatch  konaway  sun  nesika  mueka- 
muek ;  pee  Mahlee  konaway  nesika  mesahchee,  kahkawa  nesika  mamook  kopa 
klaska  spose  Mamook  mesachee  kopa  nesika.  Wake  lolo  nesika  kopa  peshak,  pee 
marsh  siah  kopa  nesika  konaway    mesahchee.    Kloshe  kahkwa. 

Our  Father  who  dwellest  in  the  above,  sacred  in  our  hearts  (be) Thy  name. 
We  greatly  long  for  the  coming  of  Thy  Kingdom.  Do  Thy  good  will  with  this 
world,  as  also  in  the  heaven.  Give  (us)  day  by  day  our  bread,  and  remember 
not  all  our  wickedness,  even  as  we  do  also  with  others  if  they  do  evil  unto  our- 
selves. Not  bring  us  into  danger,  but  put  far  away  from  us  all  evil.  So  may 
it  be. 

Vol.  I— 0 


82  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 


A  COMMON  SIGN  LANGUAGE 

Intercourse  by  signs  was  universal  among  the  Aborigines.  The  code  of  signals 
was  much  the  same  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific. 

Major  Lee  M.  House  tells  of  being  at  Washington,  D.  C,  with  a  party  of 
Indians  from  Oregon  and  Washington,  attending  a  great  council  of  represent- 
atives from  all  parts  of  the  country.  Languages  were  different  and  the  gather- 
ing clans  were  cold  and  morose,  until  somebody  made  an  attempt  at  an  address 
in  the  sign  language,  which  put  everybody  at  ease,  for  all  understood. 

Certain  chants  and  songs  are  widely  known  also.  The  Omalias  knew  at  once 
the  "stick-bone"  gambling  song  of  the  Indians  of  Vancouver  island,  upon  hear- 
ing it  sung  by  a  student  of  Indian  music.    It  was  the  same  as  their  own. 

While  there  has  not  been  that  general  uplift  in  the  character  of  the  Indian, 
or  of  his  race  as  an  element  of  the  population,  which  was  hoped  for  and  labored 
for  by  the  first  missionaries,  yet  there  has  been  a  vast  improvement  of  his  condi- 
tion mentally,  morally  and  financially.  Civilization  has  not  been  advantageous 
to  the  bodil}'  vigor  and  strength  of  the  red  man.  In  his  primitive  condition  he 
had  to  put  forth  strenuous  effort  to  take  game  for  his  subsistence,  and  this  de- 
veloped his  limbs,  his  body,  and  his  vital  organs.  The  lazy  life  of  the  Indian 
reservation,  with  government  annuities  to  piece  out  slight  efforts  at  labor  to  pro- 
duce crops  for  foods,  has  enervated  rather  than  developed  his  body.  But  worse 
than  all  his  natural  and  inherited  shortcomings  to  hold  the  native  down  to  bar- 
barism has  been  the  persistent  and  devilish  pursuit  of  the  Indian  by  the  dishon- 
est, corrupt  and  diseased  white  man.  The  worthless  white  man  that  hangs 
around  the  reservation,  that  sneaks  into  its  confines  the  bad  whiskey,  and  de- 
bauches the  Indian  family,  that  persistently  fights  and  defeats  every  effort  to 
teach  the  Indian  decent  ways  of  living,  is  a  thousand  times  a  meaner,  baser  and 
more  destructive  creature  than  any  Indian  could  be.  And  this  vile  influence  of 
the  depraved  white  man  is  unfortunately  a  part  of  the  history  of  the  Indian  for 
a  hundred  years — ' '  a  century  of  dishonor ' '  it  has  been  called ;  and  it  is  also, 
and  severely  just  so,  a  part  of  the  history  of  the  educated  and  governing  class 
of  the  American  citizens.  In  the  history  of  the  state  of  Oregon  it  can  be  pointed 
out  where  an  Indian  agent  at  Grande  Ronde  agency,  on  a  salary  of  fifteen  hun- 
dred dollars  a  year  for  foiir  years,  came  out  of  office  with  money  enough  to  pur- 
chase two  thousand  acres  of  the  richest  land  in  the  Yamhill  valley.  How  much 
of  the  annuities  which  the  United  States  government  issued  to  be  paid  by  that 
agent  to  the  fifteen  hundred  ignorant  Indian  wards  was  stolen  by  the  trusted 
agent,  and  how  little  the  poor  Indians  received,  will  never  be  known.  At  the 
Umatilla  reservation,  not  one  agent  but  more  than  half  a  dozen,  grew  rich  in 
persistent  thefts  from  the  ignorant  and  impoverished  wards  of  the  government, 
and  which  robbery  was  continued  until  the  Christian  churches  of  the  nation 
made  reform  of  the  Indian  agencies  the  battle  cry  from  Portland,  Oregon,  to 
Portland,  Maine. 

In  this  battle  to  secure  justice  to  the  poor  and  despised  Indian,  who  could 
do  nothing  for  himself  or  family,  the  names  of  Marcus  Whitman,  Jason  Lee, 
Elkanah  Walker,  Gushing  Eells,  H.  H.  Spalding,  Bishop  Blanchet,  Peter  John 
De  Smet,  James  H.  Wilbur,  George  H.  Atkinson,  Joel  Palmer,  T.  W.  Davenport, 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  83 

Lee  Moorhouse  and  Aaron  L.  Liudslej'  will  stand  out  in  glorious  renown  as  long 
as  the  state  of  Oregon  has  a  history. 

But  if  the  statements  of  the  Nez  Perees  are  to  be  believed  the  government 
agents  still  consider  it  a  safe  ajid  respectable  business  to  rob  an  Indian — or  a 
thousand  Indians.  At  the  present  session  of  Congress  these  Indians  have  pre- 
sented a  petition  through  Senator  Borah,  of  Idaho,  showing  that  the  Nez  Peree 
Indians  were  a  strong  and  powerful  tribe  of  Indians  occupying  a  large  tract  of 
territory  amounting  to  many  millions  of  acres  in  the  states  of  Oregon,  Washing- 
ton, Idaho,  Montana  and  Wyoming ;  in  1855  they  ceded  over  12,000,000  acres  of 
their  territory  to  the  government,  but  retained  the  rights  to  game  and  fish  there- 
on, they  say : 

"Again  in  1863  a  further  cession  of  land  was  made  but  our  rights  to  the 
game,  fish,  etc.,  were  still  retained ;  finally  in  1893,  when  we  made  the  last  ces- 
sion of  land,  we  were  guaranteed  all  the  treaty  rights  theretofore  promised. 

"We  were  not  paid  the  full  amounts  promised  to  us  in  the  treaties  and 
agreements  and  we  were  not  protected  in  our  hunting  and  fishing  rights. 

"The  game,  fish  and  herbs,  the  use  of  the  streams,  springs  and  fountains, 
roads  and  highways,  the  use  of  the  timber  and  camping  privileges  were  consid- 
ered by  us  of  much  greater  value  than  the  money  promised  to  us  for  the  cession 
of  the  land. 

"Our  people  are  good,  law-abiding,  sober  and  industrious  citizens  and  desire 
fair  and  honest  treatment  at  the  hands  of  the  United  States  government  and  at 
the  hands  of  the  officers  thereof. 

"Many  of  our  people  are  unjustly  and  wrongfully  treated  by  the  officers  or 
agents  of  the  Interior  Department  in  the  forcible  deposits  of  our  moneys  in 
banks  without  our  consent — the  moneys  that  belong  to  individuals,  derived  from 
the  sale  of  inherited  land,  of  the  collection  of  rents  from  their  personal  lands — 
and  the  withholding  of  the  money  from  the  individual,  depriving  him  of  the  use 
thereof  and  imposing  on  him  many  hardships  at  great  cost." 

Contrary  to  the  general  belief  the  Nez  Perces  and  the  Yakimas  have  actively 
kept  up  their  local  church  and  school  organizations,  as  well  as  sending  delegates 
to  conferences  and  church  conventions,  and  have  liberally  patronized  the  great 
government  school  for  Indians  near  Salem.  This  school  has  been  of  marked  use- 
fulness to  thousands  of  Indian  boys  and  girls  who  have  attended  it.  One  young 
Indian  man  educated  there — a  full-blood  Indian  of  the  Puyallup  tribe — is  now 
cashier  of  the  First  National  Bank  of  North  Yakima,  and  many  instances  of  oth- 
ers could  be  given  who  have  succeeded  in  business,  live  stock,  farming  and  trans- 
portation lines. 

THE  INDIAN  AND  THE  LAND   QUESTION 

The  land  question  was  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  troubles  with  the  Indians.  And 
the  land  question  will  be  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  trouble  amcng  the  Americans. 
The  Hudson's  Bay  Company  did  not  seek  to  monopolize  land  for  cultivation- or 
sale.  It  only  sought  to  preserve  the  wilderness  as  a  vast  fur-bearing  game  pre- 
serve. This  disposition  of  the  land  coincided  exactly  with  the  ideas  of  the  In- 
dians, and  as  the  compan.v  brought  goods  and  trinkets  for  exchange  for  his  furs, 
the  Indian  was  happy  and  welcomed  that  sort  of  a  white  man  to  his  tepee  and  his 


84  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

confidence.  But  not  so  with  the  American.  He  came  hunting  new  lands,  for 
farms  and  homes,  clearing  away  the  forest  and  driving  away  the  game — the 
natural  food  support  of  the  Indians.  "With  the  single  exception  of  Penn's  ex- 
periment in  buying  the  lands  of  the  Indians  in  Pennsylvania,  the  contest  between 
the  white  man  and  the  Indian  on  the  American  continent  has  been  one  of  oppo- 
sition and  violence,  and  the  cause  of  the  trouble,  the  possession  of  land. 

All  the  Indians  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  were  possessed  with  the  same 
socialistic  idea  of  land  ownership.  And  while  neighboring  tribes  would  war 
with  each  other  for  favorite  hunting  grounds,  yet  to  the  white  man  all  of  them 
presented  the  same  unyielding  front  on  the  land  question.  This  view  of  the  land 
question  was  never  more  forcibly  or  clearly  set  forth  than  by  the  Indian  Chief 
Tecumseh,  of  the  territory  of  Indiana.  When  General  Harrison  was  appointed 
governor  of  Indiana  territory  in  1801,  he  tried  to  secure  a  permanent  peace 
with  the  warlike  Indians  of  that  region,  of  which  Tecumseh  was  the  great  war- 
rior and  leader.  And  to  promote  this  end,  he  invited  Tecumseh  and  other  chiefs 
to  visit  him  at  old  Vincennes.  Tecumseh  accepted  the  invitation  and  was  at- 
tended by  a  number  of  other  chiefs.  The  governor  proposed  to  hold  the  con- 
ference on  the  portico  of  his  residence,  but  Tecumseh  declined  to  meet  there  and 
proposed  a  nearby  grove,  saying,  "The  earth  is  my  mother,  and  on  her  bosom 
will  I  repose."  And  in  the  speech  following,  Tecumseh  said,  "that  the  Great 
Spirit  had  given  this  great  island  (America)  to  his  red  children  and  had  put 
the  whites  on  the  other  side  of  the  water.  The  whites,  not  contented  with  their 
own,  had  taken  that  of  the  red  men.  They  had  driven  the  Indians  from  the  sea 
to  the  lakes,  and  the  Indians  could  go  no  farther.  The  whites  had  taken  upon 
themselves  to  say  that  this  land  belongs  to  the  Miamis,  this  to  the  Delaware,  and 
so  on.    The  Great  Spirit  intended  the  land  as  the  common  property  of  all. 

"Since  the  peace  we  formerly  made,"  he  continued,  "you  have  killed  some 
Shawnees,  Winnebagoes,  Delawares,  and  Miamis,  and  you  have  taken  our  land 
from  us,  and  I  do  not  see  how  we  can  remain  at  peace  if  you  continue  to  do  so. 
You  try  to  force  the  red  people  to  do  some  injury.  It  is  you  that  are  pushing 
them  on  to  do  mischief.  You  endeavor  to  make  distinctions.  You  wish  to  pre- 
vent the  Indians  from  doing  as  they  wish  to — unite  and  to  consider  their  land 
as  the  common  property  of  the  whole.  By  your  distinction  of  Indian  tribes  in 
allotting  to  each  a  particular  tract  of  land  you  want  them  to  make  war  with  one 
another. 

"Brother,  this  land  that  was  sold  to  you  was  sold  only  by  a  few.  If  you 
continue  to  purchase  our  lands  this  way,  it  will  produce  war  among  the  different 
tribes.  Brother,  you  should  take  pity  on  the  red  people,  and  return  to  them  a 
little  of  the  land  of  which  they  have  been  plundered.  The  Indian  has  been  hon- 
est in  his  dealings  with  you,  but  how  can  we  have  confidence  in  the  white  people  ? 
When  Jesus  Christ  came  on  earth,  you  killed  him  and  nailed  him  to  the  cross. 
You  thought  he  was  dead,  but  you  were  mistaken.  You  have  many  religions, 
and  you  persecute  and  ridicule  those  who  do  not  agree  with  you.  The  Shakers 
are  good  people.  You  have  Shakers  among  you,  but  you  laugh  and  make  light  of 
their  worship.  You  are  counseled  by  bad  birds.  I  speak  nothing  but  the  truth 
to  you." 

And  as  Tecumseh  reflected  the  ideas  of  all  the  Indians  east  of  the  Rocky 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  85 

mountains,  so  we  find  <ilso  the  same  ideas  pin-vading  ainonji  those  west  of  the 
Rockies. 

At  the  coiineil  witli  the  Indians  at  Walla  Walla,  to  secure  a  treaty  for  the 
Indian  title  to  their  lands,  several  chiefs  spoke  freely,  showing  that  they  not  only 
well  vinderstood  the  position  of  the  land  question,  but  their  great  fear  of  giving 
up  their  lands.  Lawyer,  the  old  Nez  Peree  chief,  spoke  first,  describing  how  the 
Indians  in  the  eastern  states  were  driven  back  before  the  white  men,  and  then 
went  on  as  follows: 

"The  red  man  traveled  away  farther,  and  from  that  time  they  kept  travel- 
ing away  farther,  as  the  white  people  came  vip  with  them,  and  this  man's  people 
(pointing  to  a  Delaware  Indian,  who  was  one  of  the  interpreters)  are  from  that 
people.  They  have  come  on  from  the  Great  Lakes  where  the  sun  rises,  until  they 
are  near  us  now,  at  the  setting  sun.  And  from  that  country,  somewhere  from 
the  center,  came  Lewis  and  Clark,  and  that  is  the  way  the  white  people  traveled 
and  came  here  to  my  forefathers.  They  passed  through  our  country,  they  became 
acquainted  with  our  country,  and  all  our  streams,  and  our  forefathers  used  them 
well,  as  well  as  they  could,  and  from  the  time  of  Columbus,  from  the  time  of 
Lewis  and  Clark,  we  have  known  you  my  friends;  we  poor  people  have  known 
you  as  brothers. ' ' 

Governor  Stevens  said  :  "We  have  now  the  hearts  of  the  Nez  Perces  through 
their  chiefs.  Their  hearts  and  our  hearts  are  one.  We  want  the  hearts  of  the 
other  tribes  through  their  chiefs." 

Young  Chief,  of  the  Cayuses — (He  was  evidentl.y  opposed  to  the  treaty  but 
gi'ounded  his  objections  on  two  arguments.  The  first  was,  they  had  no  right  to 
sell  the  ground  which  God  had  given  for  their  support  unless  for  some  good 
reasons)  :  "I  wonder  if  the  ground  has  anything  to  sa.y  ?  I  wonder  if  the  ground 
is  listening  to  what  is  said?  I  wonder  if  the  ground  would  come  alive  and  what 
is  on  it?  Though  I  hear  what  the  ground  says.  The  ground  says:  'It  is  the 
Great  Spirit  that  placed  me  here.  The  Great  Spirit  tells  me  to  take  care  of  the 
Indians,  to  feed  them  aright.  The  Great  Spirit  appointed  the  roots  to  feed  the 
Indians  on.'  The  water  says  the  same  thing.  'The  Great  Spirit  directs  me. 
Feed  the  Indians  well.'  The  grass  says  the  same  thing.  'Feed  the  horses  and 
cattle. '  The  ground,  water  and  grass  say,  '  The  Spirit  has  given  us  our  names. 
We  have  these  names  and  bold  these  names.  Neither  the  Indians  nor  whites  have 
a  right  to  change  those  names.'  The  ground  says,  'The  Great  Spirit  has  placed 
me  here  to  produce  all  that  grows  on  me,  trees  and  fruit.'  The  same  way  the 
ground  says,  'It  was  from  me  man  was  made.'  The  Great  Spirit  in  placing  men 
on  the  earth  desired  to  take  good  care  of  the  ground  and  to  do  each  other 
no  harm.  The  Great  Spirit  said,  'You  Indians  who  take  care  certain  ]iortions 
of  the  country,  should  not  trade  it  off  except  you  get  a  fair  price. ' 

"The  Indians  are  blind.  This  is  the  reason  we  do  not  see  the  country  well. 
Lawyer  sees  clear.  This  is  the  reason  why  I  don't  know  anything  about  this 
country'.  I  do  not  see  the  offer  you  have  made  to  us  yet.  If  I  had  the  money  in 
my  hand  I  should  see.  I  am,  as  it  were,  blind.  I  am  blind  and  ignorant.  I  have 
a  heart,  but  cannot  say  much.  This  is  the  reason  why  the  chiefs  do  not  under- 
stand each  other  right  and  stand  apart.  Although  I  see  your  offer  before  me 
I  do  not  understand  it  and  do  not  take  it.  I  walk  as  it  were  in  the  dark,  and 
cannot  therefore  take  hold  of  what  I  do  not  see.    Lawyer  sees,  and  he  takes  hold. 


86  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

When  I  come  to  understand  your  propositions,  I  will  take  hold.  I  do  not  know 
when.    This  is  all  I  have  to  say." 

General  Palmer:  "I  would  enquire  whether  Pe-pe.-mox-mox  or  Young  Chief 
has  spoken  for  the  Umatillas?  I  wish  to  know  farther,  whether  the  Umatillas 
are  of  the  same  heart? 

Owhi,  Umatilla  Chief:  "We  are  together  and  the  Great  Spirit  hears  all  that 
we  say  today.  The  Great  Spirit  gave  us  the  land  and  naeasured  the  land  to  us; 
this  is  the  reason  why  I  am  afraid  to  say  anything  about  the  land.  I  am  afraid 
of  the  laws  of  the  Great  Spirit.  This  is  the  reason  of  my  heart  being  sad.  This 
is  the  reason  I  cannot  give  you  an  ansM'er.  I  am  afraid  of  the  Great  Spirit.  Shall 
I  steal  this  land  and  sell  it,  or  what  shall  I  do  ?  This  is  the  reason  why  my  heart 
is  sad.  The  Great  Spirit  made  our  friends,  but  the  Great  Spirit  made  our  bodies 
from  the  earth,  as  if  they  were  different  from  the  whites.  What  shall  I  do? 
Shall  I  give  the  land  which  is  a  part  of  my  body  and  leave  myself  poor  and  des- 
titute? Shall  I  say  I  will  give  you  my  land?  I  cannot  say  so.  I  am  afraid  of 
the  Great  Spirit.  I  love  my  life.  The  reason  why  I  do  not  give  my  land  away 
is,  I  am  afraid  I  will  be  sent  to  hell.  I  love  my  friends.  I  love  my  life.  This 
is  the  reason  why  I  do  not  give  my  land  away.  I  have  one  more  word  to  say. 
My  people  are  far  away.  They  do  not  know  your  words.  This  is  the  reason  I 
cannot  give  you  an  answer.    I  show  you  my  heart.    This  is  all  I  have  to  say." 

As  explanatory  of  the  trouble  which  led  to  the  Whitman  massacre,  and  to 
the  wars  with  the  Oregon  Indians,  Mrs.  Victor  in  her  history  of  the  Indian  wars 
of  Oregon  says,  page  29 :  "  The  real  cause  of  ill  feeling  between  the  Indians 
and  their  Protestant  teachers  was  the  continued  misunderstanding  concerning 
the  ownership  of  land  and  the  accumulation  of  property.  No  one  appeared  to 
purchase  the  lands  occupied  by  the  missions;  nor  had  any  ships  arrived  with 
Indian  goods  and  farming  implements  for  their  benefit,  as  had  been  promised." 

Both  the  missionaries  and  the  settlers  had  located  in  the  Indian  country  and 
proceeded  to  build  houses  and  cultivate  the  land  as  if  the  Indian  had  no  title. 
That,  indeed,  was  the  way  the  white  man  had  viewed  the  question  from  the  first 
settlement  in  America.  They  who  came  from  civilized  Europe  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries  found  the  American  continent  peopled  by  tribes  with- 
out cultivation,  literature  and  refinement,  or  fixed  habitations.  They  considered 
the  Indians  mere  savages,  having  no  rightful  claim  to  the  country  of  which  they 
were  in  possession.  Every  European  nation  had  deemed  it  had  secured  a  lawful 
and  just  claim  to  any  part  of  the  American  continent  which  any  of  its  subjects  had 
discovered,  without  any  regard  to  the  prior  occupation  and  claims  of  the  Indians. 
And  even  in  much  later  times,  and  by  the  highest  court,  this  view  was  affirmed 
as  good  law  by  Chief  Justice  John  Marshall  in  1810,  delivering  the  opinion  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  (Cranch's  Reports,  vol.  6,  page  142)  held, 
that  the  Indian  title  to  the  soil  is  not  of  such  a  character  or  validity  as  to  inter- 
fere with  the  possession  in  fee,  of  the  disposal  of  the  land  as  the  state  may  see  fit. 

It  takes  a  long  time  to  correct  an  erroneous  principle  of  fundamental  law, 
and  a  still  longer  time  to  beat  down  a  race  prejudice.  The  nation  has  had  to 
spend  billions  of  dollars  and  sacrifice  almost  millions  of  lives  to  extinguish  the 
heresy  that  neither  the  black  man  nor  the  red  man  had  any  rights  the  white  man 
was  bound  to  respect.  And  while  our  nation  has  finally  arrived  at  the  full  stand- 
ard of  giving  justice  and  equity  to  all  men,  without  respect  of  persons,  the  great 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  87 

nations  of  Europe  are  still  enforcing  their  ideas  of  two  hundred  years  ago  upon 
the  weaker  peoples  of  Asia  and  Africa  to  maintain  privilege  and  power  to  taxa- 
tion without  representation.  The  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  1810  did  not 
pass  unchallenged.  Justice  Story,  in  his  exposition  of  the  constitution,  page 
13,  says:  "As  to  countries  in  the  possession  of  native  tribes  at  the  time  of 
the  discovery,  it  seems  difficult  to  perceive  what  right  of  title  any  discovery 
could  confer.  It  would  seem  strange  to  us,  if,  in  the  present  times,  the  natives  of 
the  South  Sea  Islands  should  by  making  a  voyage  to  and  discovery  of  the  United 
States,  on  that  account  set  up  a  right  to  this  country.  The  truth  is,  that  the 
European  nations  paid  not  the  slightest  regards  to  the  rights  of  the  native  tribes. 
They  treated  them  as  barbarians  that  they  were  at  liberty  to  destroy.  They 
might  convert  them  to  Christianity,  and  if  they  refused  to  be  converted,  they 
might  drive  them  from  their  homes  as  unworthy  to  inhabit  the  country.  Their 
real  object  was  to  extend  their  own  power  and  increase  their  own  wealth,  by 
acquiring  the  treasures  as  well  as  the  territory  of  the  New  World.  Avarice  and 
ambition  were  at  the  bottom  of  all  their  enterprises." 

Seventy-five  years  after  this  criticism  by  Justice  Story.  Theodore  Roosevelt 
in  his  Winning  of  the  West,  treats  this  question  somewhat  differently,  saying: 
"Looking  back,  it  is  easy  to  say  that  much  of  the  wrong-doing  (to  the  Indians) 
could  have  been  prevented,  but  if  we  examine  the  facts  to  find  out  the  truth,  we 
are  bound  to  admit  that  the  struggle  (between  whites  and  Indians)  was  really 
one  that  could  not  possibly  have  been  avoided,  unless  we  were  willing  to  admit 
that  the  whole  continent  west  of  the  Alleghanies  should  remain  an  unpeopled 
waste,  the  hunting  grounds  of  savages,  war  was  inevitable.  And  even  had  we 
been  willing  and  had  refrained  from  encroaching  on  the  Indians'  lands,  the  war 
would  have  come,  nevertheless,  for  then  the  Indians  themselves  would  have  en- 
croached on  ours.  The  Indians  had  no  ownership  in  the  land  as  we  understand 
that  term.  Undoubtedly  the  Indians  have  often  suffered  terrible  injustice  at 
our  hands.  The  conduct  of  the  Georgians  towards  the  Cherokees,  and  the  treat- 
ment of  Chief  Joseph  and  Nez  Perces  in  Oregon,  may  be  mentioned  as  indelible 
blots  on  our  fair  fame." 

But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  the  history  of  Oregon  ?  A  very  great  deal. 
It  throws  light  on  the  great  drama  of  settlement  of  this  region  of  Old  Oregon. 
It  explains  the  massacre  of  Dr.  Marcus  Whitman  and  family,  about  which  more 
has  been  written  than  any  other  one  subject  in  the  history  of  the  Northwest. 

The  Americans  made  a  great  mistake  in  assuming  when  they  came  to  this 
country,  that  the  Indians  had  no  rights  to  the  land  which  they  ought  to  respect. 
The  missionaries  who  came  professing  to  be  the  best  friends  to  the  Indians  were 
as  much  to  blame  as  those  who  made  no  pretense  of  religion.  It  was  a  fatal  mis- 
take to  think  the  Indians  had  no  ideas  on  this  first  of  all  questions.  They  knew 
nothing  of  the  practice  of  European  nations  or  of  the  decisions  of  courts ;  all  the 
guide  they  had  was  the  light  of  nature,  and  that  first  and  greatest  of  laws — self- 
preservation.  The  Indian  never  troubled  himself  to  inquire  into  what  he  could 
not  comprehend.  He  did  not  launch  into  conjecture  or  give  reign  to  imagination. 
His  puerile  mind  followed  the  glimmering  light  which  had  led  his  forefathers. 
He  saw  that  he  must,  like  the  deer  and  the  buffalo,  live  on  the  land ;  and  that  if 
another  man  crowded  him  off  it  he  must  die.  Here  he  was  where  his  ancestors 
had  lived  untold  ages.    He  knew  no  other  place.    He  was  familiar  with  the  Hud- 


88  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

son's  Bay  man,  who  wanted  nothing  but  the  furry  skins  of  dead  animals.  He 
understood  that  proposition.  The  Hudson's  Bay  man  deprived  him  of  nothing, 
but  bought  the  pelt  he  had  for  sale,  and  that  was  a  positive  gain.  But  the  Amer- 
ican was  a  different  man.  He  came  preaching  peace  and  good  will  to  all  men, 
but  he  took  up  land,  raised  crops,  built  mills,  bred  domestic  animals,  sold  the 
produce  of  the  land  for  money  to  put  in  his  pocket.  There  was  no  gain  to  the 
Indian  in  that,  but  a  positive  loss — the  loss  of  land.  And  worse  than  this ;  where 
there  was  one  American  in  1842,  there  were  hundreds  in  1843,  and  then  hosts 
more  coming.  He  had  heard  from  the  wandering  Iroquois  how  the  white  man 
came  as  flocks  of  wild  geese  come  and  covered  the  prairies  of  Indiana,  Illinois 
and  other  states.  The  Indian  was  terrified  at  the  thought  of  losing  his  land,  his 
home,  his  mother,  and  so  he  acted. 

We  are  now  able  to  give  for  the  first  time  in  history  the  first  authentic  account 
of  the  first  great  Indian  council  held  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains  by  the  Indians 
of  Old  Oregon.  We  print  on  another  page  the  photograph  of  Timotsk,  an  aged 
Indian,  a  chief  of  the  Klickitats,  who  was  a  member  of  that  council.  This  coun- 
cil was  held  near  where  Fort  Simcoe  is  located  in  the  Yakima  valley.  Indian 
messengers  had  been  sent  out  by  the  Cayuses  to  all  other  tribes  in  the  Columbia 
river  region  and  chiefs  had  come  in  from  the  Nez  Perces,  Spokanes,  Shoshones, 
Walla  Wallas,  Waseoes,  Umatillas,  Cayuses,  Klickitats  and  Yakimas.  Timotsk 
says  they  were  in  council  for  ' '  a  whole  moon ; ' '  that  is  about  a  month ;  and  that 
there  were  about  fifty  chiefs  in  attendance.  They  talked  from  day  to  day  as  to 
what  course  they  should  pursue  against  the  white  men.  The  burden  of  all  their 
fears  and  complaints  were  against  the  Americans;  and  was  summed  up  in  the 
belief  that  these  white  men  would  come  more  and  more  every  year  and  finally 
take  all  their  lands  and  hunting  grounds  from  them;  that  they  were  even 
now  killing  and  driving  away  all  the  deer,  and  that  after  a  while  the  In- 
dians would  have  nothing  to  eat  and  must  die.  The  Yakima,  Cayuses,  Walla 
Wallas,  and  some  of  the  Spokanes  advocated  killing  off  all  the  Americans  at  once. 
The  Nez  Perces,  Waseoes,  Umatillas  and  Klickitats  opposed  this  course,  saying 
that  the  white  men  had  good  guns  to  fight  with  and  would  easily  kill  off  the  In- 
dians who  had  but  a  few  guns  and  must  fight  mostly  with  bows  and  arrows. 

After  this  council  broke  up,  Timotsk  came  down  to  Vancouver  and  got  em- 
ployment of  Dr.  McLoughlin  as  a  boatman,  in  which  work  he  continued  for  many 
years.  He  speaks  of  McLoughlin  as  a  good  man,  a  father  to  everybody,  whites 
and  Indians  alike.  As  soon  after  this  council  had  broken  up  and  the  measles 
broke  out  among  the  Indians  at  the  Whitman  mission.  Dr.  Whitman  and  family 
were  massacred.  Whitman  would  have  been  killed  all  the  same  if  no  sickness 
had  occurred,  as  he  was  blamed  by  the  Indians  for  going  back  over  the  moun- 
tains and  bringing  more  white  men  out  to  Oregon.  The  Cayuses  made  it  plain  at 
the  council  that  they  would  go  on  the  war  path  and  kill  all  the  whites  they  could. 
And  that  is  what  they  did  do. 

In  some  places  the  Indian  population  in  the  United  States  seems  to  be  in- 
creasing slightly,  but  in  other  places  it  is  decreasing. 

In  1910  the  Indian  population  of  the  United  States  was  265,683,  as  compared 
with  237,196  in  1900.  According  to  these  figures  there  was  an  increase  in  the 
Indian  population  from  1900  to  1910  of  28,487,  or  12  per  cent,  as  compared  with 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  89 

a  decrease  from  1890  to  1900  of  11,057,  or  4.5  per  eeut.     For  the  twenty-year 
period  from  1890  to  1910  there  was  an  increase  of  17,430,  or  7  per  cent. 

The  last  census  shows  that  the  Indian  population  of  the  Pacific  coast  is  for 
the  state  of  Washington,  10,997;  Oregon,  5,090;  California,  16,371;  Idaho,  3,488. 
The  Indians  evidently  live  longer  and  do  better  in  a  warm  climate  than  in  a 
cold  one. 


I 


CHAPTER  IV 

1640—1824 

THE  PIONEERS  OP  THE  PUR  TRADE — GROSEILLIERS  AND  RADISSON — PRINCE  RUPERT 
SENDS  OUT  A  SHIP — THE  HUDSON  BAY  COMPANY — THE  NORTHWEST  COMPANY  OF 
CANADA INDEPENDENT  AMERICAN  TRAPPERS THE  RENDEZVOUS THE  WAR  BE- 
TWEEN ENGLISHMEN  AND   SCOTCHMEN FUR  TRADING  STARTS   FROM   ST.   LOUIS — 

THE    MISSOURI   FUR   COMPANY — JOHN  JACOB  ASTOR   ENTERS    THE   FIELD — ORGAN- 
IZES   THE    PACIFIC    FUR    COMPANY FOUNDS    ASTORIA — DESTRUCTION    OP    ASTOR 's 

ENTERPRISE TREATMENT   OF  THE  INDIANS  BY  THE  FUR  TRADERS — THE   SERVICES 

OP  THE  FUR  TRADERS  TO   CIVILIZATION. 

In  opening  the  great  Northwest  region  of  North  America  to  the  settlement 
and  oceiipation  by  wliite  men  the  catching  of  wild  animals  for  the  value  of  their 
furry  skins  was  the  first  Imsiness  that  promised  trade  and  wealth.  Wholly  un- 
like the  experiences  of  the  Spaniards  in  Mexico  and  Peru,  where  the  invaders 
found  gold  and  silver  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice,  and  which  they  could  seize 
by  robbery  of  the  lawful  owner  and  then  torture  him  with  flames  to  discover 
the  mines  of  the  precious  metals,  the  explorers  of  the  great  Northern  wilderness 
had  to  contend  with  all  the  forces  of  nature  and  tax  their  physical  strength  to 
the  utmost  limit  to  secure  success.  And  the  remarkable  contrast  between  the 
ethical  results  of  the  fur  trade  pushed  by  hardy,  vigorous  and  independent  men 
in  the  wilderness  of  the  north,  and  the  wholesale  robbery  of  simple-minded  Az- 
tecs and  Peruvians  in  the  south  by  the  armed  freebooters  of  Spain,  is  one  of  the 
most  forcible  and  persistent  lessons  of  civilization  on  the  American  continent. 
On  the  one  hand  is  seen  the  heroic  examples  of  the  pioneers  of  the  northwest 
conquering  the  wilderness  by  following  a  peaceful  industry  and  opening  the  way 
for  great  states  that  command  the  respect  and  dominate  the  forces  of  the  New 
World,  while  on  the  other  hand,  is  beheld  the  cancer  of  unrestrained  avarice  as 
the  curse  of  feeble  and  unstable  governments  that  are  rent  with  bloody  strife 
and  unceasing  rebellion. 

With  no  other  ob,ject  or  ambition  than  to  make  large  profits,  the  fur  traders, 
their  ship  captains  and  wilderness  trappers,  have  been  most  effective  agents  in 
opening  new  countries  and  extending  the  boundaries  of  civilization  to  organize 
governments.  When  Captain  Cook's  ship  carried  over  to  China  and  exhibited  to 
the  traders  of  the  world  the  little  pack  of  otter  skins  that  had  been  picked  up  at 
Vancouver's  island,  an  impulse  was  given  to  the  exploration  of  the  Pacific  coast 
that  never  halted  until  Oregon  was  secured  to  the  United  States  and  gold  dis- 
covered in  California..  Not  the  Spanish,  the  French,  the  English,  or  the  East 
India  Company's  ships  would  have  led  the  way  to  the  settlement  of  the  country 
and  the  founding  of  states.    This  region  was  too  far  from  their  bases  of  sup- 

91 


92  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 


plies.  But  the  rich  fur  trade  excited  the  interest  of  Boston  merchants,  and 
Capt.  Gray  was  sent  out  to  see  what  he  could  get  for  his  employers.  He  got  his 
share  of  the  furs,  and  he  discovered  the  Columbia  river.  The  Boston  merchants 
sent  other  ships  and  the  discovery  of  the  Columbia  river  planted  a  germ  in  the 
brain  of  a  great  American  statesman  (Jefferson)  that  grew  and  expanded  until 
expeditions  were  sent  out  two  thousand  miles  through  the  wilderness  to  connect 
the  expanding  nation  with  Gray's  discovery  of  the  great  river;  and  the  titanic 
forces  of  American  pioneering,  settlements  and  Republicanism  completed  the 
transcontinental  bond  of  union  and  made  Oregon  the  pioneer  outpost  and  de- 
fender of  American  commerce  and  civilization  on  the  great  Pacific. 

The  French  founded  the  city  of  Quebec  on  the  St.  Lawrence  in  1608.  Two 
years  later,  Henry  Hudson  discovered  the  great  northern  bay  of  the  North  At- 
lantic ocean,  which  bears  his  name.  Then  commenced  the  conquest  of  the  New 
World  on  the  line  of  settlement  up  the  St.  Lawrence,  up  the  Great  Lakes,  north 
to  Hudson's  Bay  and  west  to  the  Rocky  mountains.  This  projection  of  European 
colonization,  trade  and  laws  into  the  heart  of  North  America,  commenced  in  1640, 
and  its  forerunner  was  the  fur  trade.  In  1659  two  French  traders  and  trappers, 
Groseilliers  and  Radisson,  working  their  way  up  the  Great  Lakes  in  the  employ 
of  the  French  Company  of  One  Hundred  Associates,  reached  the  head  of  Lake 
Superior,  and  there  learned  from  the  Indians  that  by  traveling  on  northward 
overland  they  could  reach  the  shores  of  Hudson 's  Bay  where  there  were  vast  num- 
bers of  fur-bearing  animals.  The  success  of  these  two  adventurous  Frenchmen  in 
getting  so  large  a  catch  of  rare  and  rich  furs  excited  the  cupidity  of  their  supe- 
riors, so  that  when  the  men  who  had  braved  the  perils  of  the  wilderness  asked 
for  a  concession  from  the  French  government  to  take  furs  in  the  Hudson's  Bay 
regions,  they  found  they  had  been  forestalled  and  the  coveted  privileges  given 
to  another.  Disappointed  and  indignant  at  the  treatment  he  had  received  from 
the  Colonial  grantees,  Groseilliers  returned  to  France  and  sought  to  undo  the 
wrong  and  injustice  wrought  upon  him  by  an  appeal  to  the  king ;  and  failing  in 
this  he  went  over  to  England  and  submitted  his  proposed  scheme  to  the  English 
court.  In  this  he  was  successful,  and  under  the  protection  and  aid  of  Prince 
Rupert,  the  cousin  of  King  Charles  II,  Groseilliers  was  in  1668  outfitted  with 
a  vessel,  cargo  and  all  necessary  arms  and  supplies  and  sailed  for  the  Hudson's 
bay.  And  the  success  of  this  Frenchman  led  to  the  formation  of  the  great  trans- 
continental monopoly  of  the  fur  trade  known  as  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company, 
which  was  granted  a  royal  charter  on  May  2,  1670.  The  royal  patent  reads  as 
follows : 

"Whereas,  our  dear  entirely  beloved  cousin,  Prince  Rupert,  Count  Palatine  of 
the  Rhine,  Duke  of  Bavaria  and  Cumberland ;  George  Duke  of  Albermarle ;  Wil- 
liam, earl  of  Craven;  Henry,  Lord  Arlington;  Anthony,  Lord  Ashley;  Sir  John 
Robinson  and  Sir  Robert  Vyrner,  knights  and  baronets,  Sir  Peter  Colleton,  baro- 
net ;  Sir  Edward  Hungerford,  knight  of  the  bath ;  Sir  Paul  Neele,  Sir  John 
Griffith,  Sir  Philip  Carteet  and  Sir  James  Hayes,  knights,  and  John  Kirke,  Fran- 
cis Millington,  William  Prettyman  and  John  Portman,  citizen  and  goldsmith  of 
London,  have,  at  their  own  great  cost  and  charges,  undertaken  an  expedition  for 
the  Hudson's  bay  in  the  northwest  parts  of  America  for  a  discovery  of  a  new 
passage  into  the  South  Sea  (Pacific  ocean),  and  for  the  finding  of  some  trade 
for  furs,  minerals  and  other  commodities,  and  by  such,  their  undertakings  have 


1 


IDllN   .I.UnIt   ASTOU 
Foundrr  of  Astoria 


I     T^l 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  '.):! 

already  made  such  iliscoveries  as  to  eucourage  tliciii  Id  proci'rd  raitluM'  in  jiiir- 
suance  of  tlieir  said  design  by  means  whereof  tlicrc  ina\  |iri)lialily  arise  gn-at 
advantage  to  us  and  our  kingdom. 

"And,  whereas,  The  said  undertakers,  for  their  I'urllicr  eiicouragciiienl  to 
the  said  design,  have  humbly  besought,  us  to  iueorporatu  them,  and  grant  unto 
them,  and  their  suecessors,  the  whole  trade  and  commerce  of  all  those  seas,  straits 
and  l)ays,rivers,  lakes,  creeks  and  sounds  in  whatever  latitude  they  shall  be,  that 
lie  within  the  entrance  of  the  straits  commonly  called  Hudson  sti-aits,  together 
with  all  the  lauds,  countries  and  territories  upon  the  coasts  and  confines  of  the 
seas,  straits,  bays,  lakes,  rivers,  creeks  and  sound  aforesaid  which  are  not  now 
actually  possessed  by  any  of  our  subjects,  or  the  subjects  of  other  Christian 
prince  or  state. 

"Now  Know  Ye.  Tluit  we,  being  desirous  to  promote  all  endeavors  that  may 
tend  to  the  public  good  of  our  people,  and  to  encourage  the  said  undertaking, 
have  of  our  special  grace,  and  mere  motion,  given,  granted,  ratified  and  con- 
firmed unto  our  said  cousin.  Prince  Rupert  (and  other  nobilities  and  persons 
named)  all  and  singular  the  most  extensive  rights  of  a  private  corporation,  and 
also  the  sole  trade  and  commerce  of  all  those  seas,  straits,  bays,  rivers,  lakes, 
creeks  and  sounds,  in  whatsoever  latitude  they  shall  be,  together  with  all  the 
lands  and  territories  upon  the  countries,  coasts  and  confines  of  the  seas,  bays, 
lakes,  rivers,  creeks  and  sounds  aforesaid,  together  with  the  fishing  of  all  sorts 
of  fish,  whales,  sturgeons  and  other  royal  fishes  in  the  seas,  bays,  rivers,  within 
the  premises,  and  the  fish  therein  taken  together  with  the  royalty  of  the  sea,  upon 
the  coasts,  and  all  mines,  royal  as  well  discovered  as  not  discovered,  of  gold, 
silver,  gems  and  precious  stones,  to  be  found  or  discovered  with  the  territories, 
limits  and  places  aforesaid,  and  that  the  laud  be  from  henceforth  reckoned  and 
reputed  as  one  of  our  colonies  in  America,  called  Rupert's  land.  And  also,  not 
only  the  whole,  entire  and  only  liberty,  use  and  privilege  of  trading  and  traffic 
to  and  from  the  territories,  limits  and  places  aforesaid,  but  also  the  whole  and 
entire  trade  and  traffic,  to  and  from  all  havens,  bays,  creeks,  rivers,  lakes  and 
seas  into  which  they  shall  find  entrance  or  passage  by  water  or  land  out  of  the 
territories,  limits  and  places  aforesaid,  and  to  and  with  all  the  natives  and  peo- 
ple, inhabitants  or  which  shall  inhabit  within  the  territories,  limits  and  places 
aforesaid  and  to  and  with  all  other  nations,  inhabitants  any  of  the  coasts  ad- 
jacent to  the  said  territories  aforesaid.  And  do  grant  to  the  said  company,  that 
neither  the  said  territories,  limits,  and  places  hereby  granted,  nor  any  part  there- 
of, nor  the  islands,  havens,  ports,  cities,  towns,  and  places  thereof  or  therein  con- 
tained shall  ever  be  visited,  frequented,  or  haunted  by  any  of  the  subjects  of  us 
contrary  to  the  true  meaning  of  this  grant,  and  any  and  every  such  person  or 
persons  who  shall  trade  or  traffic  into  any  of  such  countries,  territories,  or  limits 
aforesaid  other  than  the  said  company  and  their  successors,  shall  incur  our  in- 
dignation  and  the  forfeiture  and  loss  of  all  their  goods,  merchandise,  and  other 
things,  whatsoever  which  shall  be  so  brought  into  this  realm  of  England  or  any 
dominion  of  the  same  country,  to  our  said  prohibition. ' ' 

In  all  this  monopoly  of  trade  and  commerce  in  all  the  vast  region  from  Hud- 
son bay  west  to  the  Pacific  ocean,  the  charter  conferred  upon  the  company  and 
its  governors  and  chief  factors,  the  sovereign  rights  of  civil  and  military  govern- 
ment of  the  region.     Some  people  protest  against  the  corporations  and  mouoiio- 


94  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

lies  in  the  United  States  at  the  present  day,  not  one  of  which  has  the  sanction  or 
support  of  the  government,  but  every  one  of  which  is  under  the  ban  of  the  law. 
But  here  was  a  monopoly  of  all  the  trade  in  a  region  a  thousand  times  greater 
in  size  than  the  country  whose  king  created  the  monopoly,  to  which  was  given 
the  right  over  the  lives  and  liberties  of  the  natives  and  subordinates  of  the  char- 
tered corporation.  And  all  this  by  the  grace  of  his  most  Christian  majesty, 
King  Charles  II.  The  kings  of  England,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  had 
little  conception  of  the  rights  of  the  common  people.  The  whole  government  was 
run  for  the  benefits  of  the  king's  favorites  and  relations ;  and  it  is  no  wonder  that 
Macaulay  should  have  said  of  this  king:  "That  honor  and  shame  to  him  were 
scarcely  more  than  light  and  darkness  to  the  blind. ' ' 

Those  who  have  not  made  some  investigation  of  the  subject  have  no  idea  of 
the  vast  powers  and  dcrminions  of  this  great  English  corporation.  From  the  At- 
lantic to  the  Pacific,  three  thousand  miles,  and  from  the  Arctic  ocean  down  to 
where  the  southern  boundary  is  now  located — a  full  two  thousand  miles — the 
undisputed  sway  of  all  living  things  for  a  half  century,  and  over  half  of  that 
region  for  more  than  a  century.  We  are  now  all  of  us  accustomed  to  think  of 
organized  governments  with  legislatures  and  laws,  sworn  officers  and  courts  of 
justice,  in  connection  with  territorial  expansion.  That  has  been  the  rule  under 
all  the  western  extensions  of  American  enterprise  and  settlement.  But  here  in 
this  great  fur  company  we  see  an  English  king  and  his  cousin  and  courtiers  or- 
ganizing in  a  private  room,  a  private  company,  with  all  the  powers  of  a  respon- 
sible state  government  in  America,  and  handing  over  to  that  private  company 
a  region  larger  than  all  Europe,  to  be  ruled  and  exploited  for  their  own  private 
and  exclusive  use  and  profit  for  an  unlimited  period  of  time ;  and  without  any 
limitations  or  restrictions  in  favor  of  any  other  people  or  person  on  the  face  of 
the  globe.  Picture  if  you  can  this  vast  empire  of  natural  wealth  in  land,  and 
all  that  the  richest  land  will  produce,  six  million  square  miles  in  extent,  diversi- 
fied with  beautiful  lakes,  grand  rivers,  mountain  ranges,  fertile  prairies,  great 
forests  of  matchless  timber,  millions  of  wild  animals,  and  peopled  by  probably 
one  hundred  thousand  native  Indians,  and  you  may  have  some  idea  of  the  sort 
of  monopoly  that  was  set  down  to  exploit  old  Oregon  and  all  the  region  east  and 
north  of  it  except  Alaska. 

If  we  turn  to  Mitchell's  geography,  printed  in  1842,  we  find  Oregon  territory 
described  as  the  most  western  part  of  the  United  States ;  and  contains  an  area 
greater  than  that  of  the  whole  of  the  southern  states,  with  an  Indian  population 
of  eighty  thousand.  So  that  the  dominions  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  must 
have  been,  all  told,  larger  than  the  whole  of  the  United  States  in  1842,  with  a 
much  larger  Indian  population  than  is  here  set  down.  These  facts  as  to  the  vast 
dominions  and  unrestricted  sovereign  powers  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  are 
given  as  an  all-sufficient  reason  to  explain  the  anxiety  of  the  early  pioneers  of 
Oregon  as  to  the  course  of  this  great  corporation  towards  these  early  settlers. 
These  pioneer  families  of  civilization  could  not  believe  that  any  King  Charles 
could  sell  out  this  great  country  to  a  private  corporation  monopoly  trading  com- 
pany to  be  held  for  all  time  as  a  game  preserve  to  produce  pelts  for  London  prof- 
its.    And  hence  their   early  and  iinrestrainable  resentment. 

Considering  time  and  circumstances  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company  was  the  most 
perfect  commercial  organization  ever  operated  on  the  American  continent.    No 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 


95 


phase  of  its  vast  business  was  neglected.  No  element  of  success,  no  matter  how 
small  or  questionable,  was  forgotten.  There  was  a  local  governor  residing  in 
America  with  headquarters  at  York  factory,  with  jurisdiction  over  all  the  es- 
tablishments of  the  company,  together  with  sixteen  chief  factors,  twenty-nine 
chief  traders,  five  surgeons,  eighty-seven  clerks,  sixty-seven  postmasters,  five 
hundred  voyageurs,  besides  sailors  on  sea-going  vessels,  and  over  two  thou- 
sand common  servants  engaged  in  trapping,  mechanic  arts,  and  farming.  And 
besides  this  army  of  skilled  white  men,  all  armed  for  war,  if  war  was  neces- 
sary, was  the  vast  population  of  native  Indians  who  were  at  all  times  subservient 
to  the  company,  furnished  nearly  the  whole  of  its  business  in  the  furs  caught 
and  traded  for  goods.  No  exact  amount  can  of  course  be  given  of  its  wide  ex- 
tended business,  reaching  from  Hudson  bay  to  the  Pacific  ocean,  but  an  account- 
ing by  the  company  to  its  stockholders  for  four  years  commencing  with  1834 
and  ending  1838  is  interesting,  as  showing  the  vast  business,  done  as  follows: 


1834 

Beaver   98,288 

Martin   64,490 

Otter 22,303 

Silver  Pox 1,063 

Other  Foxes 8,876 

Muskrat  649,192 

Bear    7,457 

Ermine 491 

Fisher 5,296 

Lynx 14,255 

Mink 25,100 

Wolf 8,484 

Badger 1,000 

Swan    7,918 

Raccoon    713 


1835 


1836 


1837 


Total 


79,908 

46,063 

92,927 

307,186 

61,005 

52,749 

156,118 

334,362 

15,487 

8,432 

15,934 

62,156 

910 

471 

2,147 

4,592 

8,710 

1,924 

822,086 

342,361 

1,111,616 

160,906 

738,549 

2,660,263 

4,127 

1,715 

8,763 

22,062 
491 

2,479 

1,327 

6,115 

15,117 

9,990 

3,762 

31,887 

50,894 

17,809 

12,218 

27,150 

82,277 

3,722 

307 

.  7.301 

10,544 

698 

201 

754 

2,662 

4.703 

12 

6,660 

10,233 

522 

99 

585 

1,191 

Making  a  grand  total  of  twenty-three  million,  four  hundred  and  eighteen  thou- 
sand, one  hundred  and  nine  animals  destroyed  in  four  years.  If  we  multiply 
those  figures  by  ten,  we  get  an  approximate  estimate  of  the  total  destruction  of 
animal  life  by  this  great  company  in  the  forty  years  of  its  hey-day  of  prosperity. 
Think  of  the  great  natural  wealth  of  a  region  that  could  stand  the  destruction 
of  two  hundred  and  thirty  millions  of  wild  creatures  by  a  single  fur  company 
in  forty  years. 

As  may  be  readily  seen,  the  power  and  influence  of  this  company  over  the  con- 
dition and  future  relations  of  the  country  it  ruled  over  was  absolute  and  invincible. 
It  was  operated  for  profits  solely.  The  young  men  were  encouraged  to  take  wives 
from  among  native  women  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  give  them  power  and  in- 
fluence with  the  Indians,  to  get  their  furs  and  prevent  anybody  else  from  getting 
them.  Alcoholic  liquors  were  used  to  a  certain  extent,  and  by  some  factors  more 
than  others.  Chief  Factor,  Dr.  McLoughlin  of  the  Oregon  department  has  a 
record  of  great  care  and  prudence  not  only  in  handling  the  natives,  but  in  not 


96  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

demoralizing  them  with  stimulants.  And  when  we  consider  the  wide  extended 
power  and  influence  of  this  company,  the  wonder  is  that  the  American  immigra- 
tion to  this  country  ever  got  a  foothold  at  all. 

Such  was  the  beginning  of  trade  and  commerce  in  the  Columbia  river  valley. 
Many  people  hastih^  conclude  that  such  a  trade  was  a  trifling  matter.  But  such 
a  conclusion  is  not  based  upon  a  consideration  of  the  facts.  The  fur  trade  is  now 
foreign  to  the  great  mass  of  our  people.  But  not  so  ninety  years  ago.  It  was  a 
great  business  then,  and  it  is  a  great  business  yet.  The  city  of  St.  Louis  is  now 
the  headquarters  of  the  fur  trade  of  the  United  States;  and  it  will  strike  the 
reader  with  surprise  to  learn  that  there  are  over  five  hundred  thousand  people 
in  the  United  States  who  now,  today,  make  their  living  trapping  and  dressing 
the  furs  and  skins  of  wild  animals. 

And  no  matter  how  much  we  may  condemn  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  for 
holding  the  country  solely  for  furs,  and  working  the  Indian  to  discourage  Amer- 
ican fur  traders,  there  is  a  silver  lining  to  even  that  cloud,  as  we  shall  see  later 
on.  The  Hudson 's  Bay  men  got  along  with  the  Indians,  prevented  bloody  wars, 
like  those  that  ravaged  the  Ohio  valley,  by  skillfully  turning  the  sexual  instinct 
of  the  race  to  the  work  of  peace  with  the  savages,  and  profits  to  the  corpora- 
tion. The  company  encouraged  its  employees  to  take  wives  from  among  the 
native  women.  There  was  little  thought  and  less  solemnity  in  but  very  few 
ceremonials  of  that  kind.  But  it  served  the  purposes  of  the  company,  satisfied 
the  instincts  of  nature  and  formed  a  bond  of  confidence  and  peace  between 
the  two  races  camping  in  the  wilderness.  To  the  phlegmatic  John  Jacob  Astor, 
or  the  more  refined  Wilson  Price  Hunt,  or  still  more  select  Lieutenant  Bonne- 
ville, all  of  whom  tried  their  fortunes  at  fur  trading  in  this  region,  such  a  proposi- 
tion as  promiscuous  marriages  with  the  natives  would  have  appeared  as  an  im- 
practicable proposition.  In  the  settlement  of  the  Ohio,  and  in  fact  of  all  the  At- 
lantic state  regions,  intermarriages  with  the  natives  as  a  custom  was  looked  upon 
with  horror;  notwithstanding  the  romantic  unions  of  Pocahontas  and  others 
equally  well  authenticated.  When  the  Hudson's  Bay  traders  organized  their 
company,  they  found  the  Canadian  French  already  in  the  business  of  taking  furs 
from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  head  of  the  great  lakes.  The  Frenchmen  set  the 
pace  with  the  Indians.  And  whatever  he  might  have  been  on  the  boulevards 
of  Paris,  he  was  not  at  all  fastidious  in  the  wilds  of  America,  when  it  came  to 
living  with,  camping  with  and  managing  wild  Indians,  to  trap  for  furs  and  put 
the  good  francs  in  his  pocket.  And  we  very  soon  see  in  the  history  of  the  French 
in  the  fur  trade  of  North  America,  that  the  trapper's  wife  was  nearly  always  a 
native  woman.  The  custom  worked  well  with  the  French.  They  profited  in  the 
fur  trade  and  in  the  main  preserved  the  peace  with  the  Indians;  and  the  Hud- 
son 's  Bay  Company  adopted  the  tactics  of  their  rivals  for  a  rich  trade  and  event- 
ually drove  them  from  the  field. 

The  Hudson's  Bay  Company  produced  many  forceful,  useful  and  distin- 
guished men.  They  had  not  the  culture  of  the  colleges,  or  the  polish  of  the  so- 
called  polite  society.  But  they  accomplished  far  more  for  mankind  and  for  civ- 
ilization than  all  the  college  men  who  have  walked  in  their  steps  since  their  day. 

They  governed  a  wilderness  empire  filled  with  more  natural  wealth  than 
any  other  equal  territory  in  the  world.  They  successfully  managed  a  population 
of  two  hundred  thousand  wild  Indians,  which  but  for  their  tact,  perseverance, 


No.    1— Dr.  .I.ihii    MrLcuiuli 
No.  3--l)r.  'rnlriiic 


N.I.   :;  — Sir    .hiiiio    Dc.imlas 

No.    4— IVtlM-     Skccll     OodtMl 


publ;. 


THE  CENri-;.\NlAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  97 

aud  courage,  would  have  been  two  liundred  thousand  iiuu-deriut?  savages.  And 
while  it  is  true  they  did  not  look  forward  to  the  fruits  of  labor  which  miglit 
bestow  upon  them  offices,  iiouors  aud  distinctions,  which  the  wilderness  could 
not  confer,  they  saeriticed  self  pride  and  ambition  to  faithfully  and  loyally  serve 
their  employer,  looking  only  to  the  present  and  to  their  salary  for  reward ;  and 
still  none  the  less,  performed  so  great  a  work  in  moulding  and  controlling  the 
character  and  the  natural  bent  of  the  Indians  as  to  make  the  eventful  settle- 
ment of  the  country  an  easy  conquest  over  uative  savagery.  The  gradual  and 
comparatively  easy  substitution  of  civilization  in  all  the  vast  territory  once  ruled 
by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  as  compared  with  the  stern  and  relentless  war- 
fare which  greeted  and  decimated  the  Scotch-Irish  and  Virginian  pioneers  who 
settled  the  Ohio  valley  sixty  years  prior  is  little  less  than  a  miracle  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  West.  If  anyone  will  turn  to  the  history  of  the  settlement  of  the 
states  of  Ohio,  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  and  see  with  what  nameless  horrors,  inde- 
scribable tortures  and  devilish  savagery  the  Indians  in  that  country  fought  the 
white  settlers,  they  will  sefi  that  the  old  Oregon  Indians  were  peaceful  men,  by 
comparison.  All  the  Indian  wars  of  Oregon  put  together  would  not  make  three 
years  actual  warfare.  And  in  all  of  it,  so  far  as  can  be  learned,  there  were  but 
few  prisoners  put  to  torture  by  the  Indians.  But  from  the  time  Daniel  Boone 
crossed  over  the  Alleghany  mountains  and  settled  in  the  lonely  wilds  of  Kentucky 
in  1769,  down  to  the  great  battle  with  the  Indians  October  5,  1813,  when  their 
great  leader  aud  hero  Tecumseli  was  killed,  over  forty  years,  there  was  almost  con- 
tinuous warfare  with  the  Indians  of  the  Ohio  vallej'. 

Let  the  impartial  reader  contrast  the  settler's  experience  in  the  Ohio  valley, 
with  the  Indian  wars  of  Oregon,  and  then  thank  such  a  nuin  as  John  McLoughlin 
and  Peter  Skene  Ogdeu  that  our  pioneer  fathers  and  mothers  of  Oregon  were 
spared  the  trials  and  sufferings  which  their  fathers  and  mothers  passed  through 
in  reclaiming  Ohio,  Missouri  and  other  eastern  states  from  their  savage  foes. 

The  Indians  of  the  vast  Hudson  Bay  provinces  did  not  lack  the  courage  or  the 
brains  of  the  Indians  of  the  Ohio  valley.  Neither  did  they  lack  natural  resources 
to  make  effective  opposition  to  the  advances  of  the  white  man.  They  were  simplj- 
managed  and  kept  quiet  until  effective  opposition  was  impracticable.  The  men 
who  did  this  great  work  for  Oregon,  no  matter  what  their  motives  were,  deserve 
a  large  space  in  the  history  of  this  state.  It  cannot  be  pretended  that  they  man- 
aged the  Indians  for  the  purpose  of  making  them  accept  the  rule  of  the  white 
man  in  the  establishment  of  civil  society.  It  may  be  truly  said  they  builded  wiser 
than  they  knew,  but  for  all  they  performed,  all  they  accomplished,  and  all  their 
labors  to  tame  the  red  ilian,  let  us  give  them  generous  recognition  and  deserved 
Iiouors 

But  the  Royal  British  prerogative  favorite  of  the  King  was  not  to  have  an  un- 
contested monopoly  of  the  fur  trade  in  half  a  continent.  In  the  year  1783  Simon 
.MeTavi.sh,  Benjamin  and  Joseph  Frobisher,  A.  McGillivray,  Roeheblave,  Simon 
Fraser  and  other  wealthy  and  influential  merchants  of  Montreal  organized  the 
■'Northwest  Company  of  Montreal,"  and  afterwards  admitted  to  the  Company 
Peter  Pond  and  Peter  Pangman,  able  and  successful  traders ;  and  still  later  on 
admitted  Alexander  Mackenzie  in  the  Spring  of  1785.  The  capital  of  this  Com- 
pany does  not  appear  in  any  of  the  sources  of  history  examined.  The  shares  were 
originally  sixteen,  and  these  were  increased  as  new  partners  were  taken,  and  as 

Vol.  1—7 


98  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTOKY  OP  OREGON 

all  were  equal  it  follows  that  each  partner  had  an  equal  interest  no  matter  what 
the  capital,  or  the  profits.  This  Company  was  a  voluntary  organization  without 
charter  or  Royal  patent  to  legalize  it.  But  it  was  for  the  purposes  in  view  a  very 
powerful  organization.  It  was  maimed  and  managed  by  men  who  had  themselves 
threaded  the  forest  and  wilderness.  It  had  the  experience  and  energy  of  the  great 
explorers.  Alexander  Mackenzie  and  Simon  Praser,  to  guide  it ;  and  it  was  a  foe- 
man  worthy  of  a  princely  competitor.  The  company  was  ably  managed  and 
made  enormovis  profits.  The  gross  income  was  $200,000  in  1788,  and  on  the  same 
capital,  ran  up  to  $600,000  in  1799. 

It  is  hut  a  faint  idea  the  reader  of  history  can  get  of  the  life  of  these  fur 
hunters  in  the  Great  Northern  wilderness  one  hundred  years  ago.  The  men,  the 
times,  the  manners,  the  Indians,  the  wild  animals,- and  the  wilderness  itself  have 
all  passed  away  forever.  Nowhere  on  the  earth  can  that  unique  picture  be  again 
reproduced.  To  the  general  reader,  that  fur  hunter  life  and  adventure  was  raw, 
crude  and  barbarian.  But  it  was  only  partly  so.  The  trapper  in  the  boundless 
woods  and  plains  must  of  necessity  rough  it.  He  lay  upon  the  ground  at  night 
under  the  shelter  of  some  bushy  tree  or  against  the  lea  of  a  friendly  rock.  He 
must  get  his  life  from  the  animals  he  killed.  He  could  pack  little  or  nothing  to 
eat  in  addition  to  his  precious  furs.  Sometimes  he  had  pack  animals,  or  on  a 
stream  a  frail  bark  canoe;  and  then  life  was  a  holiday.  But  the  rendezvous 
brought  to  the  full  all  the  pleasures  and  happiness  a  fur  hunter  could  conceive  of. 
It  might  be  once,  or  even  t^^'ice,  in  the  year;  but  it  was  sure  to  come.  The  "  Ren- 
dezvous"  saved  the  expense  of  building  forts  and  keeping  up  an  expensive  estab- 
lishment, and  was  appointed  for  different  places  and  seasons  to  suit  the  conven- 
ience of  the  trappers  and  the  demands  of  the  trade.  The  most  noted  rendezvous 
on  the  American  side  of  the  boundary  line  was  in  the  heart  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains in  the  North  East  corner  of  Utah,  where  Kit  Carson,  Ashle.y,  Sublette,  Lisa 
and  other  famous  fur  hunters  would  meet  the  Bannocks,  Shoshones,  Prench  Ca- 
nadians, half  breeds  and  other  nondescripts,  for  barter  and  carousal.  Here  all 
were  free  to  eat,  drink,  fight  and  kill,  each  man  looking  out  for  himself  and  for 
his  own  head.  Pree  trappers,  hired  men,  and  Indians,  all,  here  brought  their 
catch  for  the  year  and  sold,  or  got  their  pay. 

And  here  all  had  their  chance  to  waste  their  earnings  in  a  few  days'  riot  of 
man's  three  consuming  passions — intoxicating  drink,  women  and  tobacco.  Vile 
whiskey  was  sold  for  four  dollars  a  pint ;  tobacco  five  dollars  a  pound,  and  the 
beauties  of  the  forest  came  without  persuasion  to  become  the  wives  of  the  long 
haired  trappers  forever,  or  for  a  day.  The  trading,  gambling,  horse  racing, 
dancing,  courting  and  fighting  was  the  limit  of  human  endurance,  and  its  like  will 
never  be  seen  again. 

And  this  was  the  American  hell-raiser  fandango  in  the  wilderness.  But  across 
the  line  at  old  Port  William  north  of  the  head  of  Lake  Superior,  was  a  model 
of  the  same  purpose  rendezvous,  but  regulated  by  the  sterner  decrees  of  Scotch 
business  formality  and  controlled  by  frowning  cannon  in  a  palisaded  fortress. 
Port  William  was  in  fact  a  palisaded  village ;  within  which  was  the  great  council 
house,  store  buildings,  fur  packing  houses,  armories,  soldiers,  rifles,  cannon,  offi- 
cers' quarters,  servants'  cottages,  doctor's  office,  powder  magazine,  jail,  work 
shops,  and  a  garden.  And  in  the  midst  of  it  all  the  council  house  towered,  contain- 
ing a  dining  hall  sixty  by  thirty  feet,  and  the  walls  hung  with  the  portraits  of  the 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OHE(!0\  99 

jiaitni'i's  and  iiiaiiiigirs  o\'  the  Ncul Invest  (JoiuiJaiiy.  Hcit  was  inajriiifirnicc  in 
•111'  wilderness  a  thousand  miles  IVmn  an  organized  eoniniunity.  And  hen'  law  anil 
diseii)line  was  enl'oiTed  fn  |ir(iiii(ite  pt'ofit  under  the  rules  of  a  ,L;i'eal  |ii-i\;ate  c'cir- 
poration.  Here  was  in  fael  a  petty  soNcreiiiiuty  in  the-  lieai-t  ot  a  Imundless  foi'est. 
with  nn  limits  upon  its  I'ule  liut  its  i)\\n  measure  oi'  its  pi-otits  and  ahilities  -in 
exart  them.  Not  iine,  liut  many  sui-li  petty  governments.  The  same  thing  existed 
in  neai-ly  tin'  sanu'  t'orui  uniler  the  i'\de  ol'  the  Hudson's  Hay  ( 'o..  at  ^'ork  Faetm-y, 
Fort  Churehiil,  Fort  Garry,  cm  the  .Vssinilioim',  Fort  Edmonton  on  the  Saskatche- 
wan, aiul  Foi-t  Vaneouvei'.  nn  the  Colundiia.  Ilei-e  in  all  these  establishments 
I)etty  governors  tried  men  loi-  their  lives,  and  meted  nut  punishment  aceording  to 
their  own  ideas  of  justice,  without  any  of  the  checks  oi'  restraints  of  courts,  laws. 
Juries  oi'  legislatures. 

But  the  old  proposition  tiuit  two  bixiies  could  not  occupy  the  same  space  at  tint 
same  time  tiiudly  precipit^ited  a  violent  concussion  between  the  Northwest  C'om- 
pany  and  its  JJritish  rival  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company.  Slowly  and  finally  after 
the  lapse  of  a  hundred  and  thirty  years  the  old  Hudson's  Bay  Company  awoke  to 
the  fact  that  the  untitled  Scotchmen  of  Montreal  were  after  all,  formidable  rivals 
of  a  Corporatipn  organized  by  a  King.  The  Scotchmen  mu.st  be  driven  out  of  the 
fur  trade — and  the  battle  began.  For  every  post  the  Scotchmen  built,  another 
must  be  built  alongside  of  it  flying  the  II.  B,  C,  flag.  For  every  inducement  offered 
the  Indians  to  trade,  double  should  be  ofl'ered  by  the  H.  B.  C.  And  so  the  battle 
began.  No  Highland  Chieftain  of  Scotia's  rock  ribbed  hills  and  glens  ever  ac- 
cepted the  challenge  or  fought  an  English  army  with  keener  zest  than  did  these 
fur  trading  clansmen  and  their  ready  allies — the  half  breed  French  voyageurs. 
In  vain  did  the  Englishmen  plead  their  Royal  Grant,  and  its  British  Parliament 
confirnuition.  The  Northwest  Co.  cared  not  a  fig  for  Royal  Grants,  This  was  un- 
inhabited territory,  and  was  as  free  to  one  robber  as  another.  Reprisals  were 
frequent.  The  hunters  of  one  company  would  break  into  the  huts  and  carry  off 
the  furs  of  the  rival  company.  All  went  armed  and  ready  for  a  fight  wherever 
they  might  meet.  And  the  Indians,  like  the  Irishman  at  the  wake,  seeing  it  was 
a  free  fight  stole  furs  from  both  sides,  and  hit  a  head  whenever  convenient.  And 
so  the  fighting  went  on  in  a  desultory  way  for  ten  years — 1805  to  1815.  Men  were 
killed  and  forts  captured  on  both  sides;  the  Hudson's  Bay  Co.  generally  getting 
the  worst  of  it.  The  fur  trade  was  ruined.  Playing  ])oth  sides,  the  Indians  got  more 
for  their  furs  than  they  would  sell  for  in  Montreal.  In  1816  the  fighting  a.ssumed 
a  desperate  phase.  Three  hundred  half  breeds  were  armed,  painted,  mounted  on 
ponies,  by  the  Northwest  Co.,  and  sent  forth  to  seize  everything  they  could  get 
hold  of.  The  first  H.  B.  Co.  settlement  they  came  to  was  destroyed  root  and 
branch  and  the  colonists  driven  into  the  forest.  At  Athabasca  the  Hudson's  Bay 
men  were  besieged,  and  after  losing  seventeen  men  by  starvation  the  balance  sur- 
rendered. At  Slave  Lake  the  II.  B.  Co.  men  fared  better,  but  lost  thirteen  men 
by  famine.  Two  of  the  Northwest  forts  were  captured  by  H,  B.  Co,  men,  and 
burned.  At  Fort  Douglas,  the  Northwesters  were  proceeding  to  surround  it 
when  Governor  Semple  with  twenty-eight  men  sallied  out  to  deuumd  the  object  of 
their  approach.  He  was  told  the  Northwesters  were  simply  attending  to  their  busi- 
ness, and  "what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it.'"  The  answer  came  sharp  and 
quick,  and  Sample's  men  fired  on  the  Northwesters  killing  one  umn.  The  fire  was 
instantly  returned  by  the  Northwesters  killing  the  Governor  and  seven  of  his 

'0  iV-.M  o 


100  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

men ;  the  balance  all  fled  to  the  fort  liotly  pursued,  and  only  four  men  reached 
the  fort  alive ;  the  Northwesters  capturing  the  fort  and  all  its  supplies  of  food, 
ammunition  and  stock  of  furs.  At  this  crisis  of  affairs,  Lord  Selkirk  (no  relation 
to  Robinson  Crusoe),  a  Scotchman  who  had  obtained  a  grant  of  laud  from  the 
H.  B.  Co.  for  the  purpose  of  foimding  a  Scotch  Colony  as  farmers,  and  not  as 
hunters,  undertook  to  settle  the  trouble  and  started  in  to  suppress  the  war,  but 
backed  out  at  Port  William  near  the  head  of  Lake  Superior,  thinking  discretion 
the  better  part  of  valor.  Selkirk's  land  grant  covered  not  only  a  large  tract  of 
the  Hudson's  Bay  Co.'s  dominions,  but  ran  down  into  the  territory  of  the  United 
States,  and  his  LordshiiJ  had  just  as  much  right  to  dictate  to  the  citizens  of  this 
country  as  to  the  citizens  of  Canada.  At  this  juncture  of  affairs  the  Governor 
General  of  Canada  issued  his  proclamation  threatening  the  peace  breakers  with 
dire  punishment,  and  had  the  cold  comfort  of  seeing  his  commands  treated  by 
the  fur  hunting  fighters  on  both  sides  with  supreme  eontemiDt.  Commissioners 
were  then  appointed  by  the  Canadian  Government  to  proceed  to  the  Great  North- 
ern wilderness,  investigate  the  murders  and  robberies  and  seize  the  offenders.  This 
looked  like  dangeroi^s  business  for  the  Commissioners,  and  so  they  put  off  their  mis- 
sion to  the  Spring  of  1817  ;  and  meantime  the  war  continued  with  unabated  vigor, 
men  being  killed  and  foi'ts  captured  on  both  sides.  But  all  things,  even  war, 
must  have  an  end.  The  Canadian  Courts  took  judicial  notice  of  the  violations  of 
the  law  in  the  wilderness.  Some  of  the  partners  were  arrested  in  Llontreal ;  and 
after  ten  years  of  bloody  war  the  subject  was  worn  threadbare  in  four  years' 
contention  in  the  Courts,  which  cost  each  of  the  rival  contesting  fur  companies 
the  sum  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  hard  cash.  The  fur  trade 
had  been  ruined,  each  partj^  got  a  Scotch  verdict  and  had  to  compromise  in  the 
end. 

This  much  of  the  history  of  these  two  British  Fur  Companies  operating  mostly 
on  their  own  side  of  the  national  boundary  line  on  the  east  side  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  is  given  for  the  purpose  of  showing  the  reader  what  sort  of  people, 
and  what  sort  of  a  combination  the  American  settlers  of  Oregon  had  to  contend 
with  in  coming  into  this  region  from  1811  down  to  1846,  when  the  title  to  the 
country  was  finally  settled. 

There  is  not  much  to  be  added  to  the  historj^  of  the  fur  trade  in  the  Canadian 
Northwest  beyond  what  has  been  said  of  the  two  gi'eat  rivals  for  a  monopoly  of 
the  business.  There  was  another  British  Company,  known  as  the  Mackinaw  Com- 
pany, which  made  its  headquarters  on  the  Island  of  Michilimackicac  at  the  con- 
fluence of  the  waters  of  Lake  Superior,  Michigan  and  Huron,  and  being  in  fact 
upon  United  States  territory.  The  operations  of  this  company  were  mostly 
within  the  boundaries  of  the  United  States,  and  before  our  government  had  the 
disposition  or  the  ability  to  expel  the  poachers.  And  as  it  is  well  known  that 
after  the  Treaty  of  Peace  that  closed  the  Revolutionary  War  England  persisted 
in  holding  on  to  a  great  many  military  posts  along  the  Great  Lakes,  and  by  their 
influence  over  the  Indians  held  back  the  American  settlement  and  trade  for  more 
than  ten  years  after  the  Treaty  of  Peace  was  signed.  And  owing  to  this  hostile 
course  of  the  British  Cabinet,  the  fur  trade  on  the  American  side  of  the  boundary 
line  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  started  from  St.  Louis  and  under  grants  and 
permits  of  the  Spanish  Governor  of  Louisiana.  And  under  these  Spanish  fur 
traders  the  business  had  been  extended  up  the  Missouri  river  hundreds  of  miles 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  101 

jiliove  St.  Loviis.  and  for  a  considei-a))le  distauec  out  ou  the  plains  towards  tlie 
Ixoeky  Jlountaius.  In  the  order  of  time,  the  only  exceptions  to  these  sporadic 
cfrorts  to  establish  the  fur  trade  on  American  territory  was  the  fur  tradiuR  ship 
ventures  from  Boston  to  the  Pacific  Coast,  and  the  Russian  Fur  Traders  to  Alaska. 
Tlie  fur  trade  started  the  American  commerce  to  the  Pacific  Coast.  The  fur  trade 
induced  the  Russians  to  cross  over  from  Siberia  to  Alaska,  and  establish  a  colony 
at  Sitka  and  extend  its  operations  down  the  coast  as  far  as  Puget  Sound  to  catch 
the  sea  otters — the  finest  furs  the  Russians  had  ever  seen  up  to  that  date.  And 
all  these  elements  in  the  fur  trade  were  in  active  operation,  and  every  single  sailor 
and  trapper  was  striving  to  the  utmost  limit  to  obtain  every  pelt  he  could  get 
hold  of  down  to  the  year  President  Jetferson  purchased  Louisiana  from  the  French. 
Tills  greatest  land  deal  in  the  history  of  the  Nation  made  a  new  alignment  of 
lur  trading  interests,  served  notice  ou  the  British  to  stay  on  their  own  side  of  the 
4!)th  parallel  on  the  cast  side  of  the  Rocky  mountains,  and  put  new  life,  ambi- 
lion  and  energy  into  tlie  operations  of  Astor  and  all  the  rest  of  tlie  American  Fnr 
Traders. 

John  Jacob  Astor,  the  founder  of  Astoria,  Oregon  was  the  greatest  fur  trader, 
and  one  of  the  greatest  and  best  business  men  America  had  ever  produced. 
Measured  np  by  all  the  standards  that  go  to  make  a  really  great  and  good  man  in 
the  ordinary  citizen's  life  in  the  world  of  business,  Astor  stands  at  the  head  of 
th(>  long  line  of  self-made  men  for  sagacity,  energy,  comprehension,  integrity  and 
patriotism.  Let  every  American  school  boy  read  his  record  with  deep  thought 
and  profound  respect.  Astor  was  born  in  the  village  of  Waldorf  near  Heide)- 
berg,  Germany.  July  17th.  1763.  When  sixteen  years  of  age  he  went  to  London 
and  joined  an  elder  brother  in  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  nmsical  instruments. 
.Vfter  three  years  in  London  he  resolved  to  see  if  he  could  not  better  his  for- 
tunes by  going  to  America.  He  sailed  from  London  in  1783  with  a  small  stock 
of  musical  instruments  bound  for  the  United  States.  Being  detained  at  Chesa- 
peake Bay  en  route  to  Baltimore,  he  fell  in  with  a  dealer  in  furs  who  advised 
him  to  go  to  New  York,  sell  out  his  musical  wares  and  invest  the  proceeds  in 
furs.  Astor  took  up  the  idea  at  once,  and  as  soon  as  possible  converted  his  goods 
into  a  small  stock  of  furs,  returned  to  London  with  them  and  sold  out  to  great 
advantage.  Right  there  the  germ  was  planted  that  spread  the  fame  of  the  young 
man  over  America,  founded  Astoria,  and  helped  mightily  to  save  Oregon  to  the 
United  States.  And  so  clear  was  his  insight  to  the  future,  that  on  this  first  trip 
to  London,  with  his  first  pack  of  furs,  and  when  he  was  only  twenty-one  years 
of  age,  he  said  to  his  brother,  that.  "When  the  Canadian  frontiers  are  surrendered 
to  the  LTnited  States,  I  will  make  my  fortune  in  the  fur  trade."  And  he  did. 

On  his  return  from  London  in  1784.  Astor  at  once  engaged  in  the  fur  trade  to 
the  Canadian  border  and  out  west  through  Ohio  and  Indiana  to  Lake  ]Michigan. 
and  pushed  his  opjiortunities  with  all  his  energy.  And  such  was  his  foresight 
and  ability  in  managing  the  business  that  by  the  year  1800  he  had  amassed  a  for- 
tune of  half  a  million  dollars  in  sixteen  years.  By  this  time  both  the  Monti'eal 
and  St.  Louis  fur  traders  had  come  to  regard  him  as  a  formidable  competitoi-  in 
the  trade.  The  purchase  of  Louisiana  in  180.3  opened  u])  a  world  of  opportuni- 
ties for  fortunes  and  fame  to  those  who  had  the  foresight  to  see  them.  Astor 
beheld  the  great  future  of  that  great  territory  at  a  glance.  He  was  more  than  a 
match  for  any  of  the  statesmen  of  that  period  in  reading  the  future.    What  the 


102  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

extent  of  the  Louisiana  purchase  was  hardly  anybody  knew.  It  was  Astor's  busi- 
ness to  find  out ;  and  he  did  so.  He  decided  that  the  entire  watershed  of  the  Mis- 
souri river  was  now  open  to  Americans,  and  closed  to  the  Canadians ;  and  that 
very  likely  the  Americans  had  a  good  title  clear  through  the  continent  to  the  Pa- 
cific ocean.  If  this  was  the  fact  then  a  trading  station  at  the  mouth  of  the  Co- 
lumbia river  would  command  the  fur  trade  to  China.  With  President  Jefferson 
he  was  in  perfect  accord  for  years ;  and  when  Astor  founded  Astoria,  Jefferson 
wrote  him  a  letter  from  his  home  at  Monticello,  November  9,  1813,  in  which-  he 
says : 

''I  view  it  (Astoria)  as  the  germ  of  a  great,  free  and  indeisendent  empire  on 
that  side  of  our  continent ;  and  that  liberty  and  self-government  spreading  from 
that  as  well  as  this  side,  will  ensure  their  complete  establishment  over  the  whole. 
It  must  be  still  more  gratifying  to  yourself  to  foresee  that  your  name  will  be 
handed  down  with  that  of  Columbus  and  Raleigh,  as  the  father  of  the  establish- 
ment and  founder  of  such  an  empire.  It  would  be  an  afflicting  thing  indeed, 
should  the  English  be  able  to  break  up  the  settlement.  Their  bigotry  to  the 
bastard  liberty  of  their  own  country,  and  habitual  hostility  to  every  degree  of 
freedom  in  any  other,' will  induce  the  attempt;  they  would  not  lose  the  sale  of  a 
bale  of  furs  for  the  freedom  of  the  whole  world." 

And  thus,  through  President  Thomas  Jefferson,  John  Jacob  Astor  and  the 
fur  trade.  Old  Oregon  is  connected  and  brought  into  relations  with  the  United 
States  in  the  year  1812 — one  hundred  years  ago — and  the  history  of  this  country 
from  that  year  down  to  the  present  is  the  purpose  of  this  book. 

i\stor  was  a  dealer  in  furs,  and  never  sent  out  trappers  or  trapping  expedi- 
tions after  the  manner  of  the  Canadian  companies,  or  the  expeditions  of  the 
French  from  St.  Louis.  The  establishment  at  Astoria,  if  it  had  not  been  betrayed 
and  destroyed  by  the  British,  would  have  engaged  in  the  fur  business  of  sending 
its  own  trappers  into  the  wilderness  as  well  as  purchasing  furs  from  the  Indians 
and  independent  trappers.  But  his  plans  were  on  a  still  greater  scale  than  any- 
thing ever  attempted  by  any  other  American.  He  entered  into  correspondence 
with  the  Russian  government  and  had  arranged  all  the  details  of  a  large  business 
with  the  Russian  posts  and  people  in  Alaska,  and  through  which,  if  he  had  not 
been  driven  out  by  the  British  warships,  he  would  have  built  up  a  great  com- 
merce and  effectively  kept  the  British  out  of  the  fur  trade  on  the  Pacific  coast. 

Returning  again  to  Astor 's  operations  on  the  Atlantic  coast,  he  is  found  in 
1808  endeavoring  to  form  a  business  alliance  of  some  sort  with  the  independent 
fur  traders  and  trappers  at  St.  Louis.  A  large  number  of  St.  Louis  venturers 
into  the  boundless  west  had  been  making  money  in  the  fur  trade,  the  leading  man 
of  whom  was  jManual  Lisa,  a  Spaniard.  The  return  of  Lisa  from  the  Rocky 
mountains  in  the  summer  of  1808  with  very  flattering  reports  on  fur  trading 
prospects  had  induced  the  leading  business  men  of  St.  Louis  to  go  into  a  fur 
trading  enterprise  under  the  name  of  the  St.  Louis,  Missouri,  Fur  Company,  but 
connnonly  called  the  Missouri  Fur  Company.  The  partners  in  the  company  were 
Benjamin  Wilkinson,  Pierre  Chouteau,  Sr.,  Manual  Lisa,  Augusta  Chouteau,  Jr., 
Reuben  Lewis,  William  Clark  (of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  expedition),  Sylvester 
Labadie.  all  of  St.  Loiiis;  and  Pierre  Menard  and  William  Morrison,  of  Kaskas- 
kia,  Illinois;  Andrew  Henry,  of  Louisiana,  Missouri,  and  Dennis  Fitzhugh,  of 
Louisville,  Ky.     This  company  sent  its  first  expedition  into  the  Indian  country 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  103 

ill  tlie  s|)iiiiii'  ol'  180!),  uuiubering  one  hiiiKhrtl  and  fifty  men  witli  niereliandise 
10  su|)i)ly  MHil  equip  five  or  six  trading  i)()sts  among  tiie  Indians.  At  first  the 
|iait.\  was  vci-y  successful  in  catching  hc'avcr.  and  great  profits  seemed  to  be  en- 
suretl;  hut  suddenly  the  Blackfeet  Indians  swooped  down  on  the  unsuspicious 
trappers.  i<ilh>d  a  large  number  of  iiien  and  stole  all  the  I'urs.  From  this  party, 
Andrew  Ileni'y,  who  was  a  partner  in  liir  coiiipany  and  one  oT  the  leaders  of  this 
expedition,  took  part  of  the  men.  after  the  expedition  had  lieen  defeated  by  the 
Indians,  and  crossed  over  the  Rocky  mountains  and  built  Fort  Henry  on  the  north 
fork  of  Snake  river  in  1809,  being  the  first  liouse  erected  in  the  territory  of  old 
Oregon.  The  river  w-as  afterwards  named  the  Henry  Fork  of  Snake  river.  And 
thus  ended  the  ilissouri  Fur  Company. 

A  uumlu'r  of  independent  fur  trading  expeditions  were  afterwards  sent  out  to 
the  Rocky  mountains  from  St.  Louis;  but  the  only  parties  of  any  importance  to 
reach  Oregon  was  the  party  of  Jedediah  Smith,  an  account  of  which  is  given  in 
the  chapter  on  Exploring  Expeditions. 

When  Astor  decided  to  go  into  the  fur  trade  on  the  Pacific  coast,  he  looked 
around  for  suitable  and  capable  men  to  manage  such  an  important  expedition. 

He  had  been  in  the  course  of  his  business  often  at  Montreal,  was  acquainted 
with  the  Northwest  Company  proprietors,  and  had  formed  a  high  opinion 
of  their  ability  as  business  men ;  and  in  looking  around  for  suitable  persons  to 
join  him  in  his  venture  to  the  Pacifie  he  made  propositions  to  some  of  these  Mon- 
treal Scotchmen  that  had  been  fighting  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  in  the  wilder- 
ness. To  the  American  reader  it  will  appear  quite  singular  that  Astor  should 
have  gone  to  ilontreal  for  partners  rather  than  to  St.  Louis,  where  there  wei'e 
men  of  liis  own  citizenship  interested  in  the  fur  trade  and  who  could  never  have 
been  a  subject  of  embarrassment  in  case  of  trouble  over  the  title  to  the  fur  trad- 
ing country.  But  the  explanation  is,  that  Astor  was  at  one  time  offered  an  in- 
terest in  a  St.  Louis  company  by  a  minority  interest  in  its  ownership ;  but  that 
the  majority  did  not  favor  an  Astor  connection  for  some  reason  not  explained, 
and  Astor  was  kept  out.  The  explanation  was,  that  the  St.  Louis  merchants 
wanted  a  ilissouri  fur  company,  with  its  trade  and  profit  all  to  themselves  and 
were  afraid  of  the  leadership  of  such  an  ambitious,  broad-minded,  energetic  man 
as  Astor. 

But  no  sooner  had  Astor  broached  his  grand  scheme  of  a  fur  trading  post  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river  to  control  the  trade  of  the  great  Columbia  val- 
ley, and  the  'still  greater  Pacific  coast  and  China  trade,  than  the  Northwest 
Company  of  Montreal  took  alarm  and  secretly  rushed  David  Thompson  to  the 
Pacifie  coast  to  head  off  Astor  and  claim  the  country  for  England,  as  has  already 
been  shown  in  the  account  of  Thompson's  expedition.  And  wdiile  this  conduct 
of  the  Montreal  Scotchmen  might  be  condoned  as  justified  by  their  loyalty  to  the 
British  king,  yet  it  was  anything  but  honorable  among  business  men.  But  when 
Astor  once  determined  upon  a  proposition  there  was  no  turning  back.  And  when 
he  decided  to  establish  a  post  at  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river  it  had  to  be  done. 
After  a  full  survey  of  the  fur  trading  interests,  and  their  leading  men.  Astor 
piektMl  out  Donald  McKenzie,  Duncan  ;\IcDougal,  David  Stuart  and  Robert 
Stuart,  all  of  Canada,  and  all  of  whom  had  been  more  or  less  eonneeted  with  the 
Northwest  Company:  and  to  this  coterie  of  very  able  men  he  added  Alexander 
ilcKay.  who  had  been  with  .Mackenzie  on  the  first  white  man's  expedition  across 


104     -  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

the  Rocky  mountains  in  1793.  and  invited  them  into  the  new  company.  Tliese 
men  were  undoubtedly  selected  not  only  for  their  knowledge  of  the  fur  trade,  but 
also  for  their  knowledge  of  all  the  schemes  of  the  Northwest  Company  and  their 
acquaintance  with  Canadian  trappers  and  hunters.  In  addition  to  these  men, 
Astor  took  into  his  new  company  Ramsay  Crooks,  formerly  in  the  employ  of  the 
Northwest  Company,  but  then  an  independent  trapper  along  the  upper  Missouri 
'river.  Also  Joseph  Miller,  of  Baltimore,  formerly  an  officer,  but  since  engaged 
in  the  fur  trade ;  Robert  McLellan,  a  fearless,  energ-etic  man  with  large  experi- 
ence in  handling  and  fighting  Indians ;  and  lastly,  his  most  important  and  faith- 
ful man,  Wilson  Price  Hunt,  of  New  Jersey.  Forty  Canadian  boatmen  and 
hunters  were  engaged,  together  with,  as  foremen,  John  Day,  a  Virginia  back- 
woodsman, John  Colter,  who  had  been  over  to  Oregon  with  Lewis  and  Clark, 
and  Pierre  Dorion,  son  of  Lewis  and  Clark 's  interpreter ;  and  with  this  mate- 
rial the  new  Astor  company  was  formally  organized  on  June  23,  1810,  and  named 
the  Pacific  Fur  Compan.y.  It  must  be  said,  as  any  judge  of  human  nature  might 
foresee,  that  Astor  had  risked  a  most  dangerous  experiment  in  taking  into  his 
confidence  and  business  control  of  his  affairs  a  lot  of  misfits  from  his  rivals  in. 
business.  It  could  hardly  be  otherwise  but  that  former  associations,  diverse  na- 
tionality and  clannish  prejudices  would  lead  to  want  of  confidence  and  secret, 
if  not  open  treacherj',  whenever  the  temptation  offered. 

Astor  had  planned  well  to  succeed  if  not  betrayed  or  destroyed  bj^  superior 
power.  He  organized  two  parties ;  one  to  proceed  overland  from  St.  Louis  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Columbia  river,  and  the  other  to  sail  by  the  ocean  around  Cape  Horn 
in  a  well-provisioned  ship.  The  rendezvous  of  the  land  party  under  the  com- 
mand of  "Wilson  Price  Hunt,  was  on  the  Missouri  river  in  the  autumn  of  1810; 
and  all  the  trials  and  sufferings  of  that  party  to  reach  Oregon  in  1811  have  been 
related  in  Hunt's  expedition  to  Oregon  in  the  chapter  on  Overland  Expeditions. 
For  the  ocean  expedition,  the  Tonquin,  a  ship  of  two  hundred  and  ninety  tons 
burden,  Jonathan  Thorn,  commander,  was  provided  with  all  necessary  supplies, 
tools,  merchandise,  gams,  ammunition  and  equipment  of  every  sort  to  establish 
an  armed  fort  and  trading  post  in  the  Oregon  wilderness.  Thorn  was  a  lieuten- 
ant in  the  United  States  navy  and  was  allowed  to  go  on  this  expedition  on  leave 
of  absence,  to  favor  Astor  and  help  make  a  success  of  the  great  undertaking. 

The  Tonquin  sailed  for  the  Columbia  river  on  the  8th  day  of  September,  1810, 
with  a  crew  of  twenty-one  men  and  thirty-three  passengers,  all  connected  with 
the  Pacific  Fur  Company.  And  after  an  uneventful  voyage  of  six  months  and 
two  weeks  arrived  oiif  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  in  a  storm  on  March  22,  1811. 
Capt.  Thorn  had  made  himself  very  disagi-eeable  to  his  passengers  and  crew,  and 
now  exhibited  his  real  character  as  a  heartless  wretch  and  iinmitigated  brute. 
He  had  taken  a  dislike  to  his  first  mate.  Fox,  and  instead  of  standing  out  to  sea 
until  the  storm  abated  he  ordered  Fox  to  take  a  crew  of  inexperienced  Kanakas 
and  an  old  leaky  boat  and  make  soundings  of  the  Columbia  bar.  Feeling  that 
his  life  was  being  placed  in  jeopardy  out  of  spite,  Fox  appealed  to  the  captain 
to  give  him  sailors  and  a  chance  to  save  his  life.  This  the  captain  refused.  Fox 
then  appealed  to  the  passengers,  and  they  remonstrated  with  the  captain  upon 
the  danger  of  sending  the  men  on  to  such  a  dangerous  bar,  but  all  to  no  purpose ; 
Fox  and  the  poor  Kanakas  took  the  boat,  headed  for  the  bar,  were  soon  lost  to 
sight  and  never  heard  of  again.    Within  the  next  two  days  two  other  boats  were 


I)i;.    .lolIX    MeLOUGHLIX 

B}'  many  called  the  ■Father  of  Oregon";  was  Hudson  Bay  Company 
Governor  of  Oregon  fur  nineteen  years,  occupying  Astoria  under  the 
name  of  Fort  George  from  182-1  to  1830 


fTHiNE^^ 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  105 

scut  out  to  sound  the  entrance,  and  two  more  white  mm  wn-r  IdsL  l-'iinilly  tlio 
ship  itself  tried  the  bar,  and  as  if  by  a  miracle  the  Tonquiii  (liiltcd  in  over  the 
Columbia  bar  and  into  Baker's  bay  on  the  24th  of  March,  1M1.  Here  the  live 
slock  which  had  been  purchased  at  the  Sandwich  Islands,  was  hinded  and  eon- 
fined  in  pens  of  poles,  and  from  this  point  an  exploring  party  was  sent  out  to  find 
and  select  a  point  to  build  a  fort.  This  exploring  party  was  composed  of  Cajitain 
Thorn,  Alexander  McKay,  David  Stuart,  three  clerks  and  members  of  the  wcw 
well  armed,  provisioned  and  manned  for  the  occasion  to  fight  if  necessary,  i-'ive 
days  were  occupied  in  examining  the  north  bank  of  tiie  river,  when  the  party  re- 
turned to  the  ship  without  agreeing  on  a  location.  McDougal  and  Stuart  deter- 
mined to  try  the  south  bank,  although  Captain  Thorn  bitterly  objected,  saying 
that  it  was  nothing  but  a  sporting  excursion  and  he  would  land  all  the  goods 
right  where  they  were  on  the  south  bank  unless  they  returned  in  two  days.  Mc- 
Dougal and  Stuart  encountered  a  heavy  squall  on  the  river,  their  boat  was  upset 
and  they  were  saved  from  drowning  only  by  the  timely  succor  of  the  Chinook 
Indians  who  came  to  their  rescue  in  canoes.  But  they  finally  agreed  upon  a 
]:)oint  for  the  fort.  Point  George,  and  on  which  the  fort  was  built,  which  is  now 
llie  city  of  Astoi'ia.  To  Duncan  ilcDougal  and  David  Stuart  is  the  honor  due 
for  founding  the  city  of  Astoria.  And  on  the  12th  day  of  Ajjril,  1811,  twelve 
men  of  the  Tonquin  Astor  party  landed  on  Point  George  with  tools  and  provisions 
and  began  the  erection  of  the  fort,  a  picture  of  which  is  given  on  another  page. 
Trading,  fort  building  and  sliip  building  now-  commenced  in  earnest.  The 
Chinook  Indians,  under  the  chieftaincy  of  Concomly,  were  friendl.y  and  lent  the 
white  men  what  assistance  tlicy  could  and  supplied  them  with  fish  and  game. 
For  this  the  white  men  were  grateful,  and  especially  jMcDougal,  who  in  a  few 
weeks  took  a  wife,  a  comel.y  daughter  of  the  hospitable  chief,  Concomly. 

Turning  now  to  the  ship  Tonquin  that  carried  the  adventuresome  party  around 
the  world  and  founded  American  civilization  at  the  mouth  of  the  great  Columbia, 
it  is  to  be  regretted  that  either  damned  by  the  evil  eye  and  splenetic  temper  of 
Commander  Thorn,  or  doomed  b.v  the  irony  oi  fate,  the  ship  sailed  out  of  the 
Columbia  and  north  to  Clayoquot  on  Nootka  sound  on  the  west  coast  of  Vancouver 
island,  and  here  put  in  for  trade  with  the  Indians.  Astor  warned  Thorn  before 
he  sailed  from  New  York  to  beware  of  the  Indians  at  this  place,  saying,  "All 
accidents  which  have  as  yet  happened  there  arose  out  of  too  much  confidence  in 
the  Indians."  The  interpreter  also  warned  Thorn,  but  all  to  no  purpose.  The 
Indians  came  on  board  the  ship  with  furs  to  trade  in  great  numbers,  unrestrained 
by  the  precautions  enforced  bv  other  ship  masters  of  allowing  only  a  few  Indians 
at  one  time  on  the  ship.  And  Thorn  being  unable  to  trade  with  them  on  his  own 
terms,  quarreled  with  them  and  drove  them  off  the  ship  in  anger,  striking  a  chief 
in  the  face  with  his  own  furs.  This  started  the  trouble.  The  next  day  the  In- 
dians came  back  in  still  greater  numbers  and  with  more  furs,  conducting  them- 
selves in  most  peaceable  st.vle.  They  would  trade  one  roll  of  furs  but  keep  back 
another  which  they  would  not  part  with.  They  crowded  the  deck  of  the  ship 
fore  and  aft.  Finally,  to  get  rid  of  them,  and  now  alarmed  himself.  Thorn  or- 
dered the  sails  unfurled  and  the  anchor  raised :  then  ordered  the  Indians  to  leave 
the  ship.  Each  Indian  arose,  picked  up  his  roll  of  furs,  thrust  his  hand  within 
it,  and  upon  a  prearranged  signal  out  came  knife  and  club,  and  with  a  demoniac 
yell  they  fell  upon  the  few  white  men — captain  and  crew — and  killed  every  man 


106  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

that  could  be  reached  in  a  few  miuutes.  The  five  meu  who  had  been  ordered  into 
the  rigging  to  unfurl  the  sails,  seeing  the  slaughter  droppeJ  through  the  steerage 
hatchway,  one  being  stabbed  to  death  as  he  dropped  down ;  the  other  four  closed 
the  hatches  over  their  heads,  then  broke  through  into  the  cabin,  seized  fire  arms 
and  attacked  the  Indians  who  fled  from  the  ship  in  dismay.  The  next  day  the 
four  men  took  a  ship 's  boat  and  piit  out  to  sea  and  were  never  heard  from  after- 
wards. Now  all  the  men  were  dead  or  gone  in  this  boat  with  the  possible  excep- 
tion of  Jaines  Lewis,  who  was  supposed  to  have  been  the  first  man  killed,  but 
who  fell  into  the  hold  of  the  ship  and  might  not  have  then  died.  At  all  events, 
the  Indians  believed  that  all  were  gone  or  dead ;  and  from  the  report  of  the  in- 
terpreter whom  the  squaws  hid  and  protected  when  he  jumped  over  the  side  of 
the  ship  when  the  carnage  commenced,  and  which  report  he  made  to  Pranchere 
two  years  after,  the  Indians  approached  the  ship  next  day  with  great  caution, 
sailing  round  and  round  to  see  if  any  man  was  alive ;  and  finally  encouraged  by 
increasing  numbers  they,  swarmed  over  the  boat  side  until  there  were  five  hun- 
dred Indians  aboard.  Then. without  premonition,  with  a  terrible  explosion  the 
ship  blew  all  to  pieces  and  two  hundred  Indians  were  killed  and  drowned  in- 
staiitly.  The  powder  magazine  had  been  reached  by  fire  in  some  way,  and  whether 
it  was  the  wounded  man  Lewis,  having  no  hopes  of  his  own  life,  and  knowing  he 
would  surely  be  killed  if  found  alive,  or  whether  it  was  spontaneous  combustion 
that  fired  the  magazine  will  never  be  known. 

Returning  again  to  Astoria,  and  while  the  building  of  the  fort  was  in  progress, 
faint  rumors  were  carried  in  by  the  Indians  that  a  company  of  white  men  were 
building  a  fort  far  up  the  Columbia  at  a  great  waterfall.  It  was  decided  to  find 
out  the  truth  of  this  story  ;  but  before  a  party  could  be  spared  to  go  up  the  river 
any  great  distance,  two  strange  Indians  were  brought  to  the  fort  by  Concomly's 
men,  whose  dress  was  that  of  the  Indians  on  the  east  side  of  the  Rocky  mountains. 
They  said  they  had  been  sent  to  carry  a  letter  from  Finnan  McDonald,  a  clerk 
of  the  Northwest  Company  at  a  fort  on  the  Spokane  river,  to  John  Stuart  in  New 
Caledonia,  and  losing  their  way,  and  hearing  from  other  Indians  of  the  white  men 
at  Astoria  had  come  there  thinking  that  was  the  place  to  gO  to.  This  gave  the 
Northwest  Company  away.  They  had  rushed  their  men  over  into  Old  Oregon 
to  Forestall  Astor.  This  was  discouraging  news  to  the  Astor  men,  for  they  had 
but  slight  resources  to  found  their  new  posts  in  the  interior.  But  they  resolved 
to  accept  the  challenge,  hold  the  country,  and  plant  post  for  post  alongside  the 
Nortiiwesters  as  long  as  their  means  would  hold  out.  David  Stuart  was  selected 
with  men  and  Indians  to  start  for  the  interior  on  July  15,  1811.  But  about  noon 
of  that  day,  while  loading  their  canoes  to  start,  a  large  canoe  with  eight  white 
men  flying  the  British  flag  swept  around  Tongue  Point  and  made  straight  for 
Astoria.  The  Astorians  were  thunderstruck ;  here  was  war  and  rumors  of  war. 
As  the  canoe  touched  the  little  wharf  a  distinguished  gentleman  stepped  ashore 
and  announced  himself  as  David  Thompson.  He  was  politely  received  and  hos- 
pitably entertained,  but  distinctly  informed  that  he  could  not  raise  his  flag  at 
Astoria,  for  this  was  American  territory.  Thompson  freely  explained  how  he 
had,  with  a  large  party,  been  rushed  to  the  Rocky  mountains,  with  instructions  to 
come  over  the  mountains  and  down  to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  and  take  pos- 
session of  the  country ;  but  having  been  snowed  in  at  the  mountains  had  failed  to 
get  through  to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  in  1810.    How  little  things  change  the 


THE  CENTKjNNIAL  history  of  OlfEGOX  107 

ciuiisr  (if  riiipiiT !  Had  Thompson  got  tliroiifili  in  1Sl(l.  (irral  lirilain  wdiild 
have  iiiailc  war  (in  llic  I'liitcd  States  bcfori'  Kivin^'  np  the  iiuinlli  of  tlic  Colniidiia 
river. 

l'.ul  ndt  willislaiidiiit;  tliis  1  lii'calened  opposilion  I'l'dni  the  Xdrlliwest  ('(Uii 
pany.  it  was  decided  llial  S1uai1  willi  liis  pai'tv  slumld  l;(i  up  llie  Cdlniiiliia  and 
eslalilisii  Iradinji'  posts  llie  same  as  if  'I'lionipsoii  had  made  im  appearance.  And 
accordingly  on  tlie  2:5(1  ot  .lnl\.  isll,  David  Stuart,  with  foMr  clerks— I'cMct. 
l\(iss.  .Montigny  and  .MeljclJan,  with  Idiir  hoatmen,  sailed  out  oi'  the  [)ort  ol'  Astoria 
and  np  the  Coliimhia  aeeompanied  hy  Thompson  and  his  crew,  all  in  their  light 
canecs  and  under  sail,  making  a  i)art\'  ol'  thirteen  men,  with  Indian  goods.  |)r(i 
\isi(ins.  arms  and  canoes,  and  Iteing  the  tirst  small  germ  of  tlie  ])ri'sent  vast  cmn 
mcrce  (in  the  great  Columbia  ri\'er.  Stuart  and  Thompson  kept  company  with 
each  dtiiei'  until  they  passed  the  Dalles,  when  Sttiart  dropped  behind  Thompson 
and  prdcecded  more  lcisurel\-  that  he  might  more  earerully  examine  the  eountr\ . 
l'ro( ding  u]i  the  ( 'olumhia  to  the  mouth  of  W'hat  the  Indians  called  the  Okano- 
gan river.  .Stnart  here  sto])]ied  and  built  a  fort  out  of  drift  wood  logs  gathered 
out  of  the  river,  and  as  a  eomineneement  erected  a  log  house  sixteen  by  twenty 
feet  in  size,  and  here  stored  his  goods.  From  this  point  he  sent  back  Pellet  and 
.M(  Lilian  to  Astoria  ;  and  taking  ^lontigny  and  two  boatmen  made  a  winter  expe- 
dition t(i  the  north,  leaving  Alexander  Ross  entirely  alone  to  spend  the  winter  by 
himself  as  best  he  could.  Here  is  courage  and  heroic  character  for  history.  Ross 
lived  alone  for  188  days  and  traded  with  the  Indians  that  winter  until  his  stock 
of  goods  was  exhausted;  and  the  net  gain  of  his  trading  was  1,550  beaver  skins 
worth  in  China  .'til  1.250. 00  and  costing  his  company  only  $165.00  in  Indian  goods. 
This  was  tile  first  expedition  of  white  men  into  the  Okanogan  country.  The  As- 
torians  were  by  no  means  idle:  for  the  sum  of  their  explorations  in  their  first  year 
in  Oregon  amounted  to  over  ten  thousand  miles  of  travel.  Hut  their  very  activi- 
ties incurred  opposition.  The  Chinooks  that  had  been  so  friendly  fell  away  and 
tired  of  the  novelty;  and  besides  that  they  disliked  to  hunt  beaver  and  otter  and 
give  their  skins  for  goods  that  it  seemed  they  might  take  by  force.  So  they  con- 
cocted a  plan  to  nuirder  all  the  Astorians  and  take  their  goods.  Indians  had 
Clime  over  from  Xootka  and  told  about  killing  all  the  white  men.  .McDougall's 
royal  fathei'-in-law,  Concomly,  absented  himself  from  the  fort;  all  the  Indians  dis- 
appeared in  the  forests;  no  lieaver  were  brought  in  and  no  fish  were  caught. 
There  was  a  Judas  in  the  Indian  camp,  and  for  a  red  shirt  he  gave  the  grand 
scheme  away.  The  white  men  strengthened  their  defenses  and  mounted  their 
ea'nnons.  and  kept  guards  on  watch  at  night.  But  to  put  an  end  to  the  uprising 
-McDougal  devised  a  stratagem.  He  sent  word  to  the  Indians  that  he  had  a  great 
secret  to  tell  them,  something  nobody  knew  of,  and  it  was  for  their  benefit  alone. 
He  knew  the  mortal  terror  the  Indians  had  of  the  small-pox,  and  resolved  to 
make  the  most  of  it.  Tlie  Indians  came  by  their  chiefs  and  were  admitted  to  the 
grand  council  chamber.  Here  McDougal  craftily  let  out  the  .secret  which  the.v 
had  been  concdcting  td  kill  the  white  men,  saying:  "White  men  read  the  stars, 
and  Ilea)'  the  news  in  the  winds,  and  it  is  dangerous  to  think  though  the  white 
men  are  few  they  can  he  easily  killed.  .\nd  although  Indians  killed  twenty  white 
men  at  Nootka,  dead  white  man  blew  up  the  ship  and  killed  two  hundred  In- 
ili;nis."'  Then  taking  it  I' rum  the  interior  nf  his  vest  with  great  cereiiiiiny  he  exhib- 
ited a   little  bottle  saxing  with  a  shuihler:    "Vou   have  all   heard  uf  the  awftil 


108  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

small-pox.  Listen  to  me  now ;  I  am  the  Small-pox  Chief.  I  have  the  small-pox 
liere  in  this  bottle.  If  I  should  pull  out  this  cork,  and  send  it  forth  among  you, 
you  would  all  be  dead  men  in  a  minute.  But  this  is  for  my  enemies  and  not  for 
my  friends."  The  trick  was  a  charm.  The  Indians  begged  that  the-cork  be  not 
pulled;  the  threatened  attack  on  the  fort  was  not  made,  and  beaver  pelts  came  in 
the  next  day  in  vast  quantities. 

And  now  is  reached  the  last  chapter  in  Astor's  ill-fated  venture  to  Astoria. 
After  planting  trading  posts  at  many  available  points  in  the  interior  and  doing 
a  large  and  profitable  business  with  the  Indians  for  two  years  throughout  much 
of  the  territory  of  the  present  states  of  Oregon,  "Washington  and  Idaho,  together 
with  a  large  trade  with  the  Russians  in  Alaska,  Astor's  partners  and  managers 
in  Oregon  were  compelled  to  take  the  alternative  to  fight,  fly  or  sell  out  to  their 
rival,  the  Northwest  Company.  The  firet  overture  came  from  John  George 
McTavish,  who  came  down  the  Columbia  river  flying  the  British  flag  on  April  11, 
1813.  ^Yar  had  already  been  declared  by  the  Congress  of  the  Uuited  States  on 
June  17,  1812,  and  several  battles  had  been  fought.  The  representatives  of  the 
Northwest  Company  in  Oregon  had  been  promptly  notified  bj'  express  runner 
from  Canada,  which  information  had  been  by  them  passed  on  to  the  Astorians. 
It  was  impossible  for  Astor  to  send  his  company  in  Oregon  any  relief,  and  Hunt 
and  the  other  partners  were  compelled  to  act  wholly  on  their  own  responsibility. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Northwest  Company  were  cpiite  ready  to  drive 
a  hard  bargain  not  only  to  get  rid  of  the  Astor  competition  in  Oregon,  but  also  get 
the  Astoria  stock  of  furs  at  a  big  profit.  But  they  had  also  to  take  their  chances 
in  the  game  so  far  as  getting  the  furs  were  concerned.  The  British  government 
had  set  afloat  a  fleet  of  privateers  to  prey  on  American  commerce,  and  the  cap- 
ture of  Astoria  would  have  made  a  British  privateer  sea  captain  a  very  rich  man. 
Privateers  were  already  on  their  way  to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river  to  seize 
Astoria ;  and  McTavish  of  the  Northwest  Company  was  aware  of  the  fact.  The 
Astorians  could  not  stand  out  against  a  war  vessel  and  must  surrender  if  one 
■  came ;  or  thej'  must  ship  all  their  goods  away  to  the  interior,  hide  and  take  the 
chances  of  the  Indians,  led  by  white  men,  massacring  their  whole  party  to  get 
the  rich  plunder.  The  Scotchmen  of  the  Northwest  Company  being  sub.iects  of 
Great  Britain,  the  British  privateer  could  not  take  their  property.  So  that  the 
Northwest  Company  was  put  to  the  test  of  making  such  an  offer  to  the  Astorians 
as  they  would  accept  c|uiekly,  or  see  a  British  privateer  captiire  the  post  and  get 
the  Astoria  plunder  for  nothing.  Nothing  worries  the  real  genuine  Scotch  trader 
so  much  as  to  have  a  chance  to  make  a  profit  and  then  see  another  step  in  and 
take  it.  Every  time  he  will  take  a  small  profit  on  a  stire  thing  rather  than  run 
the  risk  of  gaining  a  large  profit  on  a  gamble.  Tlie  British  war  vessels  may  come 
at  any  time;  the  chances  are  all  in  favor  of  their  coming;  if  they  do  come  they 
will  take  everything  as  their  lawful  prize.  These  considerations  laid  heavy  on 
the  hearts  of  the  men  on  both  sides  of  the  bargain  counter.  Finally  they  agreed, 
and  the  whole  stock  of  goods,  furs  and  equipment  at  Astoria,  and  at  all  interior 
points  belonging  to  the  Pacific  Pur  Comi^anj'  was  sold  to  the  Northwest  Com- 
pany on  October  16, 1813,  for  actual  cost  and  ten  per  cent  advance  thereon.  The 
sale  amounted  to  $80,500.00  and  the  Astor  people  got  drafts  on  Canada  for  their 
money.  The  Astor  Company  lost  nothing  but  the  profits  on  its  furs,  and  the 
breaking  up  of  their  business,  but  that. was  probably  worth  a  million  dollars. 


THE  NE'^^ 
PUBLIC 


THE  CEXTKNNIAL  HISTORY  OF  ORRfiOX  lO'.l 

This  loss  \v:is  not  cluii'gi'iiljle  to  the  coiupetiiig;  comitiiny,  l)ut  to  the  «;ii'  fur  wliirli 
the  foiiipaiiy  was  not  responsible.  The  canny  Seotehnien  ol'  the  Xorthwcst  (  nin- 
pan\  inadr  a  pnillt  of  ahout  sixty  thousand  dollars  on  the  pui'diase  besides  get- 
ting rid  ('if  a  roiiipcl  iior  ;  and  it  ran  be  easily  imagined  Imw  they  cracked  theii' 
dry  jokes  in  every  i)ost  Irom  Astciria  to  Montreal  as  they  (piatt'ed  the  real  old 
Scotch  whiskey  and  I'elatt'd  Imw  Ihcy  got  in  ahead  of  tlie  Hi'itish  jirivatccr  and 
beat  him  out  of  a  snug  fortune.  The  British  privateer,  Raccoon,  entered  I  be  ( 'o- 
lumbia  ri\<r  on  the  29th  of  November,  forty-three  days  after  the  sale  to  the 
Scotchmen,  but  found  not  a  rag  of  American  property  to  seize,  but  contented 
himself  by  running  up  the  British  flag  over  Port  Astoria. 

When  the  American  flag  was  hauled  down  at  Astoria  on  December  12,  1iSl:i. 
the  name  of  the  place  was  changed  to  Fort  George,  and  John  McDonald,  a  senioi- 
pai'tner  in  the  Northwest  Company,  and  who  came  in  on  the  British  privateer 
as  a  passenger,  was  made  governor  of  the  post.  He  also  at  tlie  same  time  as- 
sumed general  control  of  the  affairs  of  the  Northwest  Company  west  of  the  Rocky 
ninnntaius.  Governor  JMcDonald  did  not  approve  of  the  location  at  Fort  George, 
anil  after  making  a  survey  of  the  river  on  both  sides,  decided  to  build  a  fort  on 
Tongue  Point  above  Astoria,  and  immediately  commenced  work  thereon,  Gov- 
ernor McDonald  declaring  that  this  Tongue  Point  should  be  made  the  Gibraltar 
of  the  Pacific  coast — a  pointer  which  the  Astorians  of  1912  should  keep  in  mind. 
The  governor  proposed  a  great  many  other  reforms  in  matters  on  the  Columbia 
river  a  hundred  years  ago ;  but  not  being  approved  by  his  company  he  returned 
to  Canada  in  the  Spring  of  1814. '  The  whole  country  west  of  the  Rocky  moun- 
tains from  the  California  line  up  to  Alaska  was  now,  so  far  as  the  fur  trade  was 
concerned,  under  the  control  of  the  Northwest  Company  of  Canada,  and  so  re- 
mained until  it  was  amalgamated  with  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  on  March  26, 
1821.  At  that  date  an  agreement  of  partnership  w'as  entered  into  between  these 
rival  British  companies  whereby  they  should  share  equally  the  profits  of  the  fur 
trade  in  Oregon  for  tweut3--one  yeai-s,  beginning  with  the  combined  capitals  and 
outfits  of  both  companies  then  in  hand  in  1821.  Each  company  was  to  furnish  an 
additional  equal  amount  of  capital,  and  profits  were  to  be  divided  eciually.  Upon 
this  basis  each  company  contributed  one  million  dollars  to  the  capital  stock ;  and 
all  profits  over  ten  per  cent,  annual  dividends  on  the  stock  were  to  be  added  to  the 
capital  until  it  should  amount  to  two  and  a  half  million  dollars.  This  capital  was 
divided  into  one  hundred  shares,  forty  of  which  were  held  by  the  chief  factors 
and  traders,  and  the  balance  by  shareholders  in  Canada  and  England.  This  com- 
bination being  consummated,  the  king  of  England  by  royal  patent,  dated  Decem- 
ber 21,  1821,  granted  to  the  united  companies  exclusive  trade  with  the  Indians 
of  North  America  according  to  the  provisions  of  the  Act  of  Parliament  of  July 
2,  1821,  which  provides  for  and  authorized  this  monopoly.  And  in  addition  to 
this  monopoly  of  trade,  the  agents  of  the  compan.y  were  commissioned  as  justices 
of  the  peace,  with  the  jurisdiction  of  the  courts  of  upper  Canada  extended  from 
the  head  of  Lake  Superior  to  the  Pacific  ocean ;  and  whereby  everj'  British  sub- 
ject west  of  the  Rocky  mountains  was  guaranteed  the  protection  of  the  Britisli 
laws.  As  the  boundary  line  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  had  not 
then  been  settled,  the  British  officers  under  the  above  Parliamentary  grant 
claimed  the  rights  to  rule  the  country  from  the  California  line  clear  up  to  Alaska. 
And  under  this  law  and  authority  Dr.-  John  McLoughlin  came  to  Oregon  in  1824 


110  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

as  chief  factor  and  governor  of  this  Old  Oregon  country  for  and  on  behalf  of  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company.  Under  this  royal  grant  the  Hudson's  Bay  Comjjany  as- 
sumed the  control  and  monopoly  of  the  fur  trade  in  Oregon,  and  held  it  until 
ousted  by  the  treaty  of  1846  which  settled  the  boundary  line.  There  were  a  few 
independent  trappers  like  Jedediah  Smith,  but  they  amounted  to  nothing,  and 
had  to  sell  their  furs  to  the  Hiidson's  Bay  Company. 

This  history  of  the  fur  trade,  commencing  in  Canada  and  working  across  the 
continent  to  the  Pacific  ocean,  is  thus  given  in  detail  of  dates  and  acts  of  the 
British  government  to  show  how  securely  and  carefully  the  subjects  and  officials 
of  the  king  of  P]nglaud  had  proceeded  to  get  and  hold  possession  of  this  country 
under  the  forms  of  law.  Secretly,  stealthily,  cautiously,  they  proceeded  year 
by  year,  post  by  post,  fort  by  fort,  to  occupy,  surround,  fortifiy,  claim,  nail  up 
and  batter  down  every  avenue  of  possible  access  to  the  country,  so  that  no  Ameri- 
can citizen  dare  enter  therein  save  at  the  risk  of  starvation  or  a  violent  death. 
The  only  mistake  they  made  was  in  the  selection  of  a  broad-minded,  humane  man 
(John  McLoughlin)  to  enforce  their  royal  decrees.  And  when  the  tremendous 
odds  against  them  is  considered,  the  heroic  examples  of  Jason  Lee.  Marcus  Wliit- 
man,  Robert  Newell,  Joe  Meek,  W.  H.  Gray,  Medorem  Crawford,  Le  Breton  and 
the  fifty-two  immortals  at  Champoeg,  in  bearding  the  British  lion  in  his  Oregon 
den,  and  successfully  organizing  an  American  government  in  the  face  of  this 
gigantic  power,  their  acts  and  success  seems  to  be  more  like  the  supernatural  and 
miraculous  than  sober  history. 

It  remains,  and  deserves  to  be  considered,  what,  if  any,  services  the  fur  com- 
panies have  rendered  to  civilization  and  progress.  The  first  and  most  patent 
influence  observable  in  the  great  Northwest  which  is  traceable  to  the  fur  traders, 
was  their  influence  on  the  native  races.  There  was  some,  but  not  a  characteristic 
greater  difference  between  the  Indians  of  the  great  valley  of  the  St.  Lawrence 
reaching  as  it  does  far  north  of  Lake  Superior,  and  the  Indians  of  the  British  and 
Spanish  colonial  settlements  of  the  present  United  States.  Fur  trading  com- 
menced in  one  section  about  as  early  as  in  the  other.  Furs  were  in  fact  about  the 
first  thing  that  the  hard-pressed  Colonists  in  America  could  sell  for  money.  But 
mark  the  difference  which  history  must  record  in  the  management  of  the  Indian 
in  these  two  great  rival  regions  of  North  America.  The  French  in  the  valley  of, 
the  St.  Lawrence  recognized  the  Indian  as  a  man,  not  exactly  their  equal,  but 
worthy  of  and  deserving  humane  consideration.  And,  although  the  French 
woman  would  not  marry  an  Indian,  the  French  man  would  not  hesitate  to  take 
the  Indian  woman  for  a  wife  when  a  woman  of  his  own  race  was  not  available. 
And  this  practice  of  miscegenation  of  the  French  and  Indian  blood,  commencing 
at  the  first  white  settlement  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  was  carried  far  north  over 
upper  Canada,  west  over  the  great  valleys  of  Red  river  and  the  Saskatche\vau, 
over  the  Rocky  mountains  and  into  Oregon.  And  whether  this  proclivity  of  the 
bourgeois  Frenchman  to  intermarry  with  the  native  Indian  can  be  ascribed  to  the 
teachings  of  the  early  Catholic  priests,  to  the  necessities  of  the  situation  in  a  new 
and  unpopulated  countrj',  or  to  the  selfish  interests  of  his  employer  matter  but 
little  in  this  review,  the  great  fact  stands  out  clear  and  incontrovertable  that 
it  was  the  French  voyageur  and  trapper — the  hiisband  of  and  with  his  squaw — 
that  traversed  the  wilderness  in  safety,  that  made  and  kept  the  peace  between 
the  native  savage  and  the  fur-hunting  trader,  and  who  explored  the  vast  areas 


i  1  v^.i 


^vH^^'^'H 


THE  CENTENNIAL  IIISTOin'   oK  ()i;K(;()\  111 

(if  |iliiiiis.  I'oiTsI  ,'inil  uiduiilains  and  lirou^Hil  to  the  kiiowli-dge  ol'  civili/cil  mi'ii 
tlic  wrallli  (if  a  ciint  iliclil .  It  was  tllr  lui-  trade  that  in'odiu-l'tl  this  roiiiliinal  inn  of 
instinctive  intelligences,  and  that  used  the  same  to  promote  its  own  scllish  piii-- 
poses  of  gain,  and  w  hi<'h  iudifectly  ojiened  tile  whole  of  Noflhwcst  Amerira  tn 
the  light  and  tlevelopincnt  of  American  civilization. 

Now  mark  the  tiitfcrciice.  Fur  trading  was  not  yet  eonlined  1o  Canada  and 
the  Hritish  American  i)ossessious  west  thereof.  There  were  fur  traders  from  the 
earliest  times,  trading  with  the  Indians  from  Plymouth  Rock,  Hudson  river, 
Jamestown,  St.  Louis,  and  on  west  to  the  Rocky  mountains.  But  these  were  men 
of  a  dift'erent  blood  and  lineage.  The  Puritan,  the  Hollander,  the  Cavalier  and 
the  Spaniard  could  preach  and  pray  the  gospel  of  salvation  to  red,  black  and 
white  man  alike;  but  marry  an  Indian  squaw ;  never!  The  Indian  was  not  the 
native  fool  the  con(|uering  races  took  him  to  be.  He  was  not  slow  to  see  that  the 
lordly  superiorit.y  affected  by  the  men  of  New  England  and  the  Ohio  valley  was 
in  world-W'ide  contrast  to  the  free  and  easy  manners  tlie  Frenchman  extended  to 
him  on  the  St.  Lawrence.  The  Englishman  and  the  Spaniard  made  the  Indian 
feel  that  "between  me  and  thee"  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed.  So  it  was  a  fight 
with  the  Indian  on  the  south  side  of  the  Great  Lakes  from  the  beginning;  while 
peace  and  trade  flourished  on  the  north  side  of  those  inland  seas.  The  same  feel- 
ing of  ill-suppressed  hatred  for  each  other  w^as  carried  w'est  and  over  the  Rocky 
mountains  into  Oregon,  The  English,  Americans  and  Spaniards  had  continual 
wars  with  the  Indians,  while  the  Canadian,  French  and  Scotch  worked  them  for 
all  thev  were  worth  and  could  produce  in  the  fur  trade  and  had  no  wars  at  all. 
Indian  wars  have  cost  the  LTnited  States  people  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
lives,  five  hundred  million  dollars,  and  a  century  of  dishonor.  Trouble  with  the 
Indians  never  cost  the  Canadians  a  thousand  dollars,  and  scarcely  a  life. 

That  the  fur  trade  has  lieen  a  civilizer  on  the  North  American  continent,  can- 
not l)e  denied.  While  it  carried  fire-arms,  and  intoxicating  liquors,  and  the 
knowledge  of  these  death-dealing  instrumentalities  to  a  benighted,  simple-minded 
and  barbarian  race,  it  carried  also  the  knowledge  of  the  power  and  superiority-  of 
trade,  education  and  religion  over  ignorance  and  barbarism. 

And  although  the  furry  skins  of  wild  animals  were  never  an  indispensable  ne- 
cessity to  civilized  man  in  four-fifths  of  the  earth's  inhabited  area,  yet  the  idea 
that  dress  or  trappings  of  fine  furs  were  the  distinguishing  marks  of  wealth  and 
nobility,  made  a  market  for  these  coats  of  the  wild  animals  roaming  in  distant  and 
almost  impenetrable  forests.  The  vanity  of  pride  and  position  on  one  side,  and 
the  love  of  gain  upon  the  other,  sent  the  trapper  into  far  distant  wilds,  over 
frowning  cliffs  and  rock-ribbed  mountains,  traversing  lonely  marshes  and  pad- 
dling his  canoe  upon  torrential  streams,  even  nnto — 

"The  continuous  woods,  where  rolls  the  Oregon. 
And  hears  no  sound,  save  its  own  dashings. " 

That  the  pride  and  vanity  of  the  rich  might  be  gratilied  on  one  side  to  the 
gain  of  the  trader  and  the  subsistence  of  the  trapper  on  the  other  side.  And  by 
all  this  strife,  labor  and  worry  new  lands  were  discovered,  settlements  made  pos- 


112 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 


sible,  commerce  developed,  schools  and  churches  established,  and  what  is  called 
civilization  evolved. 

It  may  be  stated  substantially  as  the  truth  of  histoiy,  that  otter  skins  and 
beaver  pelts  opened  Oregon  to  civilization,  while  the  discovery  of  gold  performed 
a  like  service  for  California. 


Il 


CHAPTER  V 

1834—1845 

THE  ERA  OF  EVANGELISM — THE  AGITATION  OP  HALL  J.   KELLEY — THE  QUEST  OP  THE 

PLATHEADS    FOE    THE    ••'BOOK    OF    HEAVEN" THE    COMING    OF    JASON   LEE — THE 

MARCUS    WHITMAN    PARTY THE   CATHOLIC   MISSIONARIES — DE   SMET,    THE  GREAT 

APOSTLE  TO   THE    INDIANS,  ANSWERS  THE  CALL  OF  THE  PLATHEADS — THE  RIVAL- 
RIES AND  WORKS  OF   THESE  MEN — THEIR  SERVICES  TO  OREGON  AND  THE  NATION. 

It  is  now  seventy-eight  years  since  Jason  and  Daniel  Lee  (Jlethodists),  the 
first  Christian  missionaries  to  Oregon,  entered  the  Oregon  conntry  to  carry  out 
their  nnselfish  work  of  Christianizing  the  native  Indians.  The  Lees  were  fol- 
lowed by  Rev.  Samuel  Parker  (Congregationalist)  in  1835;  by  Dr.  Marcus  Whit- 
man and  wife,  H.  H.  Spalding  and  wife,  and  W.  H.  Gray  (all  Presbyterians)  in 
1836;  Rev.  David  Leslie  and  wife  (Methodists)  in  1837;  Rev.  Elkanah  Walker 
and  wiie  and  Gushing  p]ells  and  wife  (Congregationalists)  in  1838;  Rev.  Francis 
Norbert  Blanehet,  vicar-general,  and  Rev.  Modeste  Demers  (Catholic  priests)  in 
1838 ;  and  Peter  John  De  Smet  in  1840.  These  were  the  pioneer  missionaries. 
Others  came  after  them.  The  Methodists  were  specially  active,  the  Methodist 
general  missionary  board  in  the  eastern  states  sending  out  in  1840  the  ship 
Lausanne,  with  a  large  and  well  equipped  force,  consisting  of  Rev.  J.  H.  Frost 
and  wife ;  Rev.  Gustavus  Hines  and  wife ;  Rev.  W.  H.  Kone  and  wife ;  Rev.  A. 
F.  Waller  and  wife;  Rev.  J.  P.  Richmond,  M.  D.,  and  wife;  Dr.  T.  L.  Babcock, 
physician,  and  wife;  George  Abernethy  (missionary  steward  1  and  wife;  W.  W. 
Raymond  (farmer)  and  wife:  L.  H.  Judson,  cabinet  maker,  and  wife;  J.  L. 
Parrish  (blacksmith)  and  wife;  James  Olley  (cai"penter)  and  wife;  Hamilton 
Campbell  (carpenter)  and  wife;  Miss  C.  A.  Clark,  teacher;  Miss  Elmira  Phelps, 
teacher ;  ]\Iiss  Orpha  Lankton,  stewardess ;  Miss  A.  Phillips,  Thomas  Adams,  an 
Indian  boy  and  seventeen  little  children.  Along  with  this  company  of  preachers, 
teachers,  artisans  and  farmers  were  sent  machinery  for  the  erection  of  flouring 
mills,  saw  mills  and  all  necessary  implements  for  agriculture  and  house  building 
in  a  new  country,  together  with  a  large  stock  of  miscellaneous  merchandise. 
Of  this  missionary  expedition  the  Catholic  bishop  of  Oregon,  who  was  here 
when  the  ship  arrived,  is  said  to  have  remarked:  "No  missionaries  were  ever 
dispatched  to  represent  the  various  sects  in  any  land  under  more  favorable 
auspices  than  were  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the  Methodist  p]piscopal  church 
in  the  wilds  of  Oregon."  The  total  expense  of  the  expedition  cost  the  Metho- 
dist missionary  board  in  New  York  the  sum  of  $42,000 ;  and  the  good  ship 
sailed  twenty  thousand  miles — nearly  around  the  globe — to  land  its  unexampled 
cargo  at  its  appointed  destination.  Nothing  equal  to  it  was  ever  witnessed 
before  or  since  in  the  history  of  missions  by  any  church.  It  is  a  fair  illustration 
to  say  that  the  Lausanne  was  to  the  Pacific  coast  in  1840  what  the  Mayflower 
was  to  the  Atlantic  coast  in  1620. 

Vol,  T— « 

113 


114  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

It  is  an  interesting  proposition  to  review  the  elementar^y  facts  a]id  influences 
which  set  on  foot  and  on  the  high  seas  these  expeditions  to  Oregon  in  the  name 
and  for  the  propagation  of -the  Christian  religion.  The  history  of  the  church 
presents  many  remarkable  examples  of  the  loft.y  self-sacrifice  of  great  men  in' 
both  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  divisions  of  its  membership  from  the  time  of 
Paul,  the  greatest  of  them  all,  down  to  this  expedition  to  the  wilderness  of  Oregon 
seventy-two  years  ago.  But  with  these  Oregon  missionary  expeditions,  either 
by  land  or  sea,  no  others  can  be  compared.  Paul  did  not  go  to  preach  to  the  bar- 
barians of  Scythia ;  to  heathen  in  the  wilderness  two  thousand  miles  distant  from 
the  men  of  liis  own  bloqd  and  education,  but  to  men  of  education  like  himself. 
The  Puritans  did  not  come  to  America  to  convert  the  heathen,  but  to  get  away 
from  their  persecutors  in  another  branch  of  the  church.  And  they  had  not  been 
in  America  one  year  until  Capt.  Miles  Standish  was  purging  the  evil  from  the 
unappreciative  red  skins  in  a  most  irreverent  manner.  So  much  so  that  the  good 
pastor  of  the  flock  af  Leyden  on  hearing  of  the  slaughter  of  the  Indians,  wrote 
the  militant  captain  a  letter  in  which  he  expressed  the  pious  wish:  "Oh  how 
happy  a  thing  had  it  been,  had  you  converted  some,  before  you  killed  any. ' ' 

We  cannot  for  a  moment  compare  the  trials  of  the  Oregon  missionaries  with 
the  awful  persecution  the  Christians  were  subjected  to  in  Rome  when  they  were 
enslaved  and  cast  to  the  lions  in  circus  arena  to  make  a  holiday  for  the  worse 
than  barbarian  savages;  but  when  we  consider  the  courage,  toil,  dangers  and 
sacrifices,  such  heroines  as  the  wives  of  Whitman,  Spalding,  Leslie,  Walker  and 
Eells  were  compelled  to  endure  in  riding  horseback  through  an  Indian  country 
over  mountains,  plains  and  desert  for  two  thousand  miles  to  make  their  homes 
among  savage  tribes  in  a  wilderness  to  teach  the  gospel  and  show  the  untutored 
heathen  a  better  way.  plant  the  light  of  Christianity  on  the  Pacific  coast,  and 
lay  the  foundations  for  great  states,  when  all  this  is  taken  into  account,  a  far 
greater  feat  of  sacrifice  and  heroism,  than  the  Lausanne  voyage — where  else  in  all 
the  wide  world  can  anything  equal  to  it  be  found. 

It  is  something  for  an  Oregonian  to  be  proud  of,  especially  an  Oregonian  who 
takes  an  interest  in  the  history  of  liis  state,  that  no  matter  what  strife  and  bick- 
erings the  missionaries  had  between  Protestant  and  Catholic,  there  is  no  instance 
where  either  side  did  not  as  occasion  offered,  alwaj's  act  the  part  of  the  Good 
Samaritan  to  the  native  red  man.  And  it  is  furthermore  something  for  every 
citizen  to  remember  with  .just  pride  in  his  state,  that  in  every  stage  and  phase 
of  its  existence  from  the  date  of  an  organized  society,  Oregon  has  led  the  proces- 
sion in  the  unique,  the  original  and  the  progressive  in  missions,  education,  poli- 
tics and  state  building. 

How  were  these  wonderful  movements  by  land  and  sea  to  plant  Christianity 
on  the  Oregon  country  brought  about?  What  was  the  exciting  cause?  Why 
should  these  noble  men  and  women,  willing  to  sacrifice  life  and  everything  dear 
to  mankind  go  to  far  distant  Oregon: 

"And  pierce  the  Barcan  AA-'ilderness " 
to  plant  the  lianner  of  the  cross?  Why  pass  the  tribes  between  the  Missouri  and 
the  Rocky  mountains  and  go  a  thousand  miles  beyond  the  Blackfeet  rascals  that 
needed  Christianizing  worse  than  any  other  equal  number  of  murdering  robbers 
on  the  face  of  the  earth?  It  is  the  duty  of  the  historian  to  find  out.  if  possible, 
what  was  the  moving  cause. 


Left    Hand— ALEXANDER    MACKENZIE,    Copied    from    his    book    iif    tr;iv 
Right  Hand— REV.  WILBUR  FISK.  President  of  Wesleyan  Universitj- 


A  GREAT  PROCLAMATION 
Who  will  respond  to  the  call  from  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains  ? 

We  are  for  having  a  mission  established  there  at  once.  Let  two  suitable  men,  possessing 
the  spirit  of  the  martyrs,  throw  themselves  into  the  Flathead  nation,  live  with  them,  learn 
their  language,  and  ])ri'ach  Christ  to  them,  iloney  shall  be  forthcoming;.  I  will  be  bondsman 
for   the   Church.      All    wo    want    is   men.      \\'lio   will   go? 

WILBUR  FISK. 
Weslevaii   Uiiivcrsitv.   March   9,   1833 


THE  CKXTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  115 

Bctori'  .-K'tidii   llicrc  musl   lie   kiio\vliMlt;c.      I'liici'j^y    wilhmit    niKlcr.standing  is 

;i  wastu  of  vital  rll'iirt.     A  tlinusancl  iiiillinii  ilnihn-s  has  I u  i'X|)cii(li'd  by  Cliris- 

tiaii  men  and  Wdinrn  to  cnli'rlitcii  and  ( 'lii-ist  iani/.c  llic  inMiple  of  Asia  and  Al'- 
rica,  the  most  of  wiiicli  has  liccii  wast^'d  fnr  want  of  in-npci-  iinderstandinj^.  And 
it  is  one  of  the  foi'givable  weaknesses  of  mankind  that  he  acts  more  from  im- 
pulse than  reason.  But  enli<;htened  l)y  knowledge,  it  is  the  noblest  praise  of 
fellowiiian  that  he  will  give  Ins  life  I'oi-  his  eountry,  or  risk  it  foi-  his  frllnwinaii 
— even  a   barbarian. 

There  were  two  moving  influeuees  or  eauses  which  set  in  motion  the  great 
scheme  of  planting  the  gospel  in  the  hearts  of  the  Oregon  Indians.  The  first 
was  a  purely'  colonizing  business  proposition;  but  it  fui-nished  the  knowledge  on 
which  sentiment  could  found  action.  The  second  was  an  appeal  for  light  which 
far  exceeded  the  jMaccdouian  cry.  "Come  over  and  help  us."  It  caught  the 
attention  of  Christian  men  and  women  as  nothing  had  ever  done  before.  It  ex- 
cited their  imagination,  aroused  the  dormant  sympathies  of  their  hearts  and 
inspired  them  to  the  most  noble  deeds  of  self-sacrifice  the  world  has  ever  beheld. 

Tile  chief  c-haraeter  in  the  first  of  these  moving  influences  was  Hall  Jackson 
Kelley.  who  was  born  at  Orono,  Maine,  February  24.  179U.  At  the  age  of 
si.xteen  he  left  the  public  schools^and  taught  school  for  a  time  at  Hallowell.  Me. 
He  attended  college  at  Middlebury,  Vermont,  and  was  given  the  degree  of 
A.  ]\I.  in  ISJ/C  and  by  Harvard  College  in  1820.  As  early  as  1817  he  became 
interested  in  the  Oregon  country  from  reading  of  the  expeditions  of  Lewis  and 
Clark.  "Wilson  Price  Hunt  and  the  founding  of  Astoria,  and  conceived  the  idea 
of  himself  leading  a  colony  for  the  exploration  and  settlement  of  Oregon. 

And  so  fully  and  completely  had  this  idea  taken  possession  of  all  his  thoughts 
and  ambition  that  he  commenced  writing  and  publishing  letters  to  newspapers, 
circulars,  pamphlets  and  maps  about  Oregon  and  kept  up  the  agitation  of  his  Ore- 
gon scheme  in  the  New  England  states  for  sixteen  years,  when  he  started  to  Ore- 
gon alone.  A  list  of  all  of  Kelley  "s  printed  publications  about  Oregon  would 
fill  a  page  in  this  book.  Some  of  the  Oregon  historians  have  been  disposed  to 
belittle  Kelley 's  work  for  Oregon  ;  but  they  only  expose  their  own  want  of  knowl- 
edge of  the  subject.  The  following  indisputable  evidence  copied  fi'oiii  the  his- 
tory of  Palmer,  Mass.,  where  Kelley  is  buried,  establishes  the  claim  of  Hall  •(. 
Kelley  to  have  been  one  of  the  pi'ime  movers  of  the  missionary  expeditions  to 
Oregon. 

"Boston.  January  :]0.  184:{. 

'■  In  the  year  l.S:!l  I  was  editor  of  Z Ion's  l/i  raid,  a  religious  papci-  sustaining 
the  faith  of  the  .Methodist  Episcopal  church.  In  the  above  year  I  published  for 
Hall  J  Kelley  a  series  of  letters  addressed  to  a  member  of  Congress,  developing 
his  plans  for  the  settlement  of  the  Oregon  territory.  At  other  times  Mr.  Kelley 
made  appeals  through  our  paper,  with  a  view  to  excite  the  minds  of  the  Christian 
community  to  the  importance  of  founding  religious  institutions  in  that  territory. 
He  was  one  of  the  first  explorers  of  that  region,  and  to  his  zeal  and  efl:'orts  is 
largely  due  the  establishment  of  missionai-y  o|)ei'ations  in  thai  country. 

•W-M.  ('.  BianvN." 


116  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Eev.  David  Greene,  secretary  of  the  Amerieau  Board  of  Commissioners  for 
Foreign  Missions,*  bears  similar  testimony,  and  says  -. 

"The  welfare  and  improvement  of  the  Indians  of  the  territory  (Oregon) 
and  the  introduction  there  of  the  blessings  of  civilization  and  the  useful  arts, 
with  education  and  Christian  knowledge,  seemed  to  be  his  (Kelley's)  leading 
object.  Much  of  the  early  interest  felt  in  the  Oregon  country  by  New  England 
people  was  probably  the  result  of  Mr.  Kelley's  labors." 

Here  is  the  testimony  of  two  men  holding  very  important  positions  in  the 
church,  one  the  secretary  of  the  gi-eat  missionary  board,  and  the  other  editor  of 
the  then  leading  ]\Iethodist  journal  of  the  United  States,  both  of  whom  personally 
knew  Hall  Kelley,  and  knew  his  work,  and  both  certify  to  his  good  work  done 
three  years  before  the  first  missionary  started  for  Oregon.  And  yet  there  is 
not  a  church  history  or  a  church  document  that  has  ever  been  printed  that  had 
the  justice  to  give  Kelley  what  was  due  to  him. 

The  second  cause  or  influence  that  started  the  great  missionary  movement 
to  Oregon  was  purely  sentimental,  appealing  powerfully  to  the  imagination,  and 
to  that  religion  the  first  and  greatest  element  of  which  is  self-sacrifice.  In  the 
year  1831  the  Flathead  Indians  living  far  up  the  watershed  of  Snake  river,  to- 
gether with  the  Nez  Perces,  living  on  the  Clearwater  branch  of  the  same  river, 
united  in  sending  a  commission  of  four  Indians  to  St.  Louis  in  search  for  "The 
Book  of  Heaven,"  as  it  has  passed  into  history.  That  is  very  likely  to  have  been 
the  language  the  Indians  used  in  seeking  the  object  of  their  mission.  General 
Clark,  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  expedition,  had  passed  through  the  country  of 
both  these  tribes  iu  both  coming  to  and  returning  from  Oregon,  and  had  been 
by  them  treated  with  all  the  kindness  and  assistance  the  Indians  could  render. 
Clark  was  still  alive  and  was  then  superintendent  of  Indian  affairs  west  of  the 
Missouri  river.  Very  naturally  these  Indians  would  go  first  to  the  man  whose 
acquaintance  they  had  made,  and  whose  friendship  they  had  secured  in  their 
own  country.  They  found  General  Clark  and  explained  to  him  their  mission. 
Clark  was  a  Christian  man,  a  member  of  the  Catholic  church,  and  fully  sympa- 
thized with  the  object  and  aspirations  of  those  four  Indians.  It  was  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  events  in  all  history.     Think  of  it !     Native  tribes  of  people 

"Xote. — The  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions,  the  foreign  mis- 
sionary society  of  the  Congregational  Churches  of  the  United  States,  was  organized  at 
Andover,  Mass.,  in  1810,  as  a  result  of  the  efforts  of  a  dozen  young  men — students  of  Wil- 
liams College — led  by  Samuel  J.  Mills.  The  American  Board  was  supported  by  the 
Congregational  Cliurches  of  the  country  until  1826,  when  the  United  Foreign  Missionary 
Society,  in  which  the  Presbyterian  and  Dutch  Reformed  churches  had  been  co-operating, 
was  merged  with  the  Board.  The  union  of  forces  worked  well  until  1837  when  the  "Old 
School"  Presbyterians  withdrew  from  the  American  Board,  and  were  followed  by  other 
branches  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  1839.  The  "New  School"  Presbyterian  and  Dutch 
Reformed  churches  withdrew  their  support  of  the  American  Board  about  18-t6.  This  note 
is  compiled  from  the  "Story  of  the  American  Board  during  its  First  Hundred  Years.'' 
The  names  of  the  missionaries  of  the  Board  sent  to  Oregon  were  as  follows:  1835— Rev. 
Samuel  Parker  and  Marcus  Whitman,  M.  D.  1836 — Dr.  Marcus  Whitman  and  wife.  Rev. 
Henry  H.  Spalding  and  wife,  and  William  H.  Gray,  assistant  missionary,  often  spoken  of 
as  "secular  agent."  1838 — ^Rev.  Gushing  Eells  and  wife.  Rev.  Elkanah  Walker  and  wife. 
Rev.  A.  B.  Smith  and  wife,  William  H.  Gray  and  wife  (Mr.  Gray,  referred  to  as  assistant 
missionary,  returned  to  New  York  in  1837,  was  married  to  Miss  Mary  A.  Dix  in  Utica, 
N.  Y.,  in  February,  1838,  and  returned  to  their  work  that  year,  Mr.  Smith  and  wife  were 
sent  to  Sandwich  Islands  in  1841,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gray  were  dismissed  from  the  American 
Board  Mission  in  the  spring  of  1843.)  With  the  massacre  of  Dr.  Whitman,  his  wife  and 
twelve  others  on  November  39-30,  1847,  the  A\ork  of  the  American  Board  ended  in  Oregon, 
so  far  as  its  original  plan  was  concerned. 


AiThl)isliop    Blanehet.    First    Tatlinlir      |;, 
liishop  West  of  the  Rocky  Mouii-  I 

tains  North  of  Old  Mexico 


ill    l-cc.   Mctlioilist.  and    I' 
■stant  Missionary  anil  Prenc 
the   Pacific  Coast,  West   o 
the  Rocky  Mountains 


riimiias    Kicldins   Scott,  First  Trotes- 

taiit   l'".|iisropal  liishop  of  Oregon, 

Washington  anil  Idaho 


\¥  YORK 


TllK   CKXTENNFAL  HISTORY   OF  ()K'K<;().\  117 

<'OUsiilered  savages  aud  barliariaiis  sciuliiif;'  oul  a  conuiiissioii  of  their  niciiilici-.s 
who  must  travel  tlireu  tliousaiid  miles  tlii'ongh  a  wilderness  and  tlu'ougli  tlu; 
country  of  their  enemies,  llie  I'>l.ick1'eet,  to  eomplete  their  mission.  Sitting  in 
the  darkness  of  Paganism,  these  c'hildren  of  tli(>  forest  send  out  their  messen- 
gers to  seek  the  light  and  truth  of  Ohristiaiiity.  What  a  eommentary  on  the 
uninspired  and  lifeless  professions  of  Christianity  tluil  expended  millions  to 
confound  the  doctrines  of  Confucius  aud  Buddha,  and  gave  not  a  thought  Id 
■'Lo,  the  poor  Indian!  whose  untutored  mind 
Sees  Uod  in  Clouds,  or  hears  him  in  the  Wind." 
General  Clark  himself  explained  to  the  Indian  messengei's  the  history-  of  man 
— his  creation,  the  advent  of  Christ,  the  moral  precepts  of  the  Bible,  the  death 
and  resurrection  of  Jesus,  and  the  doctrine  of  his  mediatorial  service.  But  the 
poor  Indians  could  get  no  teachers  to  return  with  them.  Two  of  them  died  and 
were  buried  in  St.  Louis.  One  of  the  siirviving  messengers  is  reported  to  having 
made  a  farewell  speech  to  Oeneral  Clark  of  which  the  following  is  given  as  a 
version : 

"Our  people  sent  us  to  get  the  white  man's  Book  of  Heaven.  Vnu  have 
made  our  feet  heavy  with  the  burden  of  gifts,  and  our  moccasins  will  grow  old 
carrying  them,  but  the  Book  is  not  among  them.  We  are  going  back  over  the 
long,  sad  trail  to  our  people.  W^hen  we  tell  them  in  our  great  council  after  one 
more  snow  that  we  did  not  bring  the  Book,  no  word  will  be  .spoken  by  our  old 
men,  nor  by  our  young  braves.  One  by  one  they  will  rise  up  and  go  out  in  si- 
lence. Our  people  will  die  in  darkness,  and  they  will  go  on  the  long  trail  to 
other  hunting  grounds.  No  white  man  will  go  with  them,  and  no  Book  of  Heaven 
to  make  the  way  plain.    We  have  no  more  words — farewell." 

This  speech  of  the  unlettered  Indian  caught  the  attention  of  the  United 
States  and  stirred  the  hearts  of  Christian  men  as  nothing  else  had  ever  before. 
On  March  22, 1833,  Wilbur  Pisk,  president  of  the  Wesleyan  University,  published 
in  the  Methodist  church  paper  an  address  from  which  the  following  extract  is 
taken : 

"The  appeal  of  the  Flathead  Indians  to  General  Clark  has  excited  intense 
interest.  We  are  for  having  a  mission  established  among  them  at  once.  Let  two 
suitable  men  possessing  the  spirit  of  martyrs,  throw  themselves  into  that  na- 
tion, live  with  them,  learn  their  language,  preach  Christ  to  them  and  as  the  way 
opens,  introduce  schools,  agriculture  and  the  arts  of  civilized  life.  Money  shall 
be  forthcoming.  I  will  be  bondsman  for  the  church.  All  we  want  is  the  men. 
Who  will  go?" 

From  that  Indian  address,  and  from  the  appeal  of  Dr.  Fisk,  interest  and 
action  was  aroused  far  and  wide.  Meetings  were  held  everywhere  through  New 
York  and  New  England  by  the  Methodists,  Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians, 
and  organizations  formed  to  raise  money  and  equip  missionaries;  and  from  that 
beginning  the  missionaries  were  sent  to  far  distant  Oregon.  The  information 
about  Oregon  dinned  into  the  ears  of  the  Christian  community  by  Hall  Kelley 
for  years  had  laid  the  foundation  for  thoughtful  men  to  act  upon;  and  the 
appeal  of  the  benighted  Indian  furnished  the  impulse,  aroused  men  to  action 
and  fired  the  train. 

Not  all  the  missionaries  came  to  Oregon  from  this  cause.  Blanchet  and  De- 
mers  came  in  answer  to  a  petition  from  the  Catholic  employees  of  the  Hudson 


118  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Bay  Company  in  Oregon.  Thej'  did  not  come  speeiall.y  to  teach  or  preach  to 
Indians;  bvit  they  did  both  teaching  and  preaching  to  the  natives  as  occasion 
offered,  with  great  success,  and  baptized  large  numbers  into  the  Catholic  church. 
The  ceremonials,  vestments  and  ordinances  of  the  Catholic  services  appealed  to 
the  eye  and  imagination  of  the  Indian  far  more  effectively  than  the  plain  preach- 
ing and  singing  of  the  Protestant  ministers. 

The  work  of  Father  De  Smet  among  the  Oregon  Indians  is  entitled  to  be 
specially  mentioned.  He  did  not  even  come  to  the  Oregon  country'  through  any 
connection  with  the  church  or  Catholic  teachers  in  Oregon.  Whatever  influ- 
ences operated  to  bring  De  Smet  into  the  Oregon  country  were  such  as  were  set 
in  motion  by  the  Irocpiois  Indians.  These  Indians  were  the  most  intelligent  of 
their  race.  They  were  great  travelers;  most  of  the  men  could  speak  the  French 
language,  and  in  this  way  they  were  able  to  make  their  way  easily  enough  from 
tribe  to  tribe  from  the  St.  Lawrence  entirelj^  across  the  continent  wherever  they 
could  find  French  trappers  or  Indians  friendly  to  such  trappers.  During  the 
Revohitionary  war,  the  entire  tribe  to  about  ten  thousand  warriors  fought  with 
the  British,  for  the  British,  and  were  whipped  and  overthrown  as  an  organized 
tribe  when  the  British  were  driven  out  of  the  American  colonies.  On  this  ac- 
count they  inherited  and  maintained  a  hostile  disposition  to  all  American  people. 
There  were  a  large  number  of  these  roving  Iroquois  in  Oregon  at  the  time  the 
Protestant  missionaries  came  here,  most  of  them  in  the  employ  of  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company  as  trappers  or  fighters  of  the  native  Indians.  One  of  them  bj' 
the  name  of  Oskononton,  while  in  the  emplo.y  of  the  company  on  the  Cowlitz, 
got  into  trouble  for  some  outrage  on  a  Cowlitz  woman,  and  was  killed  by  her 
friends.  His  boon  companions  reporting  this  to  Fort  George  as  an  unprovoked 
murder,  Peter  Skene  Ogden  was  sent  out  with  thirty  Iroquois  to  investigate  the 
trouble,  and  on  arriving  at  the  Cowlitz  camp  the  Iroquois  mercenaries  opened 
fire  on  the  Cowlitz  Indians  without  orders  from  Ogden,  and  twelve  innocent 
men,  women  and  children  were  wantonly  murdered  in  cold  blood.  Other  in- 
stances of  the  cruel,  reckless  and  worthless  character  of  these  Irocjuois  could  be 
given  in  Oregon  history.  And  when  they  went  hunting  religious  teachers  as 
they  did  for  a  tribe  they  did  not  belong  to  and  had  no  right  to  represent,  they  were 
only  carrying  out  their  character  as  busy-bodies ;  and  went  to  St.  Louis  because 
they  knew  of  the  existence  of  French  priests  at  that  place  with  whom  they  could 
readily  explain  the  object  of  their  visit.  They  knew  all  about  the  "Black  Robes" 
from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Oregon,  and  could  on  occasion  preach  and  pray,  and 
like  the  devil  "cite  Scripture  for  his  purpose."  The  Iroquois  were  trouble- 
makers wherever  they  went;  and  there  is  nd  doubt  that  it  was  these  old-time 
enemies  of  the  Americans,  to  gratify  their  ancient  grudge,  fomented  and  incited 
the  bloody  conspiracy  that  ended  in  the  murder  of  Dr.  Whitman  aud  all  the 
other  victims  of  the  Whitman  massacre. 

Father  De  Smet  answered  the  call  of  the  Flatheads  as  carried  to  him  or  his 
superior  at  St.  Louis  by  the  Iroquois,  and  not  the  call  of  the  four  Flathead 
chiefs  who  visited  General  Clark  at  St.  Louis  eight  years  prior  to  the  visit  of 
the  Iroquois.  But  no  matter  for  that,  De  Smet  went,  and  he  is  first  heard  of  on 
his  way  to  Oregon  at  the  fur  traders  rendezvous,  alreadj^  described,  on  Green 
river  in  Utah.  Here  he  preached  and  held  services  for  the  first  time  on  his  great 
mission  to  Oregon  on  July  5,  1840.    Here  he  was  met  bj'  large  numbers  of  the 


JASON  LEE'S   .MISSION— 1H:!4 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  ()F  oRKCOX  I|() 

Flatiieiuls  who  liad  coiiu-  to  llii>  rciidczvoiis  Inr  s;ilr  nf  ilicir  furs,  and  was  liy 
tlifiii  eSL'orted  bai-k  to  tlirir  dwii  cuuiitrN  in  ()rrj;iiii.  lie  was  received  l)y  the 
Fiatiicads  with  jicniiinc  rririidsliip.  hearty  gocni  I'rrlin^-,  it  not  great  rejoicing; 
and  within  two  weeks  t'linii  his  advent  among  Ihnii,  it  tiie  account  of  his  work 
is  Id  he  rrcilitt'd,  he  had  taii^'ht  two  thousand  Indians  some  of  tin;  ])rayers  of  tlie 
Church,  and  achiiilled  six  hundred  to  the  riti'  ol'  hajitism.  Vvoui  the  Flatlieads 
l)e  Sinel  went  to  the  Coeur  .CAhMies.  the  I'end  d'Oreiiles.  tile  Kalispclls,  the 
Kootenais,  an<l  tiie  Colvides.  With  all  these  trihes  l)e  Siiu't  had  wonderful 
success  in  securing  their  conlitlenee  and  nominal  acceptance  of  Christianity.  Ilis 
converts  numliered  many  thousands,  aud  his  influence  over  them  for  mauy  years 
was  the  wonder  and  admiration  of  all  good  citizens.  Twenty  years  ago  the 
autlioi-  of  this  hook  met  a  numher  of  aged  Indians  on  the  Kootenai  river  in 
Idaho  who  were  proutl  to  rel'er  to  their  hai)tisin  l>y  l-^ithei-  De  Smet  and  spoke 
of  him  in  the  most  aft'ectionate  terms. 

Returning  now  to  the  work  of  sending  missionaries  ovcrlaml  to  Oregon,  it 
is  seen  that  as  a  consequence  ol'  all  this  agitation,  the  Missionary  Board  of  the 
Methodist  lOpiscopa!  church  was  imi)ortuned  to  establish  a  mission  among  the 
Fhithead  Indians  at  once.  A  call  was  issued  for  volunteer  missionaries  for  this 
work  in  distant  Oregon.  In  answer  to  that  call.  Jason  Lee,  formerly  of  Stan- 
stead,  (anada.  and  his  ne|iliew,  Daniel  Lee,  appeared  and  oft'ered  themselves  for 
this  work,  dason  Lee  had  formerly  been  engaged  in  this  line  of  work  in  the 
Rritisli  i)i'ovinces.  He  had  all  the  qualifications  for  the  labors,  trials  and  dan- 
cers for  such  ;i  field  of  missionary  effort.  In  fact,  no  man  could  have  been  found 
probably  who  was  as  well  j)repared  for  such  a  trying  and  responsible  trust.  Lee 
was  accepted  l).v  the  Methodist  board  and  later  on  made  a  member  of  the  con- 
ference in  1838.  He  was  now  thirty  years  of  age,  tall,  powerfully  built,  rather 
slow  and  awkward  in  his  movements,  prominent  nose,  strong  jaws,  pure  blue 
eyes,  with  a  vast  store  of  reliable  common  sense.  Such  was  the  fii'st  man  sent 
out  to  old  Oregon  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  heathen. 

By  Oetol)er  10,  1833,  three  thousand  dollars  had  been  provided  for  an  outfit, 
and  in  ^larch,  1834,  Lee  left  New  York  for  the  west,  lecturing  on  his  way,  and 
taking  witli  him  his  nephew,  Daniel,  together  with  two  laymen,  Cyrus  Shepard, 
I  if  Lynn.  Jlass.,  and  Philip  L.  Edwards,  and  adding  Courtney  M.  Walker,  of 
Richmond.  Mo.  At  Independence,  Mo.,  the  missionary  party  fell  in  with  Nathan- 
iel J.  Wyeth,  then  starting  on  his  second  trading  expedition  to'  the  Columbia 
rivei',  and  were  afterwards  joined  by  the  fur  trader,  Sublette,  going  to  Cali- 
fornia, and  his  party;  and  as  they  filed  out  westward  on  the  28th  day  of  April, 
1834,  tiie  party  numbered  all  told  seventy  men  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  horses. 
Such  was  the  first  missionary  expedition  to  old  Oregon. 

The  missionar.v  party  reached  old  Fort  Hall,  which  was  .some  forty  miles 
north  of  the  present  town  of  Pocatello,  Idaho,  on  the  26th  da.y  of  July,  and  held 
there  the  ni'xt  day,  lieing  Sunday,  the  first  public  service  of  the  Protestant 
churelies  ever  held  west  of  the  state  of  ^Missouri  and  Missouri  river.  Ja.son  Lee 
conducted  this  service  and  preached  to  a  congregation  made  up  of  Wyeth's  men, 
Hudson  Bay  fur  hunters,  half  breeds  and  Indians,  all  of  whom  conducted  them- 
sehcs  in  a  most  I'cspectful  and  devotional  manner.  It  was  a  wonderful  sight, 
a  graiul  and  solemn  sight;  the  rough  and  reckless  children  of  the  forest,  of  vari- 
o\is  tongues  and  customs,  gathered  from  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe,  a  thou- 


120  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

saud  miles  distant  from  any  civilized  habitation,  in  the  heart  of  the  great  Ameri- 
can wilderness,  listening  to  the  message  of  Christ  from  this  young  man,  and 
reverentially  bowing  their  heads  in  prayer  to  the  Almighty  Maker  and  Preserver 
of  all  men  and  things. 

Prom  Fort  Hall  (then  only  in  process  of  construction  by  Capt.  Wyeth)  the 
party  proceeded  on  to  the  Columbia  river,  being  assisted  by  the  Indians  sent 
along  with  them  by  Thomas  McKay,  a  fur  trading  captain  in  the  employ  of  the 
Hudson 's  Bay  Company.  On  coming  down  the  river  in  boats  and  canoes,  most  of 
which  were  wrecked,  the  missionary  party  lost  nearly  all  of  their  personal  effects. 
Rev.  Lee  reached  Fort  Vancouver  in  September  in  a  bedraggled  condition,  and 
was  very  kindly  received  by  Chief  Factor  McLoughlin,  who  promptly  supplied 
all  his  personal  wants.  The  Lees  had  carefully  noted  all  the  conditions  of  the 
upper  Columbia  river  country  as  they  passed  through  it,  and  having  heard  much 
of  the  beauty  of  the  Willamette  valley,  came  on  west  to  see  it  as  probably  the 
best  location  for  a  mission.  After  resting  a  few  days  with  Dr.  McLoughlin,  the 
mission  party  proceeded  down  the  river  in  boats  furnished  by  McLoughlin  to 
the  ship  May  Dacre,  which  had  arrived  from  New  York  with  the  household 
goods  of  the  party,  and  was  then  tied  up  at  the  bank  of  Sauvie's  island  (then 
called  Wappato  island),  about  twelve  miles  below  the  city  of  Portland.  From 
Wappato  island,  and  with  horses  and  men  to  assist  them,  the  Lees  proceeded  to 
hunt  a  location  in  the  Willamette  valley,  and  taking  the  trail  made  by  the  fur 
hunters,  crossed  the  hills  back  of  the  city  of  Portland,  into  what  is  now  Wash- 
ington county,  passing  out  into  Tualatin  plains  by  the  point  where  Hillsboro 
is  now  located,  and  on  by  where  the  town  of  Cornelivis  is  located,  crossing  over 
the  Tualatin  river  at  Rocky  Point  where  the  first  flouring  mill  in  Washington 
county  was  constructed ;  from  thence  ascending  the  northwest  end  of  the  Che- 
halem  mountain  ridge  and  following  the  ridge  five  miles  eastwardly,  they 
found  themselves  on  Bald  Peak  from  which  point  they  could  see  the  great  Wil- 
lamette valley  spread  out  before  them  for  sixty  miles  south.  Oregon  was  then 
all  a  wild  wilderness  country.  Elk  and  deer  were  everywhere  as  tame  almost 
as  sheep. 

Prom  the  Chehalem  mountains  the  party  descended  into  the  Chehalem  val- 
ley, and  passing  along  by  the  little  prairie  where  the  prosperous  town  of  New- 
berg  and  its  Friends'  College  is  now  located,  the  party  swam  their  hoi*ses  across 
the  AVillamette  river,  and  crossing  in  a  canoe  kept  on  south  to  the  farm  of 
Joseph  Gervais,  where  they  stayed  all  night  with  the  hospitable  Frenchman,  and 
for  whom  the  town  of  Gervais  has  been  named.  The  next  day  they  selected  a 
tract  of  land  two  miles  above  the  Gervais  farm  on  the  east  side  of  the  river 
and  sixty  miles  south  of  Portland  for  the  site  of  their  mission ;  and  where  they 
built  their  first  mission  house.  Returning  to  Vancouver,  Dr.  McLoughlin  fur- 
nished a  boat  and  boatmen  to  move  the  household  goods  from  the  ship  and  trans- 
port them  up  the  Willamette  river  to  the  mission  point ;  seven  oxen  were  loaned 
with  which  to  haul  timbers  to  build  houses  at  the  mission,  eight  cows  with  calves 
were  furnished  to  supply  milk  and  start  stock ;  and  by  the  6th  of  October,  1834, 
Jason  Lee  and  his  party  were  all  safely  landed  in  their  mission  home  in  the  Wil- 
lamette valley — the  first  Protestant  mission  in  the  United  States,  west  of  the 
Rocky  mountains  from  the  North  Pole  down  to  the  Isthmus  of  Panama. 

It  will  be  asked  by  the  reader,  why  did  not  Lee  answer  the  pathetic  call  of 


[..:■''>./ -^^ 
^^..^^^:,^::.\,^_^, 


m-WJ»»L  ^\iL«i'-^V".- 


'       /^^f/"        ' 


l\  iv-V'l 


i2«o-^r*"'^    .,., 


,)AS(IX    LKK    l'l!KA<lll\(i    Til    INDIANS.    AM)    THADKKS    lU  VTNi:    TIIKIR 
!•  I  KS    OX    WILLAMETTE.    ls:;4 


THE  (lEXTKNNIAJ.  IIISTOliV   oK  <»K'K(iO.\  IJl 

^he  Klathead  Indians  aud  cslalilisli  a  niissiim  anidiii;  llicin.  11'  \juv  liad  beun 
moved  wholly  by  scutiiiiciilal  ronsidcral  inn  lie  wnnld  have  lionc  to  the  Flatheads. 
Hut  while  Jason  Lee  was  first,  last,  and  all  the  tiin.'  an  evangelist  and  servant  of 
his  God,  he  was  at  the  same  time  eminently  a  man  ol  safe  practical  common  sense. 
With  nothing  but  his  own  light  and  resources  to  guide  him.  he  must  shoulder 
all  the  responsibility  of  his  position,  and  take  that  course  which  would  secure 
success  in  this  great  experiment,  or  be  blamed  for  a  failure.  He  had  noted  care- 
lully  the  conditions  of  an  experiment  with  the  Flatheads.  si.x  hundred  miles  from 
.sea  coast  transportation,  surrounded  by  unfriendly  Indians,  aud  exhausted  by 
<'ontinuous  wars  with  vengeful  Blaekfeet.  The  outlook  was  not  inviting.  And 
the  very  fact  that  he  had  become  the  friend  of  the  Flatheads,  if  he  had  decided 
1o  locate  there,  would  have  aroused  the  enmity  of  the  Blaekfeet  and  other  tribes, 
and  not  only  cut  off  from  him  the  friendship  and  access  to  other  tribes,  but  might 
have  resulted  in  the  destruction  of  himself,  supporters  and  innocent  victims  he 
had  sought  to  help.  More  than  that,  the  Willamette  was  the  wider  field,  with  the 
greater  outlook  to  the  future.  Lee  saw,  then,  as  we  see  now,  that  the  Willamette 
valley  was  more  important  to  the  future  than  all  the  valleys  of  the  Rocky  moun- 
tains. His  decision  was  based  upon  practical  common  sense,  and  the  great  in- 
terests he  had  come  to  serve,  and  has  been  a  thousand  times  over  vindicated  by 
the  development  of  the  country,  and  by  the  vast  results  of  his  work. 

Let  us  now  look  in  on  this  young  missionary  to  the  Oregon  Indians  as  he  builds 
his  first  log  cabin,  three  thousand  miles  distant  from  the  comfortable  and  luxuri- 
ous homes  of  the  people  who  sent  him  out  here  from  the  state  of  New  York.  As 
he  stood  there  on  the  virgin  prairie  alongside  the  beautiful  Willamette  the  hills, 
the  waving  grass,  and  silent  woods,  with  native  men,  all  innocent  of  the  great 
work  of  civilization  ahead,  he  was  facing  the  great  responsibility,  and  he  must 
commence  his  work  with  the  humblest  means.  Before  a  sheltering  house  could  be 
raised,  he  must  sharpen  his  axes,  his  saws,  and  break  his  half  wild  oxen  to  the 
services  of  the  yoke  and  the  discipline  of  a  driver.  Napoleon  might  easily  win 
the  greatest  battles,  but  he  would  have  failed  utterly  to  make  a  wild  ox  pull  in  a 
yoke,  as  Jason  Lee  did.  But  the  great  work  had  to  be  done ;  and  these  men  reso- 
lutely went  at  it  and  built  a  house  in  thirty  days  from  the  standing  trees.  Logs 
were  cut,  squared  and  laid  up,  a  puncheon  floor  from  split  logs  put  in,  doors  were 
hewn  from  fir  logs,  and  hung  on  wooden  hinges,  window  sashes  whittled  out  of 
split  pieces  with  a  pocket  knife,  a  chimney  built  of  sticks,  claj'^  and  wild  grass 
mixed ;  two  rooms,  four  little  windows,  and  tables,  stools  and  chairs  added  little 
by  little  from  the  work  of  patient  hands.  And  thus  was  started  the  first  Christian 
mission  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

While  the  jMethodists  were  first  in  the  Oregon  missionary  field,  the  officers  of 
the  American  Board  were  not  idle  spectators  of  the  movement.  On  the  con- 
trary, they  were  deeply  moved  by  the  stoiy  of  the  four  Flatheads;  but  having 
no  funds  in  hand  at  the  time  to  send  out  any  number  of  missionaries,  and  in 
order  to  proceed  wisely,  they  decided  to  send  two  men  to  "spy  out  the  land." 
Accordingly  Rev.  Samuel  Parker,  of  Ithaca,  N.  Y.,  fifty-six  years  old,  formerly 
a  pastor  in  Congregational  churches,  of  that  State  and  Massachusetts,  the  latter 
of  which  was  his  native  state,  and  Marcus  Whitman,  M.  D.,  a  native  of  Rush- 
ville.  N.  Y.,  thirty-three  years  old,  a  graduate  of  the  Berkshire  Jledical  School 
at  Pittsfield,  Mass.,  were  chosen.     The  object  of  the  Board  in  appointing  them 


122  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

was  "to  ascertain  by  personal  observation  the  condition  of  the  country,  the 
character  of  the  Indian  nations  and  tribes,  and  the  facilities  for  introducing  the 
gospel  and  civilization  among  them."  Parker  proposed  to  go  to  Oregon  in  1834 
and  left  Ithaca  in  May.  On  arriving  at  St.  Louis  he  found  that  he  was  too 
late  to  join  the  annual  caravan  of  fur  traders,  hence  he  returned  home  and 
spent  the  remainder  of  the  year  in  going  through  the  country  and  arousing 
increased  interest  in  the  proposed  enterprise.  He  finally  started  on  March 
14,  1835,  and  arrived  at  St.  Louis  on  April  4th,  and  found  Dr.  Whitman  already 
there.  They  proceeded  at  once  by  steamboat  from  St.  Louis  to  Liberty  which 
was  then  the  frontier  town  of  Missouri  from  which  the  Roekj'  mountain  fur 
trading  expeditions  then  started.  The  caravan  made  up  of  the  trappers  and 
hangers-on  of  Fontenelle,  the  captain,  and  capitalist  of  the  expedition,  got  off 
on  the  15th  of  ilay,  and  reached  Laramie  in  the  Black  Hills  on  the  1st  of  August. 

And  here  at  Laramie,  Dr.  Whitman,  made  a  showing  of  the  reserve  force  and 
ready  ability  which  great  exigencies  might  bring  out.  Hearing  that  he  was  a 
doctor  and  near  to  a  man  of  God,  both  natives  and  trappers  flocked  to  see  him 
and  secure  his  favor  and  services.  From  the  back  of  Captain  Jim  Bridger.  who 
afterward  discovered  Salt  Lake,  and  built  Fort  Bridger,  Dr.  Whitman  cut  out  an 
iron  arrow  head  three  inches  in  length  which  a  Blackfeet  Indian  had  planted 
there ;  and  from  the  shoulder  of  another  hunter  he  extracted  an  arrow  imbedded 
in  the  flesh  which  the  man  had  carried  there  for  two  years.  This  exhibition 
of  his  skill  excited  the  wonder  of  the  Flatheads  and  Nez  Perces  gathered  there. 
and  all  joined  in  clamorous  pleadings  that  Whitman  or  other  men  like  him  be  sent 
to  their  tribes  to  teach  and  preach. 

At  this  juncture  of  affairs,  it  appears  that  there  must  have  been  some  sort  of 
friction  between  the  Rev.  Parker  and  the  successful  Doctor.  For  without  anj- 
very  good  reason  ever  given  to  the  public.  Dr.  Whitman  left  the  missionary 
party  and  returned  to  the  States  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  other  assistants  and 
joining  the  overland  train  of  fur  traders  in  the  spring  of  1836.  Mr.  Gray  in  his 
history  of  Oregon  (p.  108)  states  the  reason  for  Whitman  leaving  Parker  and  re- 
turning to  the  states  (to  be)  the  fact  that  Parker  could  not  abide  the  frontier  ways 
and  manners  of  Whitman  who  evidently  believed  in  "doing  in  Rome  as  the  Ro- 
mans did;"  while  Rev.  Parker  carried  the  etiquette  of  his  cultured  home  town  to 
the  rough  ways  of  the  Rocky  mountaineers.  And  as  Gray  is  something  of  a  par- 
tisan for  Whitman,  there  is  doubtless  a  foundation  for  this  explanation ;  that 
Whitman  went  back  to  New  York  to  get  rid  of  Parker  and  make  a  new  start  with 
more  congenial  associates. 

However.  Parker  went  on  with  the  natives.  Flatheads  and  Nez  Perces,  being 
on  the  same  route  with  Bridger 's  party  of  sixty  men  for  eight  days.  As  they 
proceeded,  Parker  studied  the  Indians  and  taught  them  the  ten  commandments 
and  in  due  time,  reached  Walla  AValla,  October  6,  where  he  was  feasted  by  the 
Hudson 's  Bay  agent  with  roast  duck,  bread,  butter  and  milk,  the  first  he  had  seen 
after  leaving  the  Missouri  river.  From  Walla  Walla  Parker  proceeded  to  Fort 
Vancouver  Avhere  he  arrived  on  October  16,  and  was  welcomed  and  hospita- 
bly entertained  by  Dr.  John  McLoughlin.  Parker  visited  the  mouth  of  the 
Columbia,  the  Willamette  valley,  and  many  points  in  the  upper  Columbia,  go- 
ing as  far  north  as  Fort  Colville,  and  making  a  careful  study  of  the  Indians  and 
selecting  eligible  sites  for  missions.     He  selected  the  site  of  Wai-il-at-pa  (six 


PETER    JOHN    UE    SMET 
Great  Apostle  to  the  Indians 


TlIK  GKNTENNIAL  IIISTOliY  OF  ()l{E(i()X  li'H 

miles  west  of  the  prrsciit  city  (if  \V,-illa  Walla)  for  a  mission,  and  wliidi  Dr. 
Whitman  settled  and  iiii|>i-o\cd  ;  ami  w  liiTe  lie  lost  his  life  and  sacrificed  liis  nolile 
wife.  Parker  was  in  many  i-espeets  a  level  headed,  sensible  man.  I>nt  he  like  all 
the  rest  ei-red  in  their  judgment  of  fhi'  Indian  ehaiMcler.  I'ai'ker  siniimed  up  his 
ol)Servatit)ns,  declaring  that  the  "■  unaliuseil.  inicontaminated  Indians  wnuld  not 
sufTer  hy  comparison  with  any  other  natiim  that  could  he  named,  and  that  the  only 
material  difference  hetween  man  and  man,  was  that  prciducrd  hy  the  knowledge 
and  i)ractice  of  the  Christian  religion."  Ihit  he  thought  there  was  a  great  differ- 
ence hetween  the  Indians  along  the  Coluirdjia  river,  and  those  inhabiting  the  Rocky 
.Mountains.  The  former  would  load  their  visitors  with  presents,  while  the  latter 
ivouhl  beg  the  shirt  otf  a  man's  back.  Parker  returned  to  the  states  by  sea  voyage 
by  tlic  way  of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  reaching  Ithaca,  New  York,  May  2:^,  18:37, 
ha\iug  traveh^d  twenty-eight  thousand  miles. 

We  let  urn  now  to  Dr.  Whitman.  His  separation  from  Parker  and  return  to 
the  states  must  not  only  be  explained  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  American  board, 
but  he  must  vindicate  his  course  to  his  friends  and  maintain  a  reputation  hy  re- 
newed zeal  and  energ.v  in  the  cause  in  which  he  had  enlisted.  And  so  we  find  him 
organizing  forces  to  establish  two  missions  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains;  one 
among  the  long  neglected  Platheads  who  were  the  prime  movers  of  the  whole 
missionary  movement  to  Oregon,  and  one  to  the  Nez  Perces,  who  it  seems,  were  in 
all  the  investigations  found  to  be  a  very  interesting  people  for  a  missionary  field. 
And  the  more  effectually  to  arouse  interest  in  the  Indians,  Whitman  resorted  to 
the  expedients  of  Columbus  and  Pizarro,  and  carried  back  from  the  mountains 
two  likely  Indian  boys  to  show  the  con.servative  American  ^lissionary  Board  the 
inviting  material  he  would  haTe  to  begin  work  upon.  And  with  what  he  had 
seen,  and  from  common  sense  suggestions,  he  decided  that  it  was  families  he  must 
take  to  Oregon,  and  not  single  men;  if  he  was  to  make  a  success  of  his  missions. 
And  so  he  set  the  example  by  taking  a  good  woman  for  a  wife,  to  accompany  him 
to  the  wilderness,  the  fateful  fortune  as  it  turned  out  to  be,  fell  to  the  lot  of  ^liss 
Xarcis.sa  Prentiss,  of  Prattsburg,  New  York,  whom  he  married  in  February,  1836. 
.Mrs.  Whitman  is  described  as  a  person  of  good  figure,  pleasant  voice,  blue  eyes,  and 
unusuall.v  attractive  in  person,  and  manner,  well  educated  and  refined.  Having 
.secured  one  attractive  and  engaging  woman  for  the  ]Mission  to  the  wilderness,  it 
was  easier  to  secure  another,  and  so  Dr.  Whitman  speedil.v  enlisted  the  Rev.  II.  II. 
Spalding,  a  .voung  Presbyterian  minister,  who  had  then  recentl.v  married  Mi.ss 
Eliza  Hart,  a  farmer's  daughter  of  Oneida  County,  New  York.  Jlrs.  Spalding 
had  accomplishments,  too,  if  not  so  well  educated,  she  could  be  emineutl.v  useful 
as  it  was:  for  she  had  been  taught  to  spin,  weave  cloth,  make  up  clothing  as  well 
as  an  accomplished  cook  and  housekeeper.  Both  of  these  ladies  might  have  stood 
for  models  for  all  that  was  noble,  good  and  of  good  report  in  any  community,  and 
were  thoroughly  imbued  with  that  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  which  must  come  to 
any  person  who  undertakes  to  teach  and  serve  the  ignorant  anil  benighted  natives 
of  any  race.  Spalding,  the  man  and  preacher,  hesitated  to  connnit  himself  to 
the  dangerous  ent(>rprise,  pleading  the  delicate  health  of  his  wife;  but  the  wife, 
the  greater  hero  of  the  twain,  asked  only  for  twenty-four  hours  of  prayerful  con- 
sideration, and  then  w^eut  into  the  expedition  with  all  her  heart,  without  even 
leturning  from  Ohio  to  see  her  parents.  To  this  party,  Whitman,  was  able  to 
eidist  the  services  of  William  H.  Gra.y  of  Utica,  New  York,  a  bright,  active,  ener- 


124  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

getic  young  man  of  some  education,  and  large  natural  abilities  with  great  courage 
and  forceful  purposes  in  life.  Mr.  Gray  wrote  a  history  of  Oregon  after  he  had 
spent  most  of  his  life  out  here  that  must  not  be  overlooked  bj^  any  student  who 
wants  to  know  the  whole  history  of  the  prominent  actors  in  the  Northwest. 

Dr.  Whitman  was  furnished  by  the  Missionarj^  Board  with  necessary  tools,  im- 
plements, seeds,  grains,  and  clothing  for  two  years.  At  Liberty,  Missouri,  he 
boiight  teams,  wagons,  some  pack  animals,  riding  horses  and  sixteen  milk  cows, 
and  these  were  all  under  the  charge  of  Gray,  and  the  two  Indian  boys  who  were 
now  goii:g  back  to  their  homes  with  AVhitman.  By  hard  work  and  energetic  push- 
ing the  party  got  across  the  Missouri,  and  out  on  the  plains  in  time  to  join  the 
party  of  one  Fitzpatrick  for  company  and  mutual  protection. 

Here  then  was  the  first  attempt  of  white  women  to  cross  the  gi-eat  American 
desert,  as  the  plains  of  Kansas,  Nebraska  and  Wyoming  were  then  called;  and 
sealed  the  Rocky  mountains  and  penetrate  the  wilderness  of  old  Oregon.  It  was, 
indeed,  on  the  part  of  these  two  women  an  act  of  the  greatest  heroism,  requiring 
more  than  ordinary  courage  and  self-sacrifice.  While  thousands  of  women  and 
children  followed  after  them,  it  was  these  two  women  who  pointed  the  way,  set 
the  pace,  and  showed  the  world  that  women  could  accomplish  the  great  and  haz- 
ardous trip.  Presbj'terian  writers  and  historians  have  seized  upon  these  facts 
to  show  that  these  two  young  Presbyterian  women  from  the  state  of  New  York, 
were  the  real  pioneers  of  civilization  in  old  Oregon ;  and  well  they  might  so  claim, 
for  it  may  be  set  down  as  a  fact  that  no  country  is  ever  civilized  until  it  has  re- 
ceived the  humanizing  touch  and  gracious  benediction  of  the  love  and  self-sacrifice 
of  consecrated  women. 

Other  men  and  their  wives  braved  the  terrors  of  the  wilderness,  the  plains, 
mountains  and  Indians,  and  came  to  Oregon,  to  teach  and  uplift  the  Indian.  Rev. 
H.  H.  Spalding  and  wife,  together  with  Wm.  H.  Gray  of  Utica,  New  York,  accom- 
panied Dr.  Whitman  and  wife  in  1836 ;  Mrs.  Whitman  and  Mrs.  Spalding  being 
the  first  American  white  women  to  cross  the  Continent  to  Oregon.  (The  first 
white  woman  to  cross  the  Continent  to  Oregon  was  Eloisa  McLoughlin,  the  daugh- 
ter of  Dr.  John  McLoughlin,  who  was  born  at  Fort  William  at  the  North  end  of 
Lake  Superior,  February  13,  1817,  and  came  with  her  father  to  Oregon  in  1824.) 
Rev.  Elkanah  Walker  and  wife,  and  the  Rev.  Gushing  Eells  and  wife  (Congre- 
gationalists)  came  out  in  1838,  and  started  a  mission  on  the  Spokane  river  or  a 
branch  thereof.  Rev.  John  Smith  Griffin  and  wife  (Congregationalists)  came 
out  in  1839.  Mr.  Griffin  made  two  unsuccessful  attempts  to  establish  a  mission 
among  the  Snake  Indians  in  Idaho,  and  then  settled  on  the  Tualatin  Plains  of 
Washington  county,  where  Mrs.  Griffin,  the  first  white  woman  in  the  county, 
taught  the  first  Indian  school  west  of  the  Willamette  river.  Dr.  Wm.  Geiger, 
came  out  as  a  missionary  in  1839  to  teach  the  Indians,  took  charge  of  Dr.  Whit- 
man's mission  while  Whitman  made  his  memorable  trip  back  to  the  States  on 
horseback  in  the  winter  of  1842.  Rev.  Harvey  Clarke  and  wife,  Congregation- 
alists, came  out  as  independent  missionaries  in  1840,  taught  school  one  year  at 
the  Methodist  mission  on  French  Prairie,  then  moved  to  Washington  County, 
continued  teaching  as  Independents,  took  up  land  and  settled  at  Forest  Grove. 
Mr.  Clarke  gave  many  years  service  to  the  building  of  Pacific  University.  The 
only  ones  of  these  families  having  children  yet  living  is  Rev.  Walker,  one  of  whose 
sons  is  the  Hon.  Cyrus  H.  Walker,  of  Linn  county,  the  oldest  living  white  man 


Nos.  1  iiiid  L'— KE\'.  KLKA.NAll  WALKliK  and  witc  iiiissioiuin.-s  t.i  tlir 
in   Eastern    Wasliington — lS:i8    to    1848 

Nos.  3  and  4— KEY.  FRANK  L.  YOUNG  and  wife,  missionaries  to  tlie  wliite 
in   same   region— 1880   to    1S90 


:^^^l^\ 


THE  CENTENNIAL  III8T0KV  ()!•'  ()RK(J().\  Il>:, 

boru  west  of  the  Koeky  Mountains,  and  now  Grand  (chaplain  to  llie  >State  Grange 
of  Oregon.  Another  son  is  a  missionary  stationed  in  Cliiua.  Dr.  Geiger  left  a  son 
now  a  jiraetieing  physician  in  Forest  Grove.  Mr.  Gray  left  a  forceful  family  of 
children.  One  son  was  county  jvidge  of  Clatsop  county  for  many  years.  An- 
other son  is  prondnent  in  business  and  has  had  large  transportation  interests  on 
the  upper  CoUunbia;  while  IVFrs.  Jacob  Kamm  of  Portland,  Oregon,  is  known  far 
and  wide  for  her  support  of  charitable  and  religious  work  both  in  and  outside  of 
the  Presbytci-ian  church. 

It  is  not  within  the  purview  of  this  history,  or  the  object  of  this  chapter  to 
follow  out  the  movements  and  settlements  of  this  little  party  of  devoted  mission- 
aries. It  is  enough  to  our  purpose  to  say,  that  after  a  long  toilsome  and  tedious 
journey,  full  of  dangers  and  trials  of  every  description,  they  reached  their  prom- 
ised land,  that  they  founded  a  nnssiou  at  Wai-il-at-pu,  near  the  city  of  Walla 
Walla,  where  Whitman  college  is  now  located,  that  they  labored  and  toiled,  taught 
and  prayed  for  the  Indians,  as  no  others  had  ever  done,  before  or  since,  and  that 
they  were  rewarded  in  the  end  by  the  base  treachery  of  those  they  sought  to  save 
and  bless,  and  finally  murdered  by  the  infiiriated  savages  they  had  fed,  clothed  and 
taught  the  lessons  of  love  and  affection  of  the  founder  of  Christianity.  We  give  this 
picture  of  these  devoted  men  and  women  to  show  by  contrast  and  example,  the 
characters  of  these  teachers  and  the  native  inborn  weakness  and  barbarism  of 
those  they  sought  to  lift  up  in  the  human  scale.  We  will  let  the  characters  of  Lee 
and  Whitman  stand  as  substantial  representatives  of  the  whole  Protestant  mis- 
sionary effort  to  the  Indians  of  this  couutry ;  and  from  their  experience  and  good 
or  ill  success  draw  what  conclusions  seem  to  be  reasonable  as  to  the  real  char- 
acter of  these  Oregon  Indians.  And  to  throw  fui-ther  light  upon  the  picture, 
and  enable  the  reader  to  more  perfectly  understand  the  Indian  character,  we 
will  give  the  experience  of  the  Catholic  Priest  and  missionaries  in  dealing  with 
and  teaching  these  same  Indians,  although  they  may  have  labored  with  other 
and  different  tribes. 

The  first  efforts  to  introduce  the  services  of  the  Catholic  religion  into  the 
legions  of  old  Oregon,  were  put  forth  by  the  French  Canadians  of  the  Wil- 
lamette Valley  in  July,  1834,  just  about  the  time  Jason  Lee  was  holding  the 
first  Protestant  church  services  in  the  territory  of  old  Oregon,  at  old  Fort  Hall. 
There  is  no  evidence  of  any  relation  between  these  two  competing,  if  not  op- 
posing, religious  movements.  Nobody  in  all  the  Oregon  region,  so  far  as  the  his- 
torical record  shows,  knew  that  Jason  Lee  was  on  his  way  out  here  to  preach 
the  gospel  and  organize  Protestant  Episcopal  institutions.  The  movement 
of  the  French  Canadians  seems  to  have  been  purely  local,  and  originated  from 
the  natural  desire  of  those  people  to  have  once  more  the  religious  services 
of  the  church  in  which  they  were  born  and  reared  in  at  distant  Montreal. 
These  Canadians  at  that  time,  sent  a  request  to  J.  N.  Provencher,  Catholic 
Bishop  of  the  Red  River  settlements,  asking  that  leligious  teachers  be  sent 
to  Oregon.  The  arrival  of  Lee  a  few  months  afterward  increased  the  anxiety 
of  these  faithful  Catholics,  and  in  February,  1835,  a  second  letter  was  dis- 
patched to  Bishop  Provencher  for  religious  instructors.  To  these  letters,  Pro- 
vencher replied  sending  the  reply  to  Chief  Factor  McLoughlin.  regretting  that 
no  priests  could  at  that  time  be  spared  from  the  work  in  the  east,  but  that  an 
effort  would  be  made  to  secure  priests  from  Europe.    And  as  early  as  the  matter 


126  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

L'ould  be  brought  about,  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  was  asked  for  passage  for 
two  Catholic  priests  from  Montreal  to  Oregon.  To  this  mission,  the  Archbishop 
of  Quebec  appointed  Rev.  Francis  Norbet  Blanchet,  whose  portrait  appears  on 
another  page,  and  gave  him  as  an  assistant.  Rev.  Modeste  Demers,  fi'om  the  Red 
River  settlement.  The  trip  to  Oregon  was  uneventful,  until  the  party  reached 
the  Little  Falls  of  the  Columbia,  where  in  descending  the  rapids,  one  of  the  boats 
was  wrecked  and  nearly  half  the  company  drowned.  The  priests  were  received 
at  Fort  Colville  with  the  same  friendliness  as  had  greeted  the  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries in  eastern  Oregon;  and  during  a  stay  of  four  days,  nineteen  natives 
were  baptized,  mass  was  said  and  much  interest  taken  in  the  services.  The  ap- 
pearance of  the  priests  in  their  dark  robes,  the  mythical  signs  of  reverence, 
and  unconcern  for  secular  affairs,  undoubtedly  impressed  the  savages.  Blanchet 
summed  up  his  labors  for  the  winter  of  1838-9,  at  one  hundred  and  thirty-four 
baptisms,  nine  funerals,  and  fort.y-nine  marriages.  He  not  only  married  the 
unmarried  Indians,  but  he  re-married  those  that  the  Protestant  ministers  had 
united,  to  the  great  disgust  of  the  Methodists ;  and  withdrew  many  from  the 
temperance  society  and  prayer  meetings,  organized  by  the  ilethodists — and 
right  there  the  religious  war  commenced.  During  the  j^ear  1840,  the  rivalry 
between  the  Catholics  and  Methodists  was  pushed  with  bitterness  on  both 
sides. 

Here  now  is  the  proposition.  What  permanent  good  did  these  men  accom- 
plish for  the  Indian?  Two  Protestants — Jason  Lee  and  Marcus  Whitman,  and 
two  Catholics,  Francis  N.  Blanchet  and  Peter  John  De  Smet.  They  each  gave 
the  entire  influence  of  their  respective  creeds  and  churches.  And  each  and 
all  of  them,  were  singularly  and  remarkably  well  qualified  for  the  work  they 
had  undertaken ;  and  each  man,  put  his  whole  soul,  mind  and  body  into  the 
work  he  had  freely  devoted  his  life  to  serve.  And  what  effect  has  it  had  upon 
the  mind  and  condition  of  the  Indian?  The  Indian  is  here  yet  subsisting 
partly  upon  the  bounty  of  the  government,  and  partly  by  the  shiftless,  pre- 
carious labor  of  his  hands.  One  in  a  hundred  rises  above  his  fellows  in  mental, 
moral  and  financial  acquirements.  But  the  general  average  of  listless  inactivity 
of  mind  and  body  is  about  the  same.  Religious  teaching  is  still  patiently  pressed 
upon  the  Indian;  but  with  the  exception  of  Father  Wilbur's  work  among  the 
Yakimas,  the  results  are  insignificant.  And  yet  very  much  the  same  might 
be  said  of  religious  teaching  among  the  whites.  But  what  has  been  the  uplift 
to  the  Indian  ?  We  are  presenting  a  question  of  evolution.  This  book  is  pre- 
senting that  question  in  various  ways. 

When  the  missionaries  came  to  Oregon,  the  Indian  that  could, 

"Find  tongues  in  trees,  books  in  running  brooks, 
Sermons   in   stones,    and   good   in    everything," 

accepted  them  as  ministers  of  the  Great  Spirit,  keepers  of  the  ''Book  of  Heaven" 
and  superior  beings.  He  took  the  white  man  as  a  friend,  but  found  him  too 
often  to  be  a  despoiler  of  his  wives,  a  trader  in  fire  water,  that  robbed  him  of 
his  peltries  and  appropriated  his  hunting  grounds.  And  although  the  minis- 
ters of  religion  treated  him  kiudl.v  and  justly  as  far  as  their  personal  intercourse 
went,  they  did  not  and  could  not  Stay  the  tide  of  immigration  which  overran 


CYKUS   H.   WALKKR 

Chaplain  of  Oregon  State  Grange  aiui  oldest  livinii   white  man  horn  west 
of  the  Rockv   Mountains 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OK  OKECJOX  127 

the  country,  seized  his  lands  and  drove  away  the  wihl  animals  that  had  fur- 
nished him  food  and  raiment.  He  had  gained  a  little  knowledge,  but  had  lost 
his  freedom  in  the  forest  and  his  home  on  the  eartii  the  (ireat  Spii-it  hail  ■iiven 
him  in  common  with  all  his  children. 

The  reasoning  power  of  the  Indian  was  limited  to  what  he  saw  or  felt.  The 
novelty  of  the  sacred  rites  and  mystical  signs,  the  connnands  of  virtue  and  the 
teachings  of  the  missionaries  were  good  enough  as  long  as  there  were  no  more 
white  men  coming ;  no  fears  of  being  driven  from  the  land,  and  no  fears  but  that 
they  would  possess  the  country  in  the  future  as  their  fathers  had' in  the  past. 
They  had  learned  from  the  Iroquois  and  the  Blackfeet  how  the  white  men  had 
swarmed  into  the  Mississippi  river  valley,  and  driven  the  Indians  back  from  the 
beautiful  Ohio  and  the  rich  lands  of  Illinois.  And  it  took  no  reasoning  power  to 
satisfy  them  that  if  the  white  man  was  not  stopped  from  coming  over  the  moun- 
tains to  Oregon,  they,  too,  must  give  up  their  lands  and  homes,  or  die.  They 
appealed  directly  to  Whitman  and  other  Protestant  missionaries  to  stop  the 
white  man  from  coming,  and  were  told  that  more  and  more  white  men  would 
come  with  their  wives  and  children,  cattle  and  horses.  They  saw  that  the 
priests  did  not  bring  men  to  take  up  more  farms,  and  for  that  reason  were  more 
friendly  to  the  ("atholics.  They  had  held  their  councils,  and  resolved  to  kill 
all  the  whites  and  drive  back  the  human  tide.  And  if  they  had  possessed  a 
leader  like  Pontiac  or  Teeumseh,  or  like  Joseph  who  arose  as  a  great  leader 
after  the  country  was  settled,  they  could  have  exterminated  the  white  settlers. 
and  would  have  done  so  as  mercilessly  as  they  massaci-ed  Whitman  and  his 
family. 

And  when  they  resolved  to  tight  the  white  man  they  thi-ew  away  his  ve- 
ligion,  and  all  his  teachings  of  morality.  And  now,  today,  seventy  years  after 
the  great  Indian  revivals  wTOUght  by  De  Smet,  there  are  fewer  professed 
Christians  among  the  Indians  of  old  Oregon  than  ever  before.  But  by  com- 
parison with  the  white  man  this  is  not  much  to  the  discredit  of  the  Indian.  The 
number  of  professing  Christians  among  the  white  people  of  Oregon  todaj'  are 
much  less  in  proportion  to  population  than  seventy  years  ago.  This  was  prac- 
tically a  prohibition  connnunity  seventy  years  ago,  but  now  Oregon  has  eighteen 
liundred  retail  licjuor  shops,  spends  thousands  of  dollars  on  prize  tights,  and  kills 
a  man  every  few  days  with  automobiles. 

The  substantial  uplift  of  any  community  is  a  slow  and  tedious  work;  and 
of  a  race  a  still  slower  and  more  tedious  task — a  work  of  evolution  in  which 
a  thousand  seen  and  unseen  elements  of  change  must  take  part.  The  factors 
undermining  the  strength  of  the  men,  community  or  race,  are  innate  and  al- 
ways at  work ;  while  the  forces  that  demoralize,  or  openly  oppose  the  develop- 
ment of  man's  faculties  and  the  uplift  of  the  social  fabric,  are  always  present 
in  some  form  ready  to  be  set  in  motion.  The  Rev.  Elkanah  Walker,  who  was 
one  of  the  first  Protestant  missionaries  among  the  Oregon  Indians,  and  who 
faithfully  labored  for  their  improvement  for  many  years,  in  the  last  sermon 
he  preached  in  his  life,  in  the  little  Union  church  at  the  towii  of  Gaston,  dis- 
cussed this  matter  from  his  experience  with  both  the  white  and  red  men ;  and 
summed  iip  the  whole  matter  in  this  sententious  sentence:  "It  takes  a  very, 
very  long  time  to  make  a  white  man  out  of  an  Indian,  hut  the  descent  of  the 
white  man  into  an  Indian  is  short  and  swift. ' ' 


128  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

In  all  the  contentions  between  Protestants  and  Catholics  in  this  Indian 
country,  and  between  the  partisans  of  American  Colonization  and  the  occu- 
pancy of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company,  the  Whitman  massacre  has  ever  been 
a  subject  of  most  bitter  crimination.  And  no  person  of  humane  feeling  can 
read  the  record  of  the  horrible  butchery  of  Whitman  and  his  wife,  children  and 
others  killed,  without  being  -^^Tought  up  to  an  intense  bitterness,  not  only  against 
the  savages,  but  against  the  white  men  who  may  have  known  of  the  possibility 
of  murder,  and  took  no  step  to  prevent  it.  It  seems  clear  that  the  chiefs  of  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  did  warn  Whitman  of  his  danger  at  the  distant  and 
unprotected  station.  Whitman  was  himself  recklessly  careless  of  the  safety 
of  himself  and  family.  The  Indians  were  permitted  free  access  to  all  his  prem- 
ises, and  no  preparation  for  protection  or  defense  from  harm  was  provided. 
The  Hudson's  Bay  people  did  not  trust  the  Indians.  Thej^  had  substantial  bar- 
ricades and  stockade  forts  well  supplied  with  arms  for  defense;  and  at  all 
times  required  the  Indians  to  remain  on  the  outside  of  protective  defenses. 
McLoughlin  never  forgot  the  native  ferocity  of  the  savage  when  aroused.  To 
the  careless  observer  the  Indians  about  the  trading  stations  and  missionary 
stations  were  peaceful  and  harmless;  yet  behind  all  this  was  the  racial  instinct 
of  the  savage,  developed  by  ages  of  contention  with  wild  beasts  in  the  contest 
for  existence.  And  with  the  first  blow  of  the  tomahawk  on  the  head  of  the  un- 
suspecting victim — Marcus  Whitman — and  the  sight  of  blood,  the  savage  gave 
tongue  to  demoniac  yells  that  harked  back  a  hundred  thousand  years  when  the 
naked  savage  man  fought  with  clubs,  the  savage  beast. 

We  here  finally  reach  our  bearings  in  the  quest  for  the  rightful  ownership 
of  the  wilderness  of  Oregon.  Whether  it  suits  our  wishes  or  our  preconceived 
views  or  not,  we  are  compelled  to  face  the  proposition  that  the  white  man, 
black  man,  red  man  and  yellow  man  are  all  on  this  globe  on  equal  land  tenures. 
That  they  have  all  sprung  from  a  single  original  pair  and  though  now  found  in 
divers  races,  they  have  fought  for  and  conquered  their  positions  on  the  face 
of  the  globe,  not  only  in  competition  Avith  wild  beasts,  but  also  wild  men.  That 
this  tremendous  evolutionary  program,  so  far  as  it  has  related  to  the  posses- 
sion of  land  on  which  to  live  and  grow,  has  never  been  settled  in  any  other 
way  than 

"The  good  old  rule,  the  simple  plan, 

That  they  should  take  who  have  the  power, 

And  the}'  should  keep,  who  can. ' ' 

The  coming  of  the  white  man  was  inevitable,  and  the  subjection  of  the 
Indian  equally  so.  Our  pioneers  but  followed  nature's  impulse  justified  by  the 
entire  historj-  of  mankind.  And  if  the  inspiration  of  a  higher  humanity,  and 
the  precepts  of  Christianity  can  be  used  to  enforce  justice  and  inculcate 
charity  to  the  poor  benighted  children  of  the  forests  that  we  fovmd  in  the 
possession  of  this  beautiful  land,  it  is  our  bounden  duty  to  see  that  while  we 
enjoy  all  the  beauty  and  glory  of  these  grand  rivers  and  gorgeous  mountains 
that  the  remnant  of  the  native  race  be  made  as  comfortable  and  enlightened 
as  their  mental  and  moral  development  will  permit. 

It  would  be  a  useless  and  unprofitable  task  to  go  into  the  rivalries  and  con- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  IlISTOKV  OK  OKEGON  129 

tentions  that  arose  out  of  the  Whitman  massacre  and  the  management  of  the 
Indians.  It  would  have  been  far  better  for  the  Indians,  and  for  the  white  peo- 
ple, and  the  cause  for  which  both  Protestants  and  Catholics  claimed  they  were 
the  champions,  to  have  left  the  Indians  wholly  to  one  sect  or  the  other. 

But  the  evil  that  was  wrought  has  long  since  passed,  leaving  nothing  but  the 
lesson  that  peace  and  harmony  is  more  profitable  than  contention  and  discord. 
The  cause  of  Christianity  was  not  promoted.  What  services  then,  if  any,  can 
be  discovered  outside  the  cause  of  religion  which  these  .sectarians  may  have 
rendered  the  country?  Before  the  Protestant  missionaries  came,  the  white 
population  was  practically  all  males,  and  almost  wholly  subjects  of  Great 
Britain,  and  members  of  the  Catholic  church.  If  any  action  or  influence  was 
to  be  expected  or  might  be  exerted,  it  would  have  been  in  favor  of  delivering 
Oregon  to  the  British  monarchy.  The  record  is  made  up,  and  there  can  be  no 
successful  denial  of  this  proposition.  What  then  were  American  citizens,  if 
they  were  even  men  of  God  and  disposed  to  peace,  to  do  1  It  did  not  take  Jason 
Lee  long  to  decide.  Although  born  in  Canada  under  the  British  flag,  he  was 
United  States  American  to  the  core.  Marcus  Whitman,  born  in  the  United 
States,  was  first  of  all  things  in  his  character  as  a  citizen,  a  champion  of  Amer- 
ican ideas  and  laws.  And  the  same  was  to  be  said  of  Gray,  Griffin,  Walker, 
Eells  and  all  the  i-est  of  the  American  missionaries.  Were  they  to  keep  silence 
on  political  rights  for  fear  public  speech  might  offend  Briton  or  Catholic? 
Self  preservation  being  the  iirst  law  of  nature,  they  must  act;  and  they  did 
act. 

The  great  fur  company  had  an  eye  single  to  the  coining  of  profits  out  of  the 
skins  of  wild  animals.  Its  interest  was  first  to  hold  Oregon  as  a  game  preserve 
for  the  pelts  it  might  produce.  But  if  civil  government  must  come,  then  let  it 
be  the  government  that  gave  the  country  over  to  the  Fur  Company,  and  the 
great  monopoly  would  still  control  the  country.  To  make  good  this  scheme  sub- 
jects of  Great  Britain  alone  must  be  encouraged  to  come  to  Oregon;  and  they 
must  be  such  as  would  take  orders  from  the  Catholic  Vicar  General.  Protestant 
Episcopal  priests  from  England  would  not  do,  although  their  salaries  were  pro- 
vided by  law,  because  they  could  not  receive  the  confession  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  French  trappers  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  and  could  not  control 
such  employees  in  any  political  movement  instigated  by  the  Protestant  preach- 
ers. The  line  of  cleavage  was  plainly  discernible  when  the  American  indepeml- 
ent  trappers  and  employees  of  the  Protestant  missions  sought  to  unitr  with 
themselves  the  Catholic  Frenchmen  on  French  Prairie,  in  a  movement  for 
civil  government  to  protect  life  and  property.  Under  the  lead  of  the  Vicar 
General,  the  H.  B.  Co.,  and  every  member  of  the  Catholic  church  but  two  op- 
posed any  organization  whatever,  and  put  their  protest  on  record.  And  while 
waiting  patiently  for  two  years  to  persuade  the  Catholics  to  join  in  an  organi- 
zation to  protect  the  rights  of  all  persons  without  distinction  of  creed  or  na- 
tionality, Jason  Lee,  Marcus  W^hitman  and  their  co-laborers,  worked  with 
might  and  main  to  bring  the  government  of  the  United  States  to  support  and 
defend  the  infant  colony.  Letters,  petitions  and  memorials  were  sent  to  Con- 
gress and  Cabinet,  and  eastern  journals  were  plied  with  facts  and  arguments 
to  save  Oregon.  Jason  Lee  went  in  person ;  and  Marcus  Whitman  took  his  life 
in  his  hands  and  made  a  mid-winter  ride  across  the  continent  to  forestall  the 


130  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

action  of  a  timid,  if  not  cowardly,  secretary  of  state  in  a  possible  agreement 
to  give  up  all  of  Oregon  north  of  the  Columbia  river.  While  there  is  no  direct 
or  record  proof  of  this  statement,  the  whole  history  of  the  diplomacy  with  Eng- 
land about  Oregon  during  the  Harrison-Tyler  and  Polk  administrations,  goes 
to  show  that  the  weakness  and  imbecility  of  our  foreign  policy  was  held  back 
from  giving  Oregon  away  only  by  the  appeals  from  Oregon  and  the  threaten- 
ing speeches  of  Senators  Benton  and  Linn  in  Congress.  These  appeals  from 
Oregon  were  mainly  from  the  Protestant  missionaries,  and  in  the  main  drafted 
and  forwarded  by  them.  But  these  brave  men  did  not  stop  -v^dth  appeals  on 
paper.  On  October  3,  1842,  accompanied  only  by  A.  L.  Lovejoy,  Marcus  Whit- 
man bid  good  bye  to  his  wife  and  all  he  held  dear  in  life  and  made  the  most 
wonderful  trip  on  record — a  two  thousand  mile  dash  across  the  continent  in  the 
winter  season,  over  trails  traveled  only  by  wild  Indians  on  horseback,  picking 
up  food  for  horse  and  man  as  occasion  offered  in  a  wilderness,  covered  up  and 
snowed  in  by  storms  for  weeks,  fording  mountain  torrents  in  icy  water,  and 
breaking  ice,  and  ianally  -wdnning  the  goal  of  his  endeavors  and  rushing  on  to 
Washington  city  before  congress  could  adjourn  in  1843. 

And  what  for? 

There  is  nothing  in  all  history  so  dramatic  and  forceful  as  this  four  months' 
winter  storm  ride  of  Marcus  Whitman.  And  at  the  very  time  he  was  risking 
his  life,  his  everything  for  Oregon,  Daniel  Webster,  Secretary  of  State  of 
President  Tyler's  administration,  was  writing  to  the  American  minister  in 
London,  that  the  Columbia  river  at  its  mouth  was  not  navigable  for  nine  months 
in  the  year,  and  that  there  were  not  more  than  seven  hundred  white  people  in 
the  whole  of  the  country,  and  that  it  had  been  suggested,  "That  the  lime  of 
boundary  might  begin  at  the  sea,  or  the  entrance  of  the  straits  of  San  Juan  De 
Puca,  follow  up  these  straits,  give  us  a  harbor  at  the  southwest  corner  of  these 
inland  waters  and  then  continue  south,  striking  the  (Columbia)  river  below 
Vancouver,  and  then  following  the  river  to  its  intersection  with  the  forty-ninth 
degree  of  latitude  North." 

What  was  that  but  giving  up  the  Puget  Sound  and  all  of  the  State  of  Wash- 
ington except  a  narrow  strip  along  the  coast,  and  a  triangle  adjoining  Idaho. 

What  influence  Whitman  exerted  or  representation  he  made  to  the  Presi- 
dent or  his  Secretary  was  not  known.  He  was  not  a  boaster.  It  was  not  a  mat- 
ter to  be  given  to  the  press  after  the  style  of  the  modern  politician.  It  is  suffi- 
cient to  say  that  Daniel  Webster's  map  of  Oregon  was  not  adopted.  And 
Jason  Lee  was  as  active,  and  as  faithful  in  his  labors  to  save  Oregon  as  was 
Whitman.  And  in  the  historical  light  of  that  great  contest  for  the  possession 
of  this  country,  the  services  of  these  two  Protestant  missionaries  rise  to  the 
dignity  of  a  great  service  to  humanity  and  to  their  country. 


CHAPTER  VI 

0000—1862 

WHAT  DID  THE  FORELOPEES  FIND   HERE THE  FACE  OP  NATURE THE  GEOLOGY  AND 

EXTINCT  ANIMAL  LIFE — THE  VAST  WATER  POWERS MADE  "VALUABLE  BY  APPLICA- 
TION OF  DISCOVERIES  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

When  the  missionaries  aiid  first  settlers  came  over  the  Rocky  mountains  down 
into  the  Snake  river  valley,  they  found  a  region  wholly  unlike  anything  they  had 
ever  beheld  before.  The  Three  Tetons.  the  vast  lava  sage  brush  plain,  the  great 
river  coming  from  some  mysterious  distance  nobody  knew  just  M'here,  the  tower- 
ing snow-capped  mountains,  the  mighty  water  falls  and  the  deep  and  trackless 
forests.  It  was  a  panoramic  picture  never  to  be  forgotten;  majestic  and  awe- 
inspiring  rather  than  beautiful.  The  great  mountain  ranges,  wide  extended 
plains  and  gloomy  forests  seemed  rather  to  forbid  than  invite  examination.  It 
was  all  natural  enough  and  to  be  expected  from  the  silent-going  Indian,  and 
necessary  to  the  venturesome  trapper;  but  for  preachers  and  farmers,  nature's 
wilderness  required  time  to  conquer.  And  for  these  reasons  it  was  a  whole  gen- 
eration of  men  from  the  time  Jason  Lee  di'ove  down  his  tent  pegs  in  the  Willam- 
ette valley  until  farmers  and  herdsmen  ventured  to  build  permanent  homes  on 
the  wide  extended  areas  of  Central  Oregon. 

The  Willamette  valley  was  the  first  place  settled  in  old  Oregon.  And  it  was 
by  all  visitors  acclaimed  the  beauty  spot  of  Oregon — another  Garden  of  Eden. 
The  only  picture  of  the  country  extant  made  by  one  who  knew  its  every  nook  and 
corner  before  the  settlers  came,  and  who  had  chased  the  elk  and  deer  with  his 
pony  and  rifle  from  Oregon  City  to  Umpqua  valley,  and  left  a  life-like  descrip- 
tion of  the  valley,  was  David  McLoughlin,  son  of  Dr.  John  McLoughlin.  It  was, 
he  said,  a  natural  park  on  a  grand  scale  that  could  not  have  been  improved  by 
artificial  culture.  It  was  in  its  natural  state  of  beauty,  romantic  and  grand  be- 
yond the  power  of  words  to  express,  with  prairies,  streams  and  groves  of  trees 
filled  with  animal  life.  Herds  of  elk  and  deer  could  be  seen  everywhere  feeding 
fearless  of  men.  And  from  this  valley  the  snow-capped  peaks  of  both  the  Coast 
and  Cascade  ranges  of  mountains  could  be  seen  towering  above  the  plains.  This 
was  the  open  book,  the  enchanting  scene  to  every  eye.  But  what  was  the  underly- 
ing foundation" 

Everything  in  nature,  says  Emerson,  is  engaged  in  writing  its  own  history ; 
the  planet  and  the  pebbles  are  attended  by  their  shadows,  the  rolling  rock  leaves 
its  furrows  on  the  mountain  side,  the  river  its  channel  in  the  soil,  the  animal  its 
bones  in  the  stratum,  the  fern  and  the  leaf  their  epitaphs  in  the  coal,  and  the 
falling  rain  drops  sculptures  their  story  on  the  sand  and  on  the  stone.  Nearly 
everj'thing  that  is  known  about  the  geological  formation  of  Oregon  is  due  to  the 
unselfish  labors  of  one  man.    The  boy  that  grew  up  to  be  that  one  man  wasi  boiTj 

181 


132  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

in  the  south  of  Ireland  ninety  years  ago,  came  to  America  with  his  parents  when 
a  boy,  hunted  rabbits  in  Central  Park,  New  York,  when  it  was  waste  wild  land, 
worked  hard  with  his  own  hands  to  pay  for  his  own  education,  studied  Theology 
and  came  around  Cape  Horn  in  a  clipper  ship  with  his  young  wife  to  labor  in 
Oregon  as  a  missionary,  finally  settled  at  the  Dalles  to  preach  the  gospel  where  it 
was  much  needed,  became  interested  in  fossils  and  fossil  rocks  that  the  army  of- 
ficers brought  in  from  the  frontier  posts  in  Harney  valley,  and  in  this  way  took 
up  the  study  of  Oregon  geology,  and  in  his  book,  "The  Two  Islands,"  edited  and- 
revised  by  his  daughter,  Ellen  Condon  McCornack,  and  published  as  "Oregon 
Geology, ' '  has  told  us  how  the  Creator  of  the  world  built  up  that  part  of  it  called 
Oregon.  It  is  a  wonderfully  interesting  work,  and  no  boy  or  girl  in  any  high 
school  or  college  in  Oregon,  or  who  hungers  for  an  education,  ought  to  think  the..- 
know  anything  if  they  have  not  read  and  mastered  Condon's  Geology.  This  life 
work  of  Thomas  Condon  is  monumental.  Like  Oregon's  history  and  pioneer 
state  builders,  there  is  nothing  like  it,  or  equal  to  it  to  be  found  elsewhere ;  and 
the  name  of  Thomas  Condon  will  live  to  enlighten  the  world  and  honor  the  state 
when  all  its  millionaires  are  wholly  forgotten.  (The  biography  of  Prof.  Condon 
may  be  found  in  the  biographical  volumes  of  this  work.) 

The  geological  history  contained  herein  is  largely  the  work  of  Mrs.  McCornack, 
for  which,  as  for  many  other  suggestions,  in  connection  with  this  work,  hearty 
acknowledgment  is  made  here.  The  engraved  geological  map  printed  herein  is 
all  the  work  of  Mrs.  McCornack.  That  young  readers  may  more  readily  compre- 
hend how  the  crust  of  the  earth  has  been  built  up  in  all  the  millions  of  years 
that  have  passed  since  it  became  material  substance  condensed  from  gaseous 
vapor,  a  diagram  of  the  different  and  succeeding  layers  of  rock  is  also  given  which 
was  taken  from  Dana's  Geology. 

THE  PEE-CRETACEOUS  AGE 

If  the  reader  will  turn  to  the  geological  map  he  will  iind  the  oldest  parts  of 
Oregon  represented  by  two  areas  indicated  in  the  legend  as  Pre-Cretaceous.  The 
one  in  southwestern  Oregon  and  extending  into  California  is  Professor  Con- 
don's Siskiyou  island.  The  other  in  the  northeastern  section  of  the  state,  follow- 
ing the  outline  of  the  Blue  mountains,  represents  his  Shoshone  region. 

These  oldest  parts  of  the  state  each  contain  within  itself  several  different 
geological  ages. 

Lindgren  tells  us :  "  The  oldest  rocks  of  the  Blue  mountains  are  represented 
by  the  relatively  small  area  of  gneiss  northwest  of  Sumpter  and  just  north  of 
Bald  mountain.  This  rare  spot  of  ancient  Oregon  history  takes  us  back  to  a  most 
ancient  period  in  the  earth's  history,  to  the  very  dawn  of  plant  and  animal  life 
and  perhaps  even  before  the  vital  spark  of  life  had  been  kindled  upon  the  earth. 

All  through  the  paleozoic  or  most  ancient  life  period,  the  ocean  covered  the 
Blue  mountain  region,  but  a  portion  of  this  deep  sea  bed  with  its  fine  mud  of 
clay  and  quartz  material  reached  the  sunlight  above  the  surface  of  the  ocean  at 
the  close  of  the  carboniferous  or  coal  period,  for  the  argillite  series  of  rocks  into 
which  it  was  changed  is  found  from  the  head  of  the  John  Day  valley  southeast 
nearly  to  Huntington  on  the  Snake  river.    These  rocks  contain  but  few  fossils. 

The  same  watery  waste  covered  most  of  Oregon  through  the  next  or  Triassie 


TlKi.MAS    ((.iXUdX 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  133 

ages  of  the  earth.  But  Liudgi-en  tells  us  that  the  great  amount  of  surface  lava 
and  other  voleauic  material  mingled  with  the  lime  stones  and  shales  of  its  sea 
bed  indicate  that  in  the  region  of  the  Blue  mountains  the  Triassic  ocean  was 
comparatively  shallow  with  land  masses  not  far  distant. 

During  this  Triassic  age  the  seas  were  full  of  great  lizard-like  reptiles  or 
saurians,  and  as  they  were  world-wide  in  their  distribution  they  must  have  lived 
in  Oregon  waters.  In  fact,  Dr.  Merriam,  of  Berkeley,  reports  several  species 
from  the  Triassic  limestones  of  the  eastern  part  of  the  Siskiyou  region,  now  part 
of  northern  California,  and  from  the  location  of  the  fossils,  Dr.  Merriam  has 
called  these  marine  reptiles  shastasaurus. 

At  the  close  of  tlie  Triassic  period,  or  later,  there  came  a  time  of  great  up- 
heaval in  the  Blue  mountain  region.  The  low  lying  land  and  adjacent  sea  bed 
became  what  was  probably  Oi-egon's  first  high  mountain. 

The  clay  and  quartz  sediment  which  had  been  part  of  the  deep  Palfeozoic  sea 
bed,  became  the  mountains  round  about  Baker,  of  which  the  Elkhorns  are 
the  most  typical  and  the  most  conspicuous ;  while  a  portion  of  the  shallower  Tri- 
assic sea  bed  with  its  lime,  its  shales  and  its  abundance  of  volcanic  rocks,  became 
the  Eagle  Creek  or  Powder  River  mountains. 

The  elevation  of  these  older  portions  of  the  Blue  mountains  was  not  a  steady, 
gentle  long-continued  process  that  only  required  time  for  its  completion,  but 
was  accompanied  bj-  great  violence. 

The  Paleozoic  rocks  of  silicious  clay  and  the  coarser  limestones,  shales  and 
tuffs  of  the  Triassic  sea  wei"e  both  subject  to  the  same  violence.  Both  were  thrust 
upward  into  lofty  mountains.  The  once  horizontal  sedimentary  rocks  were 
folded,  compressed,  crumpled  and  fused  until  the  rocks  themselves  were  greatly 
altered.  Later  deep  fissures  were  opened,  through  which  poured  heated  vapors 
laden  with  their  precious  burden'of  gold,  silver  and  copper,  and  these  old  moun- 
tains became  a  rich  treasure  house  of  Oregon's  wealth. 

There  are  mountains  in  the  Siskiyou  region  made  of  the  same  fine  granited 
argillite  rocks  that  tell  of  the  same  deep  paleozoic  sea ;  the  marbles  and  limestone 
of  the  Eagle  Creek  or  Powder  River  mountains  are  repeated  in  the  more  south- 
ern land,  while  the  Blue  mountain  mines  of  gold,  silver  and  copper  ai-e  rivaled 
by  those  of  the  Siskiyou  region.  In  fact,  in  his  Two  Islands,  Prof.  Condon  has 
greatly  emphasized  the  intimate  relationship  of  these  two  regions  of  Shoshone 
and  Siskiyou. 

Still  another  period,  the  Jurassic,  is  hidden  within  the  area  on  map  marked 
Pre-Cretaceous,  for  Jurassic  sea  shells  are  found  at  Burns  and  Silvies  and  other 
localities  showing  that  much  of  the  lower  part  of  the  Blue  mountain  region  was 
still  beneath  the  ocean,  'but  after  referring  to  the  great  erosion  that  had  taken 
place  in  the  older  portions  of  the  range,  Lindgren  writes:  "The  Blue  mountains 
in  Jurassic  and  early  Cretaceous  times  must  have  been  a  range  of  imposing 
height." 

The  Olalla  creek  beds  of  the  Siskiyou  region  give  us  a  glimpse  into  the  beauty 
of  Oregon's  Jurassic  forests. 

Near  Olalla  creek  in  Douglas  county  there  was  an  old  lake  into  whose  depths 
drifted  the  leaves  and  fruits  of  the  Jurassic  forests.  It  was  then  too  early  in 
plant  evolution  to  look  for  oaks  or  maples  and  other  hardwood  trees,  and  there 
were  as  yet  no  true  palms ;  but  there  were  conifers,  ferns  and  many  and  beauti- 


134  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

ful  eyeads,  which  combine  some  of  the  characteristics  of  both  conifers  and  ferns 
with  perhaps  a  still  greater  likeness  to  the  palms. 

If  you  go  to  a  greenhouse  and  ask  for  a  cycad  palm,  they  will  show  you  not 
a  true  palm,  but  a  diminutive  specimen  of  the  beautiful  cycad  tree  of  Jurassic 
days.  Its  terminal  bud  unrolls  like  a  fern,  the  wood  and  fruit  are  of  the  conifer 
type,  but  the  foliage  and  general  aspect  of  the  tree  foreshadowed  the  palm.  Then, 
too,  there  grew  near  the  Olalla  lake  the  graceful  gingko  or  maiden  hair  tree,  now 
a  native  of  Japan  and  China  where  its  coniferous-like  seeds  are  sold  for  food. 

This  same  Oregon  flora  flourished  on  the  northern  Sierra  of  California,  where 
have  been  found  three  different  genera  of  conifers,  ten  species  of  cycads  and  per- 
haps a  dozen  species  of  ferns.  If  this  flora  grew  in  northern  Sierras  and  in  the 
Siskiyou  region  of  Oregon,  it  is  but  reasonable  to  suppose  that  at  least  the  lower 
slopes  of  the  then  majestic  Elkhorn  and  Wallowa  mountains,  formerly  known 
as  Eagle  Creek  or  Powder  River  mountains,  were  clothed  with  the  same  verdure. 

The  Jurassic  fossils  of  the  Blue  mountain  region  thus  far  discovered  are  con- 
fined to  the  marine  shells  living  along  its  sea  shore.  But  there  must  have  been 
many  turtles  and  great  sea  lizards  or  saurians. 

There  seems  to  be  no  reason  why  the  students  of  Baker  or  Union  or  Canyon 
or  some  other  Blue  mountain  town  may  not  discover  cj'cads,  Japanese  gingkos  and 
ferns  in  the  sediment  of  an  old  Jurassic  lake  among  the  Blue  mountains  or  un- 
earth the  fossil  bones  of  a  great  saurian-like  reptile  that  ruled  the  seas  in  Jurassic 
daj's. 

THE  CRETACEOUS  AGE 

The  next,  or  Cretaceous  age,  is  indicated  on  our  map  by  narrow  winding  bands 
of  seabeach.  A  portion  of  this  beach  line  has  been  indicated  by  Professor  Condon 
and  Dr.  Dlller  as  entirely  surrounding  the  Siskiyou  region,  passing  up  through 
northern  California  over  the  present  site  of  Mount  Shasta,  north  past  Jackson- 
ville into  Douglas  county  and  finding  the  main  ocean  again  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Coquille  river.  This  same  Cretaceous  sea  thrust  its  long  arms  in  among  the  moun- 
tains of  the  Siskiyou  island,  leaving  its  record  in  fossil  shells  now  found  in  the 
older  valleys. 

Still  studying  the  map  we  find  the  Cretaceous  rocks  skirting  the  Blue  moun- 
tains on  the  south  and  west.  This  border  land  has  been  so  covered  by  later  vol- 
canic floods  of  lava  that  it  is  difficult  to  determine  the  eastward  extension  of  the 
Cretaceous  sea,  but  its  shells  are  found  at  Mitchell,  on  Rock  creek  and  in  the 
Crooked  river  country,  and  these  are  considered  the  last  relics  of  the  ocean  in 
Eastern  Oregon. 

It  seems  well  estalalished  among  geologists  that  the  great  mass  of  the  Cascade 
mountains  within  the  state  of  Oregon  is  built  up  by  volcanic  lava.  But  if  it 
were  possible  to  remove  these  thousands  of  feet  of  later  eruptic  rock  and  to  ex- 
amine the  fossils  in  the  old  sea  floor  beneath  it  all,  geologists  would  expect  to  find 
shells  common  in  Cretaceous  seas. 

The  Cascade  range  may  have  been  represented  within  our  state  by  older 
islands,  but  at  the  close  of  the  Cretaceous  a  low,  broad  dome  of  land  was  suf- 
ficiently elevated  to  exclude  the  ocean  from  eastern  Oregon,  and  the  bands  on 
our  map  following  the  borders  of  these  mountains  simply  bear  record  to  the 


SKETCH  OF  THE  WILLAMETTE  VALLEY   BEFORE  THE   WHITE   MAX   TOOK   IT  UP 


THE  NEWYORICI 
PUBLIC     LIBRARY 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  ISa 

fact  that  tliis  baseiaent  roek  of  our  Oregon  Cascade  range  was  once  Cretaceous 
sea  bed.  This  age  is,  so  far  as  yet  discovered,  only  represented  in  Oregon  by 
shells  and  corals,  but  the  possibilities  of  its  fossils  are  by  no  means  exhausted. 

This  period  gave  the  world  its  fii'St  palm  trees  and  its  first  hardwood  trees, 
as  the  oak,  maple,  hickory  and  walnut.  It  was  during  the  Cretaceous  that  rep- 
tiles reached  their  greatest  development.  And  it  is  supi)Osed  to  be  the  age  in 
which  the  small  inferior  type  of  earlier  mammals  evolved  into  the  multitutle  of 
higher  forms  with  which  the  next  period  opens. 

Its  climatic  conditions  were  such  that  a  very  even  temperature  prevailed  over 
the  earth,  so  that  zones  of  plant  and  animal  life  seem  almost  unknown.  Dana 
says:  "During  the  Cretaceous  a  warm  climate  still  prevailed  over  the  earth  even 
to  the  poles."  So  that  cycads  flourished  in  Greenland,  Spitzbergen,  Alaska, 
British  America,  Montana,  Siberia,  Sweden,  China  and  India;  and  the  sequoia, 
the  family  of  the  California  big  trees  and  redwoods,  was  represented  by  many 
species  throughout  the  north  polar  regions. 

It  is  not  at  all  impossible  that  some  young  geologist  may  find  remains  of  Cre- 
taceous forests  in  Oregon,  or  while  w'andering  through  some  water-worn  ravine, 
may  come  across  an  old  Cretaceous  tone  bed,  proving  that  Oregon,  too,  had  her 
great,  clumsy  small-brained  dinosaurs ;  or  he  may  find  the  bones  of  the  long,  bat- 
like finger  of  the  pterodactyl,  the  lai-ge  flying  reptile  that  flitted  from  crag  to 
peak.  And  why  should  the  Rocky  mountain  region  monopolize  the  Ci-etaeeous 
birds  with  their  rows  of  sharp,  recurved,  reptile-like  teeth?  For  these  Cretaceous 
fossils  we  would  look  among  the  mountains  or  along  the  foothills  of  the  regions 
of  Shoshone  and  Siskiyou. 

THE  EOCENE  AGE 

In  this  age  the  ocean  was  excluded  from  eastern  Oregon  and  Washington. 
The  Eocene  age  dawned  upon  a  region  of  lakes.  Whether  there  were  many  or 
few  of  great  extent,  has  not  yet  been  determined  and  perhaps  we  may  never  know, 
for  such  large  areas  have  since  been  covered  by  sheets  of  lava  and  later  sediments 
that  the  older  records  have,  in  some  regions  been  hopelessly  buried  and  in  others 
entirely  destroyed.  Eastern  Oregon  and  Washington  and  southern  Idaho  must 
have  been  very  beautiful  in  the  early  Eocene,  for  the  Blue  mountains  were  far 
grander  then  than  now,  they  were  much  nearer  the  rugged  vigor  of  their  "topo- 
graphical youth"  before  erosion  had  worn  down  their  lofty  summits,  and  before 
lava  floods  had  filled  their  valleys  and  transformed  their  foothills  into  a  high  ta- 
ble land  of  volcanic  rock.  Lindgren  has  said  in  his  Gold  Belt  of  the  BJue  Moun- 
tains : 

"Take  away  the  lava  flows  which  cover  the  flanks  of  the  Blue  mountains  and 
you  would  see  rising  to  imposing  heights  almo.st  from  sea  level,  and  separated  by 
a  lower  gap,  two  great,  roughly  circular  mountain  groups — the  Eagle  Creek 
mountains  and  the  Blue  mountains  proper."  Prom  these  imposing  mountains 
large  lakes  stretched  out  in  every  direction.  The  climate  was  damp  and  warm, 
well  fitted  to  stimulate  the  growth  of  vegetation.  The  grand  old  coniferous  trees 
were  well  represented  and  the  hardwood  trees  as  the  oak,  ash,  elm  and  maple  were 
increasing  in  numbi'rs  and  variety.  Palm  trees  were  never  again  so  scattered 
over  the  whole  earth  as  in  the  Eocene  age,  and  the  Northwest  had  its  share.    The 


136  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Cascade  hills  and  Blue  mountain  valleys  must  have  been  very  beautiful  with  their 
grand  forests  and  many  flowering  shrubs;  for  Knowlton  tells  us  the  magnolia 
and  cinnamon  and  fig  trees  were  there,  and  before  the  close  of  the  Eocene  he  adds 
the  sycamore  and  sweet  gum  tree,  the  walnut,  the  dogwood  and  seven  species  of 
oak.  There  were  sequoias  to  which  genus  the  California  redwood  belongs,  and 
our  state  flower,  the  Oregon  grape,  was  then  here,  almost  the  same  in  species  as 
the  tall  shrub,  with  which,  we  are  so  familiar,  there  were  also  climbing  ferns  and 
sweet  mountain  ferns,  all  flourishing  in  the  Blue  mountains  or  Shoshone  region 
on  the  borders  of  a  large  lake  that  filled  the  John  Day  Valley. 

During  at  least  part  of  this  time  Payette  lake  covered  the  greater  part  of 
southern  Idaho  and  the  adjacent  region  of  southeastern  Oregon. 

In  the  distant  background  of  Payette  lake  was  the  majestic  Wasatch  range 
and  the  Owyhee  mountains  formed  a  conspicuous  island  in  its  vast  expanse  of 
waters,  while  on  the  shores  grew  the  same  rich  forests  that  clothed  the  Blue 
mountain  country. 

."Western  Oregon  was  represented  during  the  Eocene  age  by  a  few  low-lying 
islands  in  the  line  of  the  present  Coast  mountains,  but  sea  shells  of  the  period  are 
scattered  from  the  northern  border  of  Siskiyou  region  through  the  valley  of  the 
Umpqua,  the  Willamette  valley  and  on  northward  through  the  Puget  sound 
country,  proving  that  most  of  western  Oregon  was  still  a  waste  of  ocean. 

THE  EOCENE   COAL  AGE 

The  coal-producing  period  in  the  United  States  east  of  the  Mississippi  river 
was  the  Carboniferous.  The  Rocky  Mountain  region  looks  to  the  Cretaceous  for 
its  supply  of  coal,  while  we  of  the  Pacific  coast  are  thankful  for  the  later  coal  of 
the  Eocene. 

The  most  important  field  so  far  discovered  was  formed  on  the  northern  shore 
of  our  old  Siskiyou  region.  Prof.  Diller,  who  has  made  a  careful  study  of  this 
field,  reports  the  land  as  gradually  sinking  during  the  Eocene  period  although 
with  long  intervals  of  rest.  At  times  the  field  would  be  covered  by  fresh  water  or 
brackish  swamps  on  which  flourished  a  rank  growth  of  vegetation  destined  to 
become  a  seam  of  glistening  coal. 

Then  for  a  time  the  sea  wOuld  gain  upon  the  land,  leaving  a  deposit  of  sand 
and  mud  which  later  formed  a  layer  of  sandstone  and  shale  containing  Eocene 
shells. 

Then  another  interval  of  rest  and  filling  in  of  sediment  would  produce  the 
broad  expanse  of  rich  swamp  vegetation,  which  in  time  contributed  its  seam  of 
coal.  This  same  process  repeated  again  and  again  through  a  long  period  of  time 
gave  us  our  Coos  Bay  coal.  Later  the  old  level  lines  of  deposit  became  tilted  and 
broken  into  endless  confusion  of  outline. 

The  Tillamook  and  Nehalem  coal  was  formed  on  an  Eocene  island,  which  like 
the  other  coal  fields,  experienced  many  quiet  changes  of  level,  sometimes  covered 
by  the  life  of  the  sea,  then  by  the  verdure  of  coal-producing  swamps. 

Prof.  Diller  suggests  that  Oregon  has  probably  many  undiscovered  coal  de- 
posits hidden  away  in  our  coast  mountains  and  on  the  western  side  of  the  Cas- 
cades, covered  now  perhaps  by  a  dense  growth  of  forest  trees. 

The  Eocene  indicated  on  the  map  is  found  in  the  southwestern  part  of  the 


WILLAMETTE  FALLS  AS  WHEN  FIRST  SEEN  BY  THE  WHITE  MAN 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  137 

state  including  the  Coos  Bay  country  and  the  valley  of  the  Unipqua ;  also  an 
island  extending  northwest  from  Monroe  to  Albany,  and  the  Nehalem  and  Tilla- 
mook coal  fields. 

THE  MIOCENE  AGE 

The  Oregon  Eocene  age  drifted  into  Miocene  time  without  striking  topograph- 
ical changes.  The  broad,  low  basement  of  the  Cascade  mountains  must  have 
been  growing  for  in  addition  to  other  evidence  it  is  said  that  a  large  part  of  the 
deposits  in  which  our  Eocene  age  leaves  were  buried  is  fine  volcanic  ash,  probably 
drifted  from  the  volcanoes  among  the  Cascade  hills.  If  these  fine  particles  fell  in 
distant  lakes  of  Oregon,  Washington  and  Idaho,  the  "Cascade  Barrier"  must 
have  already  commenced  that  long  period  of  vulcanism  that  slowly  piled  up 
ashes,  cinders,  bombs  and  lava  into  the  grand  mountain  range  of  the  future. 

The  land  in  the  line  of  the  Coast  mountains  was  also  becoming  more  elevated 
and  of  greater  extent.  A  strip  of  Eocene  sea  bed  was  elevated  into  an  island 
extending  from  near  Monroe  northward  and  including  the  hills  west  of  Corvallis 
and  Albany,  where  many  characteristic  Eocene  shells  are  found. 

The  valley  of  the  Umpqua  was  elevated  above  the  sea  level  and  the  Calapooya 
mountains  were  probably  connected  with  the  present  coast  line  by  land  of  suf- 
ficient height  to  exclude  the  ocean  from  southwestei'n  Oregon ;  for  Eocene  shells 
are  the  latest  positively  identified  in  that  region,  except  those  found  along  the 
present  ocean  beaches.  But  the  Miocene  ocean  still  filled  the  Willamette  valley 
with  marine  life,  there  were  not  only  a  great  variety  of  shell  fish,  but  seals  must 
have  been  at  home  in  these  sheltered  waters.  The  primitive  seal  of  this  period 
was  quite  different  from  modern  forms  and  was  perhaps  an  ancestral  type  from 
which  the  common  seal,  the  sea  lion,  the  walrus,  and  fur  seal  have  since  diverged. 
But  life  for  these  seals  was  not  all  sheltered  peace,  for  there  w^ere  sharks  in  these 
same  waters,  some  of  their  teeth  have  been  taken  from  the  old  Miocene  sea  bed, 
now  quarried  for  building  stone,  both  in  Polk  county  and  at  Eugene. 

Eastern  Oregon,  Washington  and  Idaho  was  still  a  country  of  beautiful  lakes 
with  a  warm,  moist  climate  and  luxuriant  vegetation.  One  of  the  mysteries  of 
our  western  geology  is  the  sudden  appearance  in  eastern  Oregon  of  a  most  inter- 
esting and  extensive  fauna.  By  consulting  a  map  of  the  Northwest  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  northern  extension  of  the  Wasatch  mountains  is  the  only  barrier  between 
Idaho  and  Wyoming.  Now  all  through  the  Eocene  there  lived  in  Wyoming  great 
numbers  of  strangely  interesting  Mammalian  animals,  while  just  west  of  these 
mountains  in  Idaho  and  the  adjacent  states  of  Oregon  and  Washington  no  Eo- 
cene mammals  have  been  found.  But  the  iliocene  age  dawns  upon  the  descend- 
ants of  these  animals  making  themselves  perfectly  at  home  on  the  hills  and 
marshy  meadows  that  surrounded  the  large  Pliocene  lake  that  filled  the  John  Day 
Valley.    Many  books  might  be  written  of  these  old  "Oregon  pioneers." 

There  was  a  primitive  camel,  the  Poebrotheriura ;  and  they  tell  us  the  camel 
was  originally  a  purely  North  American  bred  animal.  One  of  the  most  formid- 
,  able  animals  to  be  seen  in  those  old  Miocene  woods  was  the  Elotherium  or  Entelo- 
Idon.  Of  it  Dr.  Merriam,  of  Berkeley,  writes.-  "Probably  few  animals  ever  ex- 
listed  better  able  to  protect  themselves  than  those  huge  Miocene  boars."    While 


138  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Dr  Leidy  said  of  one  of  them:  "It  actually  bears  more  resemblance  to  the  great 
felines,  lions  and  tigers,  than  to  its  natural  ally,  the  hog. ' ' 

There  were  also  over  a  dozen  species  of  the  dog  family,  including  the  ances- 
tors of  the  wolves  and  foxes  and  that  ancient  line  of  dogs  that  was  slowly  evolv- 
ing into  the  modern  bear. 

There  were  many  animals  of  the  cat  tribe  with  long,  serrated  sword-like  teeth 
more  destructive  of  life  than  the  modern  lion  or  tiger.  With  the  great  wolves 
the  savage  elotheres  and  the  fierce  flesh-tearing  "saber-toothed  tigers,"  'tis  no 
wonder  the  slow,  shambling  little  horsesi  learned  to  strain  up  on  their  tiptoes  and 
run  for  their  lives. 

There  was,  too,  a  small  deer  no  larger  than  a  rabbit,  the  leptomeryx.  It  was 
allied  to  the  musk-deer  and  was  without  antlers.  This  evolution  of  antlers  in  the 
deer  is  typical  of  the  increasing  struggle  of  life.  In  order  to  protect  themselves 
some  animals  grew  horns  and  antlers,  some  highly  specialized  teeth  and  claws, 
and  some  learned  to  increase  their  speed  and  run  from  their  enemies. 

A  few  of  these  early  Miocene  animals,  as  the  rhinoceros,  were  much  like  the 
modem  types,  while  the  diminutive  horses  could  barely  be  recognized  as  the  pro- 
genitors of  our  modern  steeds.  Others,  as  the  very  common  Oreodon,  which  must 
have  roamed  over  the  hills  in  herds,  was  a  strange  "blending  of  forms  now  so 
remote  as  the  hog  and  the  deer. ' '  The  lake  sediments,  in  which  these  animals  of 
the  early  Miocene  were  buried,  are  called  the  John  Day  Beds.  This  chapter  of 
early  Miocene  history  was  followed  by  one  of  the  greatest  periods  of  vulcanism 
the  world  has  ever  known. 

There  are  two  distinct  types  of  vulcanism,  the  one  manifested  by  an  active 
volcano  where  clouds  of  smoke  and  steam  are  forced  from  a  volcanic  vent,  with 
showers  of  ashes,  cinders,  bombs,  electrical  displays  and  great  streams  of  molten 
lava  pour  out  of  the  crater  down  the  sides  of  the  volcano.  Of  this  tjqDC  are  Mount 
Pele  and  Mount  Vesuvius.  But  the  other  type  of  vulcanism  is  much  quieter  and 
less  spectacular.  A  great  crack  opens  in  the  surface  of  the  earth  and  from  its 
depths  wide  streams  of  lava  pour  out  over  the  land  ' '  as  water  pours  from  a  crack 
in  the  ice."  Both  types  of  vulcanism  must  have  existed  in  Oregon  during  this 
middle  Miocene  age ;  but  geologists  attribute  the  greater  part  of  this  wonderful 
outpouring  of  molten  stone  to  cracks  or  "fissure  eruptions."  The  valleys  were 
filled,  the  hills  and  sometimes  even  the  mountains  were  buried  out  of  sight,  and 
only  a  high  plateau  remained  to  indicate  where  mountain,  hill  and  valley  had 
been.  This  great  outpouring  of  basalt  covered  much  of  eastern  Oregon  and 
Washington.  A  fine  example  of  its  magnitude  is  found  in  southeastern  Washing- 
ton on  Snake  river  at  Buffalo  rock,  where  an  old  mountain  of  schist  stood  at  least 
2,000  feet  high  when  the  lava  began  to  flow.  Of  its  history  Russell  says:  "The 
river  has  cut  its  gorge  across  a  buried  mountain  so  as  to  expose  the  rocks  com- 
posing it  for  about  a  mile  on  each  side  of  the  stream.  The  horizontal  layers  of 
basalt  abut  against  the  steep  sides  of  the  older  mountain  and  show  no  evidence 
of  disturbance  at  the  contact.  It  is  evident  that  the  lower  rocks  have  not  been 
forced  up  into  the  basalt  but  that  the  latter  was  poured  out  in  successive  sheets 
and  flowed  around  about  a  mountain  of  schist,  and  finally  overtopped  its  summit 
and  buried  it  from  sight.  Additional  overflows  of  the  same  character  were  spread 
over  the  site  of  the  buried  mountain  and  reached  a  thickness  of  fully  1,000  to 
1,500  feet  above  its  summit  before  Snake  river  began  to  excavate  its  canyon. 


CKOI.OtjrCAL   MAP  <:iK  OKKCON 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  139 

The  highest  portions  of  our  Ulue  mountains,  as  the  Eagle  Creek  or  WaHowa 
mountains  and  the  Elkhorn  mountains,  stand  out  as  islands  of  limestone  or  marble 
and  slate  completely  surrounded  and  partially  submerged  by  those  great  lava 
flows.  As  Lindgren  says  of  them:  "The  lower  water  courses  became  filled  with 
basalt,  damning  its  headwaters  and  creating  lakes.  The  sharp  slopes  became 
sloping  plateaus,  and  finally  the  Blue  mountains  stood  like  islands  in  a  basaltic 
sea."  The  great  lava  flows  through  which  the  Des  Chutes  has  worn  its  way,  have 
been  vividly  described  by  Professor  Condon  in  The  Two  Islands.  While  Rus- 
sell, of  the  United  States  Geological  Survey,  gives  us  a  most  interesting  picture 
of  Stein  mountain  with  its  thousands  of  feet  of  old  basaltic  lava.  Here  it  can  be 
studied  in  vertical  sections,  by  reason  of  a  fault  which  has  left  the  highest  part 
of  this  mountain  block  tilted  up  5,000  feet  above  the  Alvord  valley  at  its  steep 
eastern  face. 

Some  of  this  lava  flood  in  the  northwest  may  have  taken  place  as  early  as  the 
Eocene  age  and  some  in  much  later  times,  but  the  greater  part  is  believed  to  be 
the  work  of  the  Middle  Miocene. 

UPPER  MIOCENE  AGE 

When  this  period  of  vnlcanism  had  passed  and  sufficient  time  had  elapsed  for 
the  making  of  new  soil  by  the  crumbling  and  disintegration  of  volcanic  rock; 
when  shallow  lakes  had  formed  in  the  depressions  above  the  lava  flood,  and  herb- 
age and  forests  had  again  covered  the  vast  expanse  of  dreary  lava  beds ;  when  at 
last  mammals  were  again  at  home  in  eastern  Oregon,  we  find  that  time  had 
wrought  mau.v  changes.  We  miss  the  herds  of  oreodons  for  they  had  become  al- 
most extinct.  Even  the  fierce  elotherium  which  was  so  well  equipped  for  the 
struggle  of  life  had  disappeared.  The  rhinoceros,  so  common  on  the  older  Ore- 
gon lake  shores,  was  seen  no  more.  The  three-toed  horses  were  more  numerous 
than  before,  but  they  wei-e  quite  different  from  the  earlier  horses,  being  now  as 
large  as  an  average  Shetland  pony  and  in  every  way  more  like  the  modern  horse. 

There  were  several  new  types  in  the  camel  family.  And  Dr.  Merriam  reports 
the  first  of  Oregon  mastodons  as  found  in  the  Upper  Miocene  rocks.  The  stream 
of  life  had  not  diminished,  but  on  the  contrary,  at  no  period  in  geological  history 
of  the  northwest  has  it  seemed  so  rich  and  full. 

During  the  Upper  Miocene  the  forests  of  Oregon  and  Wa.shington  seemed  to 
have  reached  the  climax  of  their  glory.  In  the  John  Day  valley  alone  Knowlton, 
the  Paleobotanist,  reports  eighty  different  forms,  including  the  fig  tree,  magnolia, 
acacia,  butternut,  walnut,  hiekorynut,  birch,  alder,  bald  cypress,  Japanese  cedar, 
three  species  of  the  sequoia  family,  to  which  the  California  big  tree  and  redwood 
belong,  seven  species  of  oak,  eight  of  maple,  nine  of  willow,  two  of  elm,  three  of 
sycamore,  four  of  liquid-amber,  the  persimmon,  horse  chestnut,  laurel  and  the 
maiden  hair  tree,  or  Japanese  gingko. 

Dr.  Diller,  in  speaking  of  northern  California  during  the  Upper  Miocene 
epoch,  says:  "No  doubt  the  Sierra  Nevada  existed  at  that  time,  but  its  height 
was  very  low,  at  least  in  the  northern  part  as  compared  with  its  present  altitude. " 
The  same  might  be  said  of  the  Cascade  mountains  of  Oregon,  so  that  the  warm 
moisture-laden  winds  swept  unhindered    over  this  whole  fertile  region  of   the 


140  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

northwest,  giving  it  a  fine  climate  and  a  semi-tropical  flora  that  for  richness  and 
variety  has  never  since  been  ecjualed  on  the  coast. 

We  have  seen  that  all  through  the  Eocene  and  Miocene  periods  the  Willamette 
valley  was  covered  by  the  ocean,  with  only  off-shore  islands  to  mark  the  western 
boundary  of  the  future  Oregon.  At  the  close  of  the  Miocene  age  these  detached 
sections  became  the  United  Coast  range,  and  the  ocean  was  shut  out  not  only,  but 
the  valley  was  elevated  above  sea  level,  so  that  all  fossils  and  sea  shells  com- 
mon in  the  quarries  of  the  valley  represent  either  Eocene  or  Miocene  life.  If  the 
■  student  is  in  search  of  Eocene  shells,  they  can  be  found  near  Monroe,  Albany 
and  Corvallis,  in  the  range  of  hills  elevated  into  an  island  at  the  close  of  the 
Eocene.  If  he  wishes  to  collect  Miocene  fossils  they  can  be  found  throughout  the 
valley,  not  only  a  few  feet  below  the  surface  of  the  level  prairies,  but  most  of 
the  lower  hills  and  isolated  buttes  were  once  old  Miocene  sea  beds.  Also  in  the 
South  Yamhill  valley  above  Sheridan  and  in  the  hills  back  of  Clatskanie  in  Co- 
lumbia county.  Chehalem  mountains,  the  Eola  or  Polk  county  hills,  the  Waldo 
hills,  the  Linn  county  buttes  and  most  of  the  buttes  of  Lane  county,  were  ele- 
vated about  this  time.  In  some  of  these  elevations  the  eruptive  force  was  only 
strong  enough  to  leave  a  dome-shaped  hill,  over  which  the  sandstone  of  the 
Miocene  sea-bed  remains  unbroken ;  but  with  others  the  strain  was  great  enough 
to  tear  open  the  top  of  the  dome,  and  the  lava  which  poured  out  covered  the  sum- 
mit and  flowed  down  the  sides,  perhaps  leaving  hexagonal  blocks  of  basalt  to 
speak  of  those  days  of  violence. 

The  Pliocene  age  was  a  time  of  elevation  all  o\er  the  Western  United  States 
and  as  the  land  was  elevated  the  sea  beach  naturally  moved  farther  westward 
until  Oregon  became  much  wider  east  and  west  than  it  is  today ;  and  the  Pliocene 
sea  beach  with  its  fossil  fish,  shells,  sharks  and  seals,  must  now  lie  buried  in  an 
off-shore  line,  perhaps  far  out  at  sea. 

The  lakes  of  Eastern  Oregon  and  Washington  had  been  filled  up  and  drained 
off  until  onlj'  a  remnant  remained  of  their  once  great  expanse  of  waters.  But 
there  seems  to  have  been  an  extensive  lake  at  this  time  in  southeastern  Oregon, 
the  dimensions  of  which  have  not  been  accurately  determined,  but  it  may  have 
covered  the  same  area  as  the  later  Pleistocene  lakj,  indicated  on  our  geological 
map  as  covering  the  Silver  lake  region.  The  name  Fossil  Lake  has  been  applied 
to  a  part  of  this  basin,  but  we  will  here  use  the  lame  as  including  the  whole  of 
the  Pliocene  lake.  This  fossil  field  was  discoveied  many  years  ago  by  the  late 
Governor  AVhiteaker  and  through  his  kindness  explored  by  Professor  Condon 
and  later  by  Professor  Cope,  the  Paleontologist.  Here  Professor  Condon  made  a 
collection  of  beautifully  preserved  bird  bones  which  he  sent  east  to  be  identified, 
but  which  seemed  too  valuable  to  be  returned  and  were  finally  lost  to  the  rightful 
owner.  Here  at  Fossil  lake  lived  five  species  of  gulls,  two  of  terns,  eleven  species 
of  ducks,  four  of  geese  and  one  of  which  ' '  must  have  been  nearly  as  large  again 
as  our  common  wild  Canada  goose."  There  was  also  a  large  species  of  swan 
named  for  Governor  Whiteaker — Vitikeri.  There  were  great  horned  owls,  black 
birds,  coots,  herons,  crows,  eagles,  grouse,  prairie  hens  and  a  great  cormorant. 
"But  the  strangest  figure  upon  the  scene  among  the  birds  was  a  true  Flamingo." 

Perhaps  some  Klamath  high  school  student  while  spending  his  summer  vaca- 
tion, working  on  a  new  railroad  survey  or  an  irrigating  ditch,  may  come  across 
some  of  those  rare  fossils  now  covered  by  a  few  inches  of  desert  sand,  or  perhaps 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CRUST  OF  THK  EARTH 


TILDem"' 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  141 

even  this  thin  covering  has  been  blown  away,  leaving  the  bones  exposed  to  the 
summer  sun  or  winter  snow.  They  will  be  highly  prized  as  a  nucleus  for  a  high 
school  museum  or  gladly  received  at  the  State  University,  for  the  dishonest  gi-eed 
of  an  Eastern  scientist  has  left  Oi'egon  without  any  collection  of  bird  bones,  which 
are  so  rare  among  fossils  that  an  eminent  paleontologist  has  spoken  of  these  from 
Fossil  lake  and  the  Cretficeous  birds  of  Kansas,  as  being  the  only  fine  collections 
of  fossil  birds  in  the  United  States. 

In  this  Fossil  lake  region  many  mammal  bones  have  also  been  found,  includ-- 
ing  three  species  of  the  modern  one-toed  horse  and  a  great  sloth-like  animal  as 
large  as  the  grizzly  bear,  called  the  mylodon.  There  were  also  bears,  coyotes, 
rabbits,  gophers,  otters,  beavers,  a  mammoth  elephant  and  at  least  four  kinds  of 
camel,  ranging  in  size  from  a  modern  camel  to  the  smaller  auehenia.  Most  of 
these  animals  have  also  been  found  in  a  narrow  lake  in  the  Upper  John  Day  val- 
ley, although  bird  bones  are  there  extremely  rare. 

During  the  Pliocene  age,  especially  near  its  close  there  was  great  activity 
in  mountain  building  on  our  coast,  not  in  the  elevation  of  new  ranges,  for  the  Cas- 
cades and  Sierra  and  the  Coast  mountains  were  all  in  place,  but  upon  the  broad 
dome-shaped  basement  story  of  the  Cascades  a  grand  super-structure  was  now 
built  up,  for  it  is  to  the  Pliocene  we  owe  much  of  the  grandeur  of  the  Cascades 
and  High  Sierra  mountains.  For  their  lofty  summits,  their  towering  peaks  and 
castles,  their  volcanoes  and  grand  snow  peaks  we  are  largely  indebted  to  the  Plio- 
cene and  the  following  Pleistocene  period. 

We  have  noted  the  great  outpouring  of  lava  from  cracks  or  fissure  eruptions 
and  that  the  fine  ashy  sediments  in  which  the  Eocene' and  Miocene  leaves  were 
buried  is  proof  that  volcanoes  then  existed,  probably  in  the  Cascade  and  Cali- 
pooya  mountains;  but  the  Oregon  portion  of  the  Cascade  range  was  then  not  of 
sufficient  elevation  to  obstruct  the  ocean  breeze  in  its  progress  toward  eastern 
Oregon.  The  moisture-laden  clouds  had  kept  the  lake  shores  and  hillsides  green 
with  rich  and  luxuriant  forest  even  to  the  close  of  the  Miocene.  But  during  the 
Pliocene  all  this  was  changing,  the  Cascade  mountains  were  becoming  a  lofty 
mountain  range,  the  climate  was  cooler,  eastern  Oregon  and  Washington  were 
being  ti-ansformed  into  a  high  table  land  and  a  fine  grazing  country,  over  which 
roamed  herds  of  wild  horses  and  camels.  But  the  luxuriant  forests  were  slowly 
retreating  toward  the  south.  For  the  whole  North  Temperate  Zone  was  being 
elevated  and  the  cold  of  the  glacial  period  was  gradually  creeping  over  the  land. 

THE  PLEISTOCENE  AGE 

When  finally  the  Pliocene  had  passed  and  the  Pleistocene  with  its  glacial  pe- 
riod had  covered  most  of  our  northern  states  with  a  sheet  of  ice  and  snow,  "Ore- 
gon was  not  under  a  continuous  mantle  of  ice  but  had  many  independent  glaciers 
of  its  own."  Remnants  of  these  still  remain  in  place  and  the  previous  existence 
of  others  is  proven  by  ice  scratches,  terminal  moraines  and  other  evidence  of  gla- 
cial action  found  in  many  of  our  mountain  valleys.  The  glaciers  of  Rainier. 
Adams,  Hood,  Jefferson,  Three  Sisters  and  Mount  Mazama  were  much  greater 
than  now.  Lindgren  tells  us  the  Eagle  Creek  mountains  and  the  Elkhorn  and 
Greenhorn  mountains  all  had  their  glaciers.  Russell  writes  of  glaciers  in  the  Stein 
mountains.    A  glacier  was  plowing  its  way  over  the  hills  .just  back  of  The  Dalles. 


142  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

There  were  glaciers  in  tlie  McKenzie  valley  and  Mohawk  valley.  The  Willam- 
ette valley  was  high  table  land  with  glaciers  reaching  to  its  borders.  Puget 
sound  was  dry,  with  glaciers  plowing  across  its  valley  near  the  present  cities  of 
Seattle  and  Tacoma.  Dana  tells  us:  "The  river  channels  off  the  California  coast 
indicate  two  or  three  thousand  feet  of  added  height  to  the  coast,  probably  during 
the  glacial  period."  The  Straits  of  Fuca  and  the  Columbia  were  then  wearing 
deep  channels  "now  twenty  miles  out  at  sea."  Coos  bay  has  its  off-shore  channel, 
giving  added  evidence  of  the  coast  during  the  Glacial  age. 

Dr.  Diller  tells  us  that  during  the  Glacial  period  a  grand  snow  peak  towered 
above  the  present  Crater  lake.  This  mountain  has  been  christened  Mount  Mazama, 
and  once  rivaled  Shasta  and  Rainier  in  grandeur ;  it  was  not  only  a  snow  peak, 
but  was  also  an  active  volcano  during  the  Glacial  age.  Some  of  the  lava  that 
rolled  down  the  sides  of  the  mountain  and  cooled  into  volcanic  rock,  were  later 
scratched  and  scarred  by  the  ice  streams  or  glaciers  that  crept  slowly  toward  the 
valleys.  Finally  Dr.  Diller  tells  us  that  the  whole  summit  of  the  mountain  fell 
into  the  chasm  beneath,  a  chasm  left  by  the  outpouring  of  molten  material  from 
within.  This  chasm  is  one  of  the  wonders  of  our  state ;  for  after  engulfing  the 
whole  upper  part  of  the  mountain  there  still  remains  a  crater  six  miles  wide  and 
four  thousand  feet  deep.  If  man  was  living  in  Oregon  as  he  was  in  Europe  at 
this  time  the  shock  that  accompanied  the  engulfing  of  this  grand  snow  peak  and 
volcano  must  have  been  to  the  poor  superstitious  savages  a  most  frightful  expe- 
rience. 

How  long,  how  continuous  or  severe  was  this  Glacial  age  upon  our  coast  is  not 
accurately  known,  but  it  must  have  been  of  great  duration.  Most  of  the  animals 
probably  migrated  southward,  not  alone  on  account  of  cold,  but  to  an  even 
greater  extent  because  the  forests  and  green  herbage  had  moved  toward  the  south, 
and  the  herb-eating  animals  must  follow  vegetation,  and  if  the  herfbiverous  ani- 
mals migrated  the  flesh  eaters  must  follow  their  prey.  So  there  were  very  few 
animals  that  could  have  remained  during  the  Glacial  age. 

When  at  last  after  the  long  period  of  cold  had  passed  and  the  glaciers  of  Ore- 
gon had  slowly  retreated  toward  their  glistening  snow  peaks,  and  the  more  tender 
herbage,  shrubs  and  trees  had  crept  northward,  neither  the  animal  nor  vegetable 
life  that  returned  to  Oregon  was  the  same.  The  great  lapse  of  time,  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  years,  and  the  increasing  struggle  for  existence  had  worked  through 
the  laws  of  evolution  to  produce  different  animals  and  a  different  vegetation. 
The  camel  seems  to  have  disappeared,  and  the  herds  of  wild  horses  to  nave  re- 
turned no  more.  The  mammoth  elephant,  judging  from  the  frequency  of  its 
fossil  remains,  must  have  been  a  very  common  sight  during  this  post-glacial 
time  in  Oregon  and  Washington. 

The  forests  had  lost  much  in  richness  and  variety  of  forms.  Many  genera 
that  flourished  so  hixuriantly  in  the  upper  Miocene  or  Mascal  Flora  have  never 
returned  to  our  Pacific  Northwest. 

We  have  seen  that  the  Pliocene  and  Glacial  were  times  of  great  elevation, 
but  with  the  coming  on  of  the  post  Glacial  time,  there  was  a  gradual  sink- 
ing of  the  northern  part  of  the  United  States.  Not  only  did  the  Pacific 
States  lose  much  of  their  western  border,  recently  acquired  from  the  ocean, 
but  the  sea  gained  upon  the  land  until  the  water  stood  several  hundred  feet 
higher  upon  the  coast  than  it  does  today.     If  the  reader  ^^ashes  to  follow  this 


>;ativi;  ammals 

Upper— Saber-tootlieil   tiger  iliddle— Tlnee-toetl   horse  Lower— Anoiciit    camel 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  143 

latest  period  of  geological  histoiy,  lie  will  liiul  it  fully  considered  in  the  Chap- 
ter on  "The  Willamette  Sound"  in   I  ho  Two   Islands,  by  Prof.   Condon. 

On  our  map  j'ou  will  find  his  Willamette  Sound  represented  by  the  Pleis- 
tocene dots.  The  islands  of  that  grantl  body  of  water  as  shown  on  the  map  are 
largely  the  Miocene  hills,  as  Chehalem,  the  Eola  Hills,  the  Waldo  Hills,  and 
the  Buttes  of  Linn  and  Lane  counties.  Perhaps  at  times  the  lowest  of  these 
hills  were  covered  by  the  waters  of  the  Sound.  Lindgren  tells  us  Baker  Val- 
ley, too,  was  a  lake  during  this  Pleistocene  age.  He  believes  the  valley  is  the 
result  of  a  fault  at  the  eastern  border  of  the  Elkhorn  mountains.  If  you  turn  to 
the  map  you  will  find  the  elevated  beaches  described  in  the  Two  Islands  indicated 
by  a  Pleistocene  border  along  the  whole  coast  line  of  Oregon.  As  will  be  seen 
by  the  map  the  lakes  in  Oregon  were  very  much  larger  then  than  now. 

A  portion  of  southeastern  Oregon  is  of  peculiar  interest  as  belonging  to 
the  northern  part  of  the  "Great  Basin"  of  Western  America.  The  Oregon 
section  of  this  great  basin  lies  approximately  between  Stein  Mountain  on  the 
east  and  Walker  Range  on  the  west,  while  the  most  northern  portion  of  its 
boundary  reaches  Strawberry  Range  near  Canyon. 

The  Great  Basin  is  an  area  with  no  outer  drainage  and  any  excess  of 
moisture  which  falls  is  soon  evaporated  into  the  dry  atmosphere,  so  that  its 
lakes  rarely  overflow  and  offer  during  tlie  summer  months  become  changed 
into  dry  alkali  flats  or  playas. 

Riissell  tells  us  that  the  boundary  line  of  the  Oregon  portion  of  the  Great 
Basin  is  changeable.  For  .example  the  Klaipath  basin  used  to  be  covered  in 
the  Pleistocene  times  by  a  long,  narrow  lake,  "Probably  including  Klamath 
Marsh,  Upper  and  Lower  Klamath  Lakes  and  Rhett  Lake  with  much  of  their 
adjacent  shores,"  and  as  this  lake  has  an  outlet  the  whole  Klamath  basin  be- 
longed to  the  Great  Basin  structure  which  then  extended  to  the  Cascade 
mountains.  But  during  some  wet  season  this  lake  filled  its  basin  and  a  trick- 
ling stream  began  wearing  an  outlet,  first  as  a  small  brook  then  a  larger  stream, 
it  finally  grew  into  the  Klamath  river,  with  force  enough  to  cut  its  way 
through  the  moimtains  to  the  sea. 

On  the  other  hand  we  are  told  that  during  the  Pleistocene  the  Malheur 
and  Harney  Basin  was  filled  with  a  great  lake  which  was  drained  by  the 
Malheur  river,  but  a  later  outflow  of  molten  lava  ran  across  the  outlet  form- 
ing a  dam  of  volcanic  rock  through  which  it  can  not  break  and  over  which  it 
can  not  flow.  Thus,  having  no  outlet,  Harney  and  Malheur  Lakes  and  Basins 
are  now  added  to  the  Oregon  section  of  the  Great  Basin. 

Since  so  much  has  been  written  of  faults  in  connection  with  the  cause 
of  the  earthquake  in  California  we  may  find  fresh  interest  in  studying  the 
faults  so  common  in   this  portion  of   Oregon. 

Russell  tells  us  this  region  has  been  cracked  and  broken  by  faults  into 
long,  narrow  blocks  running  nearly  north  and  south.  Some  of  these  "Oro- 
graphic Blocks"  have  been  pushed  up,  others  dropped  down,  but  most  of  them 
have  been  tilted  up  on  edge,  the  top  of  the  block  forming  a  gentle  slope  away 
from  the  uplifted  side.  A  fine  example  of  this  "Block  Mountain"  type  is 
found  in  Stein  mountain  in  southei'n  Harney  county.  Its  precipitous  eastern 
face  stands  five  or  six  thousand  feet  above  Alvord  lake  and  valley  at  its  base. 
This  lake  is  deepest  next  the  face  of  the  precipice  for  the  Alvord  valley  itself 


144  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

is  only  the  top  of  another  faulted  block  which  slopes  gradnally  upward  toward 
the  east. 

If  a  small  displacement  along  old  fault  lines  could  cause  such  a  disastrous 
earthquake  as  recently  visited  California,  what  a  terrible  shaking  Oregon 
must  have  experienced  when  five  or  six  thousand  feet  of  Eocene  and  Miocene 
strata  sediment  and  columnar  basalt  were  fractured,  dislocated  and  heaved 
upward  into  a  great  lonely-looking  mountain.  But  it  seems  most  probable 
that  this  was  accomplished  by  many  successive  faultings  along  the  same  line  of 
fracture,  rather  than  by  one  mighty  upthrow.  But  Stein  mountain  is  not  the  onlj' 
block  mountain  in  this  region.  Russell  tells  us  that  most  of  the  lakes  of  Lake 
County  lie  at  the  base  of  the  precipitous  face  of  a  faulted  mountain.  Summer  and 
Abert  lakes,  as  well  as  the  dried  up  Alkali  lake,  (now  owned  and  worked  for  soda 
by  the  American  Soda  Products  Co.)  are  good  samples  of  these  huge  faults. 

America  has  been  designated  as  the  Cradle  of  the  Camels  by  Professor 
William  B.  Scott,  of  Princeton  University. 

"Camels  have  been  found  in  almost  every  part  of  the  world,"  he  says, 
"but  I  believe  they  originated  on  this  continent  and  passed  into  the  Old  World 
at  one  of  the  times  when  this  and  other  continents  were  joined  by  the  filling 
up  of  Bering  Straits." 

This  theory  of  the  filling  up  of  Bering  Straits  has  been  used  by  the  profes- 
sor also  in  explaining  the  similarity  of  structure  in  animals  which  would  seem 
to  have  been  at  one  time  or  other  indigenous  both  to  the  far  north  and  the 
far  south.  Bears  at  one  time  were  supposed  to  have  originated  here,  but  scien- 
tists say  now  they  lived  first  in  the  old  countries  and  migrated  here  in  one  of 
the  distant  ages  when  the  straits  were  closed  and  made  a  natural  passageway 
into  the  country.  The  disappearance  of  the  great  prehistoric  creatures  which 
once  roamed  the  earth  the  professor  attributes  to  the  introduction  of  new  dis- 
eases rather  than  to  an  exhaustion  or  devolution  of  type. 

Probably  the  most  interesting  part  of  the  work  of  geologists  and  paleontolo- 
gists is  the  tracing  out  the  similarity  between  the  animals  that  lived  on  the  earth 
millions  of  years  ago  and  the  animals  on  the  earth  now.  The  ancient  horse 
looked  more  like  a  goat  than  the  horse  now  in  use.  Some  of  them  had  three 
toes,  and  some  four,  with  a  long  head  and  round  ears.  The  ancient  camel 
was  a  sort  of  a  cross  between  the  camel  and  giraffe  that  now  exists.  All  these 
differences  aiid  peculiarities  have  to  be  studied  out  from  the  remains  of  the  ani- 
mals found  in  the  rocks.  Many  of  the  animals  of  ancient  geologic  times  were 
far  larger  than  anything  on  the  globe  now.  There  were  Mastodons  here  in 
Oregon,  fifteen  feet  in  height,  with  tusks  three  times  as  long  as  the  present  day 
elephant.  There  were  huge  unwieldy  lizard  like  beasts  called  Dinosaurs,  thirty 
feet  in  length,  and  sabre  toothed  panthers  or  tigers,  the  most  savage  beast  the 
earth  ever  produced.  The  numbers,  variety  and  size  of  land  animals,  sea  ser- 
pents, lizards  and  bird-life  of  ancient  times  far  exceeded  anything  known  to 
the  age  of  man. 

THE   AGE   OP    MAN 

In  the  order  of  their  creation,  or  evolution,  or  how  they  got  on  the  Earth, 
the  reptiles  and  fishes  came  first;  then  the  land  animals,  and  birds;  and  finally 


DIXASAll!     LIZARD     :!0   FKKT   IX   I.KXtiTfl 

MASTODOX,    1,-.    FKKT    IITCU 

oi!K(;ox  lUiixiH  Ki;iis 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  145 

MAN.  It  has  taken  luillions  of  years,  nobody  eau  guess  witliin  a  iiiillioii  years 
how  long  it  has  taken,  to  work  out  the  grand  scheme  of  creation  as  it  now  exists, 
before  the  eyes  of  living  men.  After  all  the  animal  life  whose  bony  remains 
are  locked  uj)  in  solid  rock  or  buried  thousands  of  feet  deep  under  deposits  of 
earth  and  gravel  had  passed  away,  the  area  of  Oregon  was  covered  over  with  an 
ice  cap  thousands  of  feet  deep.  What  change  in  the  Earth,  or  the  heavens, 
clianged  ancient  Oregon  from  the  balmy  climate  producing  figs  and  palm  trees 
to  tliat  of  a  frigid  region  of  continental  ice  can  never  be  known.  That  the 
glacial  age  lasting  for  thousands,  possibly  a  million  years,  did  exist,  is  amply 
proved  by  the  testimony  of  the  rocks  on  all  our  mountain  peaks.  After  the 
ice  age  then  came  Man. 

Probably  the  most  important  discoveries  ever  announced  in  the  field  of 
American  archaeology  are  contained  in  the  newly  pu})lished  fifth  volume  of  the 
reports  of  the  Peabody  museum.  Harvard  University. 

In  this  volume  Ernest  Volk,  of  Trenton,  New  Jersey,  published  the  evidence 
he  has  discovered  showing  the  existence  of  man  at  the  time  of  the  glacial 
epoch  in  the  Delaware  valley,  state  of  Delaware.  This  means  that  man  existed 
in  America  at  a  prehistoric  period  which  has  been  placed  by  geologists  as  far 
back  as  400,000  years.  It  means  that  the  early  American  was  among  the  first 
men  on  earth,  instead  of  being  a  comparatively  late  comer,  as  the  majority  of 
scientists  have  maintained. 

During  the  last  twenty-five  years  Mr.  Volk  has  explored  hundreds  of  excava- 
tions made  by  himself  and  others  on  the  banks  of  the  Delaware  river,  which  in 
prehistoric  ages  was  two  or  three  times  its  present  width.  He  points  out  that 
the  characteristic  soil  formation  of  this  region  consists  of  (1)  a  layer  of  black 
soil  on  top  of  which  lived  the  Indians  who  were  here  when  white  men  first 
came;  (2)  below  this  the  yellow  drift  deposited  by  argillite;  tools  six  inches 
down  in  the  yellow  drift,  and  beneath  another  18  inches  of  black  soil. 

"It  contained,"  he  says,  "under  a  flat  slab  of  argillite,  a  beautiful  slender 
argillite  spear  head;  also  several  chipped  argillite  boulders,  argillite  chips  and  a 
number  of  quartzite  pebbles  broken  by  fracturing.  No  charcoal,  burnt  stone 
or  traces  of  fire  were  found.  The  yellow  soil  was  not  disturbed  below  the  work- 
shop, nor  was  there  any  connection  between  the  workshop  and  the  black  soil.'" 

Then  came  the  finding  of  human  bones  in  the  yellow  dirt  drift  on  Abbot's 
farm. 

"On  April  21,  1899,"  says  Volk's  report,  "two  distinct  heaps  of  human 
bones  were  found.  They  were  six  feet  below  the  present  surface,  and  rested 
upon  a  stratum  of  whitish  sand,  coarse,  clean  and  sharp,  six  inches  thick." 

The  implements  he  found  in  the  yellow  drift  were  all  of  argillite.  a  kind  of 
slate,  and  of  two  kinds  only,  one  for  penetrating,  the  other  for  cutting  and  scrap- 
ing. They  are  entirely  different  from  the  Indian  stone  implements,  which  are 
iiiMdc  of  chert,  jasper  and  many  other  materials,  and  show  a  high  degree  of 
workmanship. 

ECONOMIC   GEOLOGY 

Nature's  great  work  in  the  geological  up-building  of  this  region  has  given 
to  Oregon  its  different  climates  and  soils,  its  mines  of  gold,  silver,  copper,  iron. 


146  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

coal,  soda,  cement  and  building  materials,  its  grand  forests,  its  navigable 
rivers,  and  last  but  not  least,  its  incalculable  water  power — greater  than  that 
of  all  the  states  east  of  the  Missouri  river.  The  Oregon  mountain  peaks,  with 
their  connected  ranges,  now  conserved  by  government  control,  lofty,  grand  and 
forbidding,  will  furnish  wealth  and  comfort  beyond  estimate  or  comprehension. 
They  take  from  the  clouds  and  storms  of  winter  and  store  up  in  the  in- 
calculable millions  of  tons  of  snow  and  ice,  the  water,  which  being  released, 
by  summer  heat,  will  not  only  irrigate  and  fructify  the  vast  arid  plateaus  of 
central  Oregon,  producing  as  long  as  the  race  of  man  shall  exist,  the  bread, 
fruit,  and  meat  on  which  he  must  live,  but  also  furnish  the  electric  energy  to 
plow  the  land,  harvest  the  crops,  transport  the  goods  and  produce,  turn  the 
wheels  of  thousands  of  manufacturing  establishments,  and  lastly  but  not  least, 
heat  and  light  the  homes  of  millions  of  Oregon's  future  population.  For  a  hun- 
dred years  these  grand  Oregon  mountains  have  been  condemned  by  traveler, 
historian  and  economist  as  frowning  forbidding  mountain  wilds  of  use  only 
to  sportsmen  and  mountain  climbers.  But  the  Creator  of  the  Earth  builds 
wiser  than  men ;  and  the  truth  is  just  dawning  upon  the  minds  of  men,  that  in 
the  conservation  of  their  forests  of  timber,  their  incalculable  capacity  to  pro- 
duce electric  energy  and  a  health  giving  climate  the  Oregon  mountain  peaks 
and  ranges  is  Oregon's  greatest  asset  of  wealth  and  health. 


CHAPTER  VII 

1774—1805 

THE  EVOLUTIONARY   POLITICAL   MOVEMENTS   TOWARD   OREGON THE   PIONEER   AMERI- 
CAN PUSHING  WEST — GEORGE  ROGERS  CL.ARK  AND  OLD  VINCENNES WASHINGTON 

AND    JEFFERSON    CO-OPERATING    TO    HOLD    THE    MISSISSIPPI    VALLEY WASHING- 
TON   AND    JEFFERSON    PLANT    STAKES   TO    HOLD    OLD   OREGON. 

If  the  reader  cares  to  go  back  into  history  far  enough  to  find  out  how  our 
people  got  started  west,  he  will  find  that  the  same  blood  which  moved  out  of  and 
west  from  the  dark  forests  of  Germany,  crossed  over  the  North  sea  from 
Schleswig  to  the  shores  of  Britain  and  over-run  the  country  we  now  call  Eng- 
land, and  then  crossed  over  the  North  Atlantic  during  the  fifteenth  and  six- 
teenth centuries  to  the  poverty-stricken  soil  of  the  east  coast  of  America,  there 
began  over  again  the  same  development,  more  or  less  warlike,  to  capture  the 
Continent  of  North  America,  as  their  ancestors  had  utilized  in  the  conquest  of 
the  British  island.  Do  not  imagine  for  a  moment  that  this  is  a  far-fetched 
suggestion,  having  no  connection  with  the  Oregon  of  the  twentieth  century. 
The  blood  and  brains  which  planted  civilization  in  England,  just  as  surely 
planted  the  same  forces  in  the  wilds  of  America  and  then  pushed  on  westward 
to  the  Alleghanies,  to  the  Ohio,  to  the  Mississippi,  to  the  Rocky  mountains, 
and  finally  to  Oregon.  And  as  the  new  life  and  surrounding.s  of  old  Eng- 
land developed  out  of  the  Teutonic  blood  which  came  to  its  shores  as  robbers — 
new  laws,  customs  and  a  higher  civilization,  so  likewise  did  the  new  world  of 
America  develop  out  of  these  descendants  from  ancient  Germany,  still  newer 
laws,  higher  ideals,  and  a  more  perfect  civilization  which  over-run  the  wil- 
derness west  and  conferred  upon  Oregon,  the  perfect  flower  and  fruit  of  a^l  the 
trials,  struggles,  sacrifices  and  labors  of  the  race  from  its  cradle  in  the  Black 
Forest  of  Germany  to  its  favored  home  by  the  sundown  seas. 

And  as  the  Englishman  was  ditTerent  from  his  German  ancestors,  and  fis  the 
German  pushed  across  seas  westward,  and  the  Englishman  pushed  across  the 
seas  westward,  so  also  the  American  pushed  on,  and  on,  until  he  reached  a 
west  that  is  merged  with  the  east,  and  they,  each,  carried  their  laws  and  their 
civilization,  such  as  it  was,  with  them.  It  was  part  of  their  blood,  love  and 
spirit.  The  Roman  historian,  Tacitus,  who  wrote  about  eighteen  hundred  years 
ago,  and  who  was  celebrated  for  his  profound  insight  into  the  motives  of  human 
conduct  the  main  spring  of  character,  described  the  ancient  German  ances- 
tors of  the  English  as  a  nation  of  farmers,  pasturing  their  cattle  on  the  forest 
glades  around  their  villages  and  plowing  their  village  fields.  They  loved  the 
land  and  freedom;  and  freedom  was  associated  with  the  ownership  of  land. 

147 


148  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

They  hated  the  cities,  "and  lived  apart,  each  family  by  itself,  as  woodside, 
plain  or  fresh  spring  attracts  him."  That  description  written  only  a  hundred 
years  after  the  birth  of  Christ,  would  be  a  good  description  of  the  American 
pioneer  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific ;  and  of  thousands  of  families  in  Oregon 
today. 

And  so  we  follow  up  the  heart  and  core  of  this  great  movement  of  a  con- 
quering race  to  find  it  building  here  between  the  mountains  and  the  mighty 
ocean  the  grandest  foundation  histoiy  in  all  the  western  world.  A  history  our 
readers  should  not  onlj^  know  themselves,  but  one  they  should  delight  to  teach 
to  their  children. 

For  these  reasons  this  narrative  will  now  take  up  those  movements  of  popu- 
lation westward  which  have  more  of  the  political  and  governmental  interest 
and  direction  than  the  commercial  enterprises  described  in  other  chapters. 
Even  before  the  Revolutionary  war  began,  from  1774  to  1776,  the  pioneers 
of  Pennsylvania,  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  commenced  drifting  over  the 
Allegheny  mountains  into  what  is  now  West  Virginia,  Kentucky  and  Tennessee. 
And  during  that  war,  these  pioneers  in  the  Ohio  valley  rendered  a  great  service 
to  their  brethren  who,  under  the  lead  of  Washington,  was  making  heroic 
resistance  to  the  British  soldiers.  But  during  the  war,  as  a  matter  of  necessity, 
all  emigration  to  the  west  ceased.  Nobody  knew  what  the  outcome  would  be. 
Washington  could  spare  no  able-bodied  men  to  go  west  as  long  as  he  had  a  vin- 
dictive foe  in  his  front.  And  the  pioneers  already  in  the  west  had  all  they 
could  do  to  maintain  their  homes  and  position  against  the  Indian  savages,  set 
on  by  the  Canadian  British. 

But  even  then  the  leaven  was  working  in  the  minds  of  the  great  leaders 
of  the  people,  who  were  to  lay  the  foundations  of  this  mighty  nation,  to  take 
and  hold  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi.  More  than  once  the  question  was  put 
to  Washington  as  to  what  he  would  do  if  he  was  finally  defeated  and  driven 
back  by  the  British  army;  and  more  than  once  he  pointed  to  the  AUeghenies 
as  a  sure  defense  behind  which  he  could  lead  his  veterans,  and  there  forever 
defy  all  the  hosts  of  King  George  and  build  up  an  army  and  a  people  which 
would  swarm  back  over  the  mountains  and  drive  the  hated  English  into  the 
Atlantic  ocean.  It  was  to  the  west,  the  west,  the  vast  wilderness  west,  the  ex- 
hausted, starved,  tattered  and  torn  veterans  of  the  Continental  army  turned 
their  waning  hopes  to  find  a  haven  of  peace  and  safety  from  taxation  without 
representation.  Fortunate  it  was  for  America,  and  for  humanity,  that  our 
colonial  ancestors  had  for  their  leaders  the  three  greatest  men  ever  produced  in 
any  one  age  of  the  world. 

Washington,  the  all-wise  leader,  whose  great  soul  could  not  be  moved  by 
great  success  or  still  greater  defeat;  Franklin,  the  diplomat,  whose  profotmd 
wisdom  and  humanity  moved  the  whole  civilized  world,  and  whose  genius  com- 
pelled even  his  enemies  to  serve  his  cause;  and  Thomas  Jefferson,  the  statesman, 
seer,  and  greatest  colonizer  of  all  the  world.  With  the  three  men,  supported 
by  the  self-sacrificing  and  invincible  soldiers  of  the  Continental  army,  success 
of  the  king  was  an  utter  impossibility.  Our  forefathers  had  right,  justice,  the 
sea  and  the  land,  yea,  also  the  mountains  on  their  side.     They  would  not  fail. 


No.  1— ROBERT  CAVALIER  DE  LA  SALLE,  explorer  anrl  .■ol.nusl.  who  in  lC,s:.>  h, listed 
the  flag  of  France  in  Louisiana,  chiiming  the  country  of  a  tliousand  rivers   for  liis  Iving 

No.  2— THOMAS  JEFFERSON,  who  as  second  President  of  the  United  States  [)iircliased 
the  country  from  FraiKc 

No.  :;'  i:K\1:L'  \L  (:I',ii|;i;I'  I;iii.I:i;s  CLARK.  who  with  a  handful  of  braye  Kentucky 
pioneers,  caplinrd  th.    \l  i--i--i|i|ii   \,ill.  \    imni  the  British  and  held  it 

No.  4  .\LIA  AN  |)i;i;  \L\(  l\  lA/.  1 1;.  lirst  white  man  to  reach  the  Pacific  ocean  over- 
land, .July,   17'J3 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  149 

No!  as  well  the  tall  and  pillared  Allegheiiies   fall — as  well  Ohio's  giant    lide 
roll  backward  on  its  mighty  track. 

"For  freedom's  liattle  onee  liegliu, 
Be(|iieathed   from  bleeding  sire  to  son, 
is  ever  won." 

The  idea  of  a  great  western  movement  to  hold  an  empire  of  rieli  land  for 
the  teeming  millions  of  men  that  were  to  come  after  them,  was  the  idea  of 
George  Washington  and  Thomas  Jefferson.  These  two  men  did  not  always 
agree.  And  at  least  one  of  them  was  a  little  jealous  of  Washington's  great 
name  and  fame.  But  on  the  western  movement  they  did  agree.  Of  all  the 
great  leaders  of  the  rebellion  against  the  British  king,  Washington  only  had 
been  west  of  the  AUeghenies  and  knew  something  of  the  great  possibilities  of 
the  Oliio  valley.  Jefferson  knew  of  it  only  from  pioneer  reports  and  French 
newspapers  which  he  could  read  and  translate  for  himself.  But  he  was  con- 
tinually reading  and  thinking,  and  dreaming  of  the  vast  illimitable  west,  away 
west,  west,  west  to  the  Paeitio  ocean.  At  that  time,  while  Washington  was  lead- 
ing the  Continental  soldiers  and  straining  every  nerve  to  beat  back  the  Brit- 
ish arms,  Jeft'erson  was  stirring  up  trouble  for  the  British  by  inciting  the  Vir- 
ginians to  support  George  Rogers  Clark  in  his  plans  against  the  British  in  the 
Ohio  valley.  In  driving  the  French  out  of  Canada,  the  British  had  come  into 
possession  of  old  Vincennes  on  the  Wabash  and  other  fur  trading  stations  and 
French  forts  south  of  the  great  lakes.  The  British  general,  Hamilton  (known 
in  W^estern  Indian  war  literature  as  the  '"hair  buyer,"  from  his  alleged  practice  of 
buying  the  scalps  of  murdered  pioneers  from  the  Indians),  was  in  possession 
of  the  fort  at  Vincennes  with  a  garrison  of  eighty  British  soldiers  and  a  con- 
tingent of  Indian  allies.  Clark  was  then,  November,  1778,  in  Kentieky,  as 
a  pioneer  Indian  fighter,  and  hearing  through  one  Francis  Vigo,  an  Italian 
fur  trader,  that  in  the  next  spring  Hamilton  intended  to  attack  the  Ameri- 
can settlers  in  Kentucky,  he  (Clark)  resolved  to  forestall  his  foe  and  set  to 
work  enlisting  a  force  of  men  to  march  upon  Vincennes  during  the  winter,  and 
surprise  and  capture  Hamilton  and  his  whole  outfit.  To  carry  out  this  dare- 
devil exploit,  Clark  had  to  rely  wliolly  on  his  own  resources,  which  were  prac- 
tically summed  up  in  the  individual  person  of  George  Rogers  Clark,  and  his 
brains,  courage  and  energy.  He  had  not  heard  from  or  received  any  aid  from 
his  friends  and  abettors  in  Vii-ginia  for  a  year ;  and  there  was  but  a  scant  sup- 
ply of  powder  and  lead  in  all  the  settlements  in  Kentucky  for  any  purpose. 
But  with  Clark,  to  resolve  was  to  act;  and  so  he  set  to  work  enlisting  men  and 
building  boats  and  soon  had  a  little  army  on  its  way  down  the  Ohio  with  their 
trusty  rifles.  Leaving  a  part  of  his  force  to  patrol  the  river  and  look  out  for 
an  attack  in  his  rear,  he  marched  the  rest  of  his  men  overland  to  the  old  French 
fort  at  Kaskaskia,  Illinois.  Here  his  polite  demeanor  and  address  cap- 
tured the  French  and  half-breeds,  and  especially  the  Creole  girls,  and  all 
united  to  secure  additional  recruits  to  his  banner — the  banner  of  George  Rogers 
Clark,  for  there  was  not  at  that  time,  a  single  American  flag  in  all  America, 
west  of  the  Alleghany  mountains.  After  a  few  days  rest,  and  by  these  means, 
Clark  had  gathered  together  a  motley  band  of  one  hundred  and  seventy  Ken- 


150  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

tuekians,  half-breed  French,  Creoles  and  stragglers  that  looked  anything  else 
than  a  military  force  to  attack  a  fort  defended  by  trained  soldiers,  amply  sup- 
plied with  cannon  of  that  period,  and  full  supplies  of  muskets  and  ammuni- 
tion. On  the  7th  of  February,  1779,  Clark  marched  his  little  army  out  of  old 
Kaskaskia,  the  whole  village  escorting  and  encouraging  the  men,  and  the  good 
Jesuit  priest,  Gibault,  adding  his  blessing  and  absolution  on  all  those  brave 
volunteers.  It  was  in  the  depth  of  winter  and  icy  cold,  in  addition  to  which  a  con- 
tinued downpour  of  rain  flooded  the  whole  country  and  made  an  inland  sea  of  the 
"Wabash  river,  which  they  had  to  cross  at  one  place  with  only  a  few  canoes, 
most  of  the  men  wading  in  ice  cold  water  up  to  their  arm-pits  and  carrying 
their  guns  and  powder  horns  over  their  heads.  But  they  finally  reached  their 
goal.  To  such  men,  nothing  was  impossible.  Clark  reached  Vincennes  with- 
out informing  the  town  or  fort  of  his  approach.  He  surrounded  the  town  in 
the  night  and  after  a  short,  sharp  and  decisive  attack  in  the  morning,  the 
British  general,  Hamilton  surrendered.  Clark  paroled  the  men,  but  sent  Ham- 
ilton under  guard,  to  Virginia,  where  he  was  kept  in  jail  at  Richmond  for  two 
years.  Taken  altogether,  this  exploit  of  George  Rogers  Clark  was  the  most 
reckless,  daring,  dangerous  and  successful  military  expedition  in  the  whole 
course  of  the  revolutionary  war,  or  of  any  war.  And  in  its  results  it  accom- 
plished more  for  the  United  States  than  any  other  one  military  movement  or 
battle  in  the  war.  For  without  this  successful  venture  of  Clark's,  the  British 
would  have  held  the  Mississippi  valley  until  the  end  of  the  war,  and  by  the  treaty 
of  peace,  England  would  have  most  surely  secured  everything  west  of  the  Al- 
leghany mountains.  The  success  of  Clark  enabled  our  peace  commissioners, 
Franklia,  Jay  and  Adams,  to  claim  that  Clark  had  driven  the  British  out  of 
the  Mississippi  valley  and  successfully  held  it.  So  that  the  boundary  line  be- 
tween the  American  possessions  and  the  English  was  established  on  the  line  of 
the  great  lakes  west  to  the  headwaters  of  the  Mississippi  river,  instead  of  at 
the  Alleghany  mountains.  By  this  grand  coup  in  the  western  wilderness, 
Clark  added  to  the  United  States  all  the  territory  out  of  which  has  been  carved 
and  populated  the  seven  great  states  of  Ohio,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Indiana, 
Illinois,  Michigan,  Wisconsin  and  half  of  Minnesota.  This  was  the  first  great 
advance  of  the  American  flag  from  the  inhabited  portions  of  the  original  col- 
onies, moving  westward.  And  it  was  wholly  and  purely  a  movement  to  secure 
more  territory,  and  wholly  based  on  political  reasons  and  not  influenced  by 
any  commercial  motive  or  interest. 

It  has  been  the  puzzle  of  historical  writers  for  more  than  a  century  to  account 
for  the  attitude  of  Washington  to  George  Rogers  Clark.  Washington  was  per- 
sonally acquainted  with  Clark  and  his  family,  of  which  none  stood  higher  in  old 
Virginia.  Washington  must  have  known  and  did  know  the  splendid  military 
abilities  of  Clark.  No  man  was  a  better  judge  of  what  other  men  could  accom- 
plish than  Washington.  With  the  exception  of  Greene,  Washington  had  not  a 
single  general  under  his  command  that  equaled  George  Rogers  Clark ;  and  no  one 
of  all  his  major  generals,  Greene  not  excepted,  accomplished  as  much  for  his 
country  as  Clark.  Then  why  did  Washington  keep  him  in  the  western  wilderness 
with  a  mere  handful  of  riflemen  to  be  called  out  as  the  desperate  straits  of  de- 
fense against  Indians  or  British  might  require  ?  The  only  answer  to  that  long  un- 
answered question  is,  that  of  all  men  possible  to  be  sent  or  kept  in  the  west  to  hold 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  151 

in  check  the  British  and  their  Indian  allies,  and  hold  the  valley  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi for  any  possible  result  of  the  war,  George  Rogers  Clark  was  the  first 
choice — the  man  that  could  be  trusted  and  who  was  equal  to  the  momentous  im- 
portance of  the  position.  Clark  amply  vindicated  the  confidence  of  Washington ; 
he  discharged  the  great  trust  and  responsibility  on  him  with  such  distinguished 
ability  as  to  immoi-talize  his  name  in  American  histoiy,  and  in  the  annals  of  those 
who  have  covered  their  names  with  glory  in  defense  of  liberty  and  just  laws.  And 
the  pity  of  it  all  is,  that  his  great  service  to  his  country,  and  to  his  nation,  wore 
never  appreciated,  recognized,  rewarded  or  honored;  and  that  one  of  the  grand- 
est of  our  national  heroes,  and  one  of  the  nation's  greatest  benefactors  should 
have  died  in  poverty  and  neglect. 

On  the  4th  day  of  March,  1801,  Thomas  Jefferson  was  inaugurated  as  the 
third  President  of  the  United  States.  Jefferson  had  not  taken  a  prominent  part 
in  the  successful  rebellion  which  had  severed  the  colonies  from  the  mother  coun- 
try. He  had  not  taken  a  part  in  making  the  constitution  under  which  the  people 
were  organized  into  a  nation  of  free  men;  and  he  had  been  anything  but  a  har- 
monious prime  minister  of  Washington's  cabinet.  It  looked  to  the  historian  as 
if  Jefferson's  fame  would  be  limited  to  his  leading  part  in  drafting  the  immortal 
Declaration  of  Independence.  But  there  was  seething  in  his  active  brain  a  great 
idea;  the  idea  of  extending  the  nation's  boundaries  from  ocean  to  ocean.  Having 
a  natural  taste  for  scientific  studies,  he  longed  to  know  what  the  great  unfath- 
omed  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains  might  contain.  He  had  endeavored  to  organ- 
ize a  geographical  society  to  explore  the  western  wilderness  in  the  interest  of 
scientific  discovery,  but  received  but  little  encouragement  from  Americans.  But 
as  soon  as  the  independence  of  the  colonies  was  secured  he  endeavored  to  enlist 
General  George  Rogers  Clark  in  an  exploring  expedition  to  the  Pacific  coast,  and 
on  December  4,  1783,  wrote  to  General  Clark,  saying: 

"I  find  they  have  subscri,bed  a  very  large  sum  of  money  in  England  for  ex- 
ploring the  country  from  the  Mississippi  to  California.  They  pretend  it  is  only 
to  promote  knowledge.  I  am  afraid  they  have  thoughts  of  colonizing  in  that 
quarter.  Some  of  us  have  been  talking  here  in  a  feeble  way  (the  Geographical 
Society)  of  making  the  attempt  to  search  that  country;  but  I  doubt  whether  we 
have  enough  of  that  kind  of  spirit  to  raise  the  money.  How  would  you  like  to 
lead  such  a  party?  Though  I  am  afraid  our  prospect  is  not  worth  asking  the 
question." 

But  the  first  opportunity  he  got  to  set  anything  in  motion  that  might  bring 
him  any  knowledge  upon  the  subject  came  to  him  while  he  was  representing  the 
United  States  at  Paris  in  1786.  Jefferson  gives  an  account  of  it  in  his  autobiog- 
raphy as  follows: 

"While  in  Paris  in  1786,  I  became  acquainted  with  John  Ledyard,  of  Con- 
necticut, a  man  of  genius,  some  science,  and  of  fearless  courage  and  enterprise. 
He  had  accompanied  Captain  Cook  in  his  voyage  to  the  Pacific,  had  distinguished 
himself  on  several  occasions  by  an  unrivaled  intrepidity  and  published  an  ac- 
count of  that  voyage  with  details  unfavorable  to  Cook's  deportment  towards  the 
savages  and  lessening  our  regi-ets  at  his  fate.  Ledyard  had  come  to  Paris  in  the 
hope  of  forming  a  company  to  engage  in  the  fur  trade  on  the  western  coast  of 
America.  He  was  disappointed  in  this,  and  being  out  of  business,  and  of  a  roam- 
ing, restless  character,  I  suggested  to  him  the  enterprise  of  exploring  the  western 


152  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

part  of  our  continent  by  passing  through  St.  Petersburg  to  the  Pacific  coast  of 
Siberia,  and  procuring  a  passage  thence  in  some  of  the  Russian  vessels  to  Nootka 
sound,  from  whence  he  might  work  his  way  across  the  continent  to  the  United 
States;  and  I  undertook  to  have  the  permission  of  the  Empress  of  Russia  solicited. 
He  eagerly  embraced  the  proposition,  and  Baron  Grimm,  special  correspondent 
of  the  Empress,  solicited  her  permission  for  him  to  pass  through  her  dominions 
to  the  western  coast  of  America.  But  this  favor  the  Empress  refused  considering 
the  enterprise  entirely  cliimerical.  But  Ledyard  would  not  relinquish  it,  per- 
suading himself  that  by  proceeding  to  St.  Petersburg  he  could  satisfy  the  Em- 
press of  its  practicability  and  obtain  her  permission.  He  went  accordingly,  but 
she  being  absent  on  a  visit  to  some  distant  part  of  her  dominions,  he  pursued  his 
course  across  Russia  to  within  two  hundred  miles  of  the  Pacific  coast,  when  he  was 
overtaken  by  an  arrest  from  the  Empress,  brought  back  to  Poland  and  there 
dismissed." 

This  shows  how  much  farther  ahead  in  the  outlook  towards  Oregon  Jefferson 
was,  compared  with  all  others.  He  had  started  Ledyard  to  cross  the  American 
continent  six  years  before  Gray  had  discovered  the  Columbia  river,  and  seven 
years  before  Mackenzie  had  crossed  the  Rocky  mountains.  It  is  not  only  a  mat- 
ter of  intense  interest  to  go  back  and  see  the  men  who  were  racking  their  brains 
and  exploiting  their  ideas  about  this  Oregon  of  ours  before  anybody  knew  there 
was  such  a  place ;  but  it  is  also  due  from  us  to  render  just  honors  to  those  men 
who  not  only  took  the  long  look  ahead,  but  followed  up  their  great  thoughts  by 
practical  statesmanship  to  secure  this  country  to  this  nation  and  for  our  habita- 
tion and  use. 

When  Jefferson  became  president  on  March  4,  1801,  he  supposed  that  the  vast 
territory  known  as  Louisiana  belonged  to  Spain.  The  Pope  had  given  it  to  Spain, 
De  Soto  had  claimed  it  for  Spain,  La  Salle  had  claimed  it  for  France  and  Prance 
had  ceded  all  its  rights  to  the  country  to  Spain.  And  upon  this  presumption, 
Jefferson  had  planned  to  open  negotiations  as  early  as  practicable  after  becoming 
president  to  purchase,  or  in  some  other  way  obtain  the  title  to  Loviisiana  for  the 
United  States.  And  he  did  not  go  about  this  great  business  in  a  hap-hazard  way. 
He  knew  perfectly  well  the  excited  state  of  feeling  that  existed  throughout  the 
whole  country  west  of  the  Alleghany  mountains.  Irritated  by  the  exactions  of 
the  Spanish  traders  at  New  Orleans,  and  feeling  their  whole  future  depended  on 
the  conditions  on  which  they  could  ship  their  produce  to  market  by  the  great 
rivers,  the  pioneers  of  the  west  were  ready  to  volunteer  and  drive  the  Spaniards 
out  of  the  country  by  force  of  arms,  just  as  they  had  been  ready  to  follow  George 
Rogers  Clark  in  1793-4  to  drive  out  the  Spaniards  and  turn  Louisiana  over  to  the 
French.  Therefore,  to  prepare  himself  as  President  of  the  United  States,  to  meet 
and  control  any  emergency  which  might  arise  in  this  delicate  and  great  national 
business,  as  soon  as  he  became  president  he  sent  a  secret  agent  to  old  St.  Louis 
to  find  out  the  state  of  feel  among  the  Spanish  at  that  frontier  town.  Jefferson 
desired  to  know  the  political  sentiments  of  those  old  world  pioneers  at  St.  Louis, 
and  especially  their  feelings  towards  the  people  of  the  United  States.  Trouble 
must  come  sooner  or  later  from  that  foreign  flag  flying  in  the  heart  of  the  great 
Mississippi  valley.  For  just  as  certain  as  George  Rogers  Clark  with  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy  men  had  captured  the  British  General  Hamilton  and  his  fort 
and  forces  at  old  Vincennes,  that  surely  would  some  other  western  filibustering 


TPIE  CJCNTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  15:3 

Clark  arise  and  gather  an  army  and  drive  the  Spaniards  out  of  St.  Louis.  The 
man  sek'eted  i'or  this  secret  mission  to  St.  Louis  was  John  IJaptistc  Ciiarles  Lucas. 
Ijiiras  was  a  Frenchman  that  had  studied  law  in  Paris;  had  some  acquaintance 
(here  with  Kranlilin  and  Adams  while  they  were  representing  America  during 
tlie  Revolutionary  war,  and  liaving  come  to  Amei'ica  after  the  war  made  the  ae- 
(|uaintauce  of  Albert  Gallatin,  Jefferson's  secretary  of  the  treasury,  who  intro- 
duced him  (Lucas)  to  the  president.  Lucas  was  an  ardent  supporter  of  repub- 
lican principles,  he  could  speak  the  Spanish  as  well  as  the  French  language,  and 
everything  pointed  him  out  as  the  man  capable  of  serving  Jefferson  and  his 
adopted  country.  Lucas  undertook  the  confidential  mission  to  St.  Louis,  and  af- 
ter sounding  the  drift  of  personal  and  political  feeling  at  that  point,  proceeded 
to  New  Orleans  on  the  same  mission,  making  his  confidential  reports  to  the  presi- 
dent only.  Upon  this  information  the  president  was  prepared  to  act,  and  did  act, 
as  the  sequel  showed.  He  was  prepared  for  war  if  the  French  liad  not  backed 
down  and  offered  to  sell  out  before  he  had  even  time  to  submit  an  ultimatum. 

That  the  services  of  Lucas  in  this  national  crisis  were  of  great  value  and 
highly  appreciated  by  the  president,  is  shown  from  the  facts  that  when  Lucas 
became  u  candidate  for  Congress  in  Pennsjdvania  in  1803,  the  Jefferson  admin- 
istration most  heartily  supported  him  and  secured  his  election;  and  after  Louis- 
iana was  formally  ceded  to  the  United  States  and  a  territorial  government  estab- 
lished in  Missouri,  the  president  appointed  Lucas  a  United  States  district  judge 
in  that  territory  where  he  was  heartily  welcomed  by  the  people.  For  although 
old  St.  Louis  had  a  Spanish  governor  and  Spanish  soldiers,  the  majority  of  the 
townspeople  were  French  and  under  the  influences  of  the  great  fur  traders,  Pierre 
Laclede,  August  Chouteau  and  others,  and  already  disposed  to  support  an  Ameri- 
can president  and  American  principles. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  surprising  that  after  all  this  careful  preparation  to  deal 
diplomatically  with  the  Spanish  King  for  the  purchase  of  Louisiana,  that  the 
president,  and  the  whole  country  with  him,  should  have  been  alarmed  beyond  ex- 
pression to  find  that  Spain  did  not  in  fact  own  Louisiana ;  but  that  the  great 
province  had  been  secretly  ceded  to  France  two  years  before  the  publication  of 
the  event.  This  discovery  produced  intense  excitement  throi;ghout  the  whole 
country,  and  especially  to  President  Jefferson.  It  could  not  be  divined  what 
purpose  France  had  in  view  in  taking  back  Louisiana  l)y  a  secret  treaty,  and 
everybod.y  assumed  that  sooner  or  later  the  nation  would  be  forced  into  a  war 
with  an  old  friend.  Writing  to  Livingston,  the  American  minister  to  Paris, 
April  18.  1802,  Jefferson  says:  "Every  eye  in  the  United  States  is  now  fixed  on 
the  affairs  of  Louisiana.  Perhaps  nothing  since  the  Revolutionary  war  has  pro- 
duced more  uneasiness  throughout  the  nation  and  in  spite  of  our  temporary 
bickerings  with  France,  she  still  has  a  strong  hold  on  our  affections.  The  ceSsion 
of  Louisiana  to  France  completely  reverses  all  the  political  relations  of  the  United 
States,  and  will  form  a  new  epoch  in  our  political  course.  There  is  on  the  globe 
one  single  spot,  the  possessor  of  which  is  our  natural  and  habitual  enemy.  That 
spot  is  New  Orleans,  through  which  the  produce  of  three-eighths  of  our  territory 
must  pass  to  market,  and  from  its  fertility  it  will  ere  long  yield  more  than  half 
of  our  whole  produce,  and  contain  more  than  half  of  our  inhabitants.  France 
placing  herself  in  that  door  assumes  to  us  the  attitude  of  defiance." 

Jefferson  read  the  future  as  if  by  inspiration.    The  great  waterways  pouring 


lU  ■  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

their  traffic  down  to  New  Orleans  at  tlie  least  possible  expense  were  building  up 
in  the  great  valleys  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers  an  empire  of  population. 
He  thought,  as  everybody  else  then  thought,  that  the  trade  of  even  Pittsburgh, 
only  four  hundred  miles  west  of  the  Atlantic  port  of  Philadelphia,  must  of  neces- 
sity float  down  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi,  and  go  out  to  the  world  by  way  of  New 
Orleans.  And  also  all  the  traffic  west  and  south  of  Pittsburgh  must  go  the  same 
way.  We  of  this  day  cannot  comprehend  the  consternation  with  which  that  view 
struck  the  president  and  all  of  the  people  of  the  west.  We  could  understand  it 
if  England  or  Japan  should  now  in  our  day  capture  Astoria  and  the  mouth  of  the 
Columbia,  and  proceed  to  levy  import  and  export  taxes  on  every  pound  of  Ore- 
gon produce  or  goods  which  goes  out  or  comes  in  over  the  Columbia  river  bav. 
The  steam  railroad  had  not  been  invented  at  that  day,  and  no  one  could  then  see 
any  future  for  the  great  west  except  through  nature's  outlet  by  the  great  river 
to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

Jefferson  has  been  by  many  rated  as  a  philosopher,  a  scientist,  a  dreamer  or 
schemer  rather  than  a  practical  statesman;  but  the  facts  show  that  when  the 
great  occasion  came  he  was  always  equal  to  it.  He  met  this  secret  treatv  move 
between  Spain  and  France  with  both  energy  and  wisdom.  He  instructed  his 
minister  to  Paris,  Robert  Livingston,  to  ascertain  at  the  earliest  moment  what 
France  proposed  to  do  with  the  island  of  New  Orleans,  as  the  city  was  then  called. 
And  as  matters  developed,  in  January  following  his  letter  to  Livingston,  he  ap- 
pointed James  Monroe,  minister  extraordinary  to  France,  with  instructions  to 
push  the  French  court  to  a  decision.  And  in  his  letter  of  instructions  to  Monroe, 
he  reminds  him  that  the  French  are  hard  pressed  for  money  to  complete  the  con- 
quest of  St.  Domingo,  and  that  these  circumstances  have  prevented  the  French 
from  taking  possession  of  Louisiana.  Everything  seems  to  have  been  considered 
fair  in  love  or  war  in  those  days  as  well  as  now,  and  Thomas  Jefferson  proposed 
to  make  the  most  of  it  for  his  country. 

On  February  3,  1803,  Jefferson  writes  again  to  Livingston:  "We  must  know 
at  once  whether  we  can  acqiiire  New  Orleans  or  not."  The  westerners  were  clam- 
oring for  New  Orleans  and  for  war.  The  same  sort  of  people  that  rallied  to  the 
appeal  of  Andrew  Jackson  ten  years  later  and  gave  the  British  such  a  terrible 
thrashing  below  New  Orleans,  were  now  ready  to  fight  the  French  if  they  dared 
to  come  and  take  the  country  they  had  bought  from  Spain. 

So  anxious  and  so  terribly  was  Jefferson  wrought  up  over  the.  condition  of 
affairs  that  he  tells  Monroe  in  the  letter  quoted:  "On  the  event  of  your  mission 
depends  the  future  destinies  of  this  republic.  If  we  cannot  by  a  purchase  of 
Louisiana  insure  ourselves  a  course  of  perpetual  peace,  then  as  war  cannot  be  dis- 
tant, we  must  prepare  for  it."  The  future  destiny  and  ownership  of  this  Oregon 
country  was  dangling  in  the  balance  right  then  and  there. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Napoleon  (then  ruling  France)  purposed  to  take 
possession  of  Louisiana.  A  military  force  of  twenty  thousand  men  was  on  the 
eve  of  embarking ;  and  Napoleon  had  decided  to  plant  this  force  as  a  colony  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  river;  the  strategic  point  to  wield  at  his  pleasure 
the  commerce  and  civilization  of  the  Atlantic  ocean.  A  petty  quarrel  with 
England  about  the  Island  of  Malta  in  the  Mediterranean  sea  deranged  his 
plans,  and  he  formed  another  chain-lightning-resolve — he  would  rival  Juliu.s 
Caesar  by  the  invasion  and  conquest  of  England.     But  to  do  this  he  dared  not 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OKEGON  155 

seud  his  veterans  to  New  Orleans;  for  England,  mistress  of  the  seas,  might  cap- 
ture his  men,  and  ships  atloat  and  wrest  New  Orleans  from  Prance.  The  great 
Napoleon  dropped  his  scheme  as  quickly  as  he  formed  it ;  and  as  he  badly 
needed  money  for  other  schemes,  he  turned  around  and  ottered  Louisiana 
for  sale  to  the  American  minister.  "Never  in  the  foi'tuncs  of  mankind," 
says  John  Quiney  Adams,  "was  there  a  more  sudden,  complete  and  pro- 
pitious turn  in  the  tide  of  events  than  this  change  in  the  purposes  of  Napoleon 
proved  to  the  administration  of  President  Jefferson."  So  convinced  was  Liv- 
ingston of  the  bad  faith  of  France  at  that  time,-  that  when  Monroe  reached 
Paris,  Livingston  declared  that  nothing  but  force  would  do;  "We  must  seize 
New  Orleans  by  military  force,  and  negotiate  afterwards."  What  then  was 
his  surprise  and  astonishment  when  he  proposed  to  purchase  the  trading  post 
of  New  Orleans,  to  find  the  French  minister  offering  to  sell  him  the  vast  terri- 
tory of  Louisiana,  New  Orleans,  the  great  rivers  and  everything  else  that 
France  claimed  in  America.  The  whole  tone  of  France  was  changed  at  once, 
and  the  bargaining  for  an  empire  of  land  went  merrily  as  a  marriage  bell.  Fif- 
teen million  dollars  was  the  price  agreed  upon  for  Louisiana  territory;  the 
largest  real  estate  transaction  in  the  world  from  the  beginning  of  the  human 
race.  It  conveyed  all  the  lands  in  the  states  of  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  Mis.souri, 
Iowa,  Kansas,  Nebraska,  three-fourths  of  Wyoming,  North  Dakota,  South 
Dakota,  half  of  Colorado,  Oklahoma,  Indian  Territory,  Utah,  half  of  Minnesota 
and  most  of  Montana ;  five  hundred  and  sixty-five  million  acres  at  a  price  of 
about  one  dollar  and  a  half  per  square  mile  of  land.  Napoleon  w^as  greatly 
pleased  with  the  sale  he  had  made,  and  said  to  the  American  minister.  "This 
accession  of  territory  strengthens  forever  the  power  of  the  United  States;  and 
I  have  given  to  England  a  maritime  rival  that  will  sooner  or  later  humble 
her  pride."  And  the  most  curious  thing  in  the  whole  transaction  was  that 
President  Jeffei-son  borrowed  the  money  from  English  bankers  to  pay  France, 
when  it  was  perfectly  plain  that  Napoleon  would  use  the  whole  sum  fighting 
England,  taking  a  most  outrageous  advantage  of  the  stupidity  of  the  English 
ministiy.  On  the  20th  of  December  following  formal  possession  of  the 
Province  of  Louisiana,  was  taken  by  the  American  Commissioners,  Wm.  C. 
Claiborne  and  General  James  Wilkinson,  and  the  tri-eolored  fiag  was  pulled 
down  to  wave  no  more  forever  over  American  soil. 

President  Jefferson  was  now  free  to  pursue  his  life  long  desire  to  know 
what  was  in  the  Far  West.  He  had  now  cleared  away  all  obstacles;  he  had 
added  to  the  national  domain  territory  enough  to  make  thirteen  more  great 
states;  he  had  opened  the  way  now  to  find  out  what  wa.s  in  the  far-off  Oregon 
country.  Oregon  had  been  in  his  mind  ever  since  he  had  started  Ledyard 
across  Asia  to  reach  and  explore  it.  And  that  is  the  reason  this  history  of  the 
Louisiana  purchase  is  pertinent  to  the  history  of  Oregon.  Without  Louisiana, 
the  United  States  could  never  reach  Oregon  and  without  Oregon,  there  would 
be  no  American  port  on  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

Here  we  connect  George  Washington  and  Thomas  Jeft'er.son  with  Oregon. 
While  Washington  was  fighting  the  British  in  the  Atlantic  coast  colonies,  he  did 
not  neglect  the  rear ;  but  kept  George  Rogers  Clark  in  the  Ohio  valley  to  hold  the 
Indians  in  check  and  watch  the  British  who  were  in  actual  possession  of  the  great 
Valley.     Jefferson  succeeded  Patrick  Henry  as  Governor  of  Virginia  and  held 


156  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

that  office  during  all  the  darkest  hours  of  the  Revolution ;  as  such  Governor  he 
succeeded  in  sending  to  Clark  such  limited  supplies  of  powder  and  lead  as  would 
keep  the  Ohio  valley  pioneers  in  ammunition  to  defend  themselves.  With  this 
slight  aid  Clark  exceeds  all  his  instructions  organizes  his  "hunting  shirt"  army, 
captures  old  Vincennes,  and  drives  the  British  out  of  the  Ohio  valley,  and  holds 
it  until  the  Treaty  of  Peace  with  England  gives  all  the  great  valley  east  of  the 
Mississippi  river  and  north  of  the  Florida  line  to  the  American  Colonies.  Both 
Washington  and  Jefferson  were  working  together  to  hold  the  west — ^Washington 
as  General  in  Chief  of  the  armies,  and  Jefferson  as  Governor  of  Virginia.  Wash- 
ington captures  the  British  army;  peace  is  declared  and  the  Treaty  gives  the 
Ohio  valley  clear  to  the  Mississippi  to  the  United  States.  Washington  is  elected 
President,  and  while  in  that  office  sent  out  the  Boston  Skipper,  Capt.  Robert 
Gray,  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes  armed  with  the  following  authority : 

"To  All  Emporers,  Kings,  Sovereign  Princes,  State  and  Regents  to  Their  Respec- 
tive Officers,  Civil  and  ililitary,  and  to  All  Others  Whom  It  May  Concern: 
'■'/,  George  Washingtan,  President  of  the  United  States  of  America,  do  make 
known  that  Robert  Gray,  Captain  of  a  ship  called  the  Columbia,  of  the  burden  of 
about  230  tons,  is  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  that  the  said  ship  which  he 
commands  belongs  to  the  citizens  of  the  United  States ;  and  as  I  wish  that  the  said 
Robert  Gray  may  prosper  in  his  lawful  affairs,  I  do  request  all  the  before-men- 
tioned, and  of  each  of  them  separately,  when  the  said  Robert  Gray  shall  arrive 
with  his  vessel  and  cargo,  that  they  will  be  pleased  to  receive  him  with  kindness 
and  treat  him  in  a  becoming  manner,  &c.,  and  thereby  I  shall  consider  myself 
obliged. 

"September  16,  1790— New  York  City. 

"Seal  U.  S.  George  Washington, 

"Thomas  Jefferson,  President." 

"Secretary  of  State." 

Under  that  authority  Capt.  Graj^  discovers  the  Columbia  river,  sails  in  over 
its  stormy  bar  and  raises  the  American  Flag  for  the  first  time  in  Old  Oregon. 

Time  passes  on  and  Thomas  Jefferson  succeeds  Washington  in  the  Presi- 
dential office.  Now  armed  with  the  National  authority  he  pushes  his  long  cher- 
ished plan  of  getting  control  of  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  river.  He  succeeds 
beyond  his  greatest  expectations,  and  gets  the  whole  of  Louisiana.  The  great 
transaction  is  scarcely  completed  than  his  ambition  to  get  to  the  Pacific  Ocean 
comes  foremost  in  his  thought;  and  we  find  him  ^^Titing  on  August  12,  1803,  a 
letter  to  John  Breckinridge,  who  was  Attorney  General  in  President  Jefferson's 
Cabinet  from  1805  to  1806,  from  which  is  taken  the  following  extract : 

"Our  information  about  the  country  (Louisiana)  is  very  incomplete.  We 
have  taken  measures  to  obtain  a  full  report  as  to  the  settled  part.  The  boundaries 
are  the  high  lands  on  the  western  side  of  the  Mississippi,  enclosing  all  its  waters, 
and  terminating  in  the  line  drawn  from  the  northwestern  point  of  the  Lake  of  the 
Woods  to  the  nearest  source  of  the  Mississippi,  as  lately  settled  between  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States.  We  have  some  claims  to  extend  on  the  sea  coast 
(on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico)  westwardly  to  the  Rio  Norte  or  Bravo,  and  later  to  go 
eastwardly  to  the  Rio  Perdido,   between  Mobile   and   Pensacola,   the  ancient 


THE  CENTENNIAL  IIISTOKY  OF  OREGON  157 

bouiulary  of  Louisiaii;i.  Tlicsc  claims  will  he  \\\r  suiiji-cl  of  negotiations  with 
Spain,  and  it,  as  soon  as  she  is  at  war  we  juisli  tlicm  strongly  with  one  hand, 
liolding  out  a  price  in  tlie  other,  we  shall  obtain  the  Floridas,  and  all  in  good  time. 
In  the  meanwhile,  without  waiting  for  permission,  we  shall  enter  into  the  exercise 
of  the  natural  right  we  have  always  insisted  on  w^ith  Spain,  to-wit:  That  of  a 
nation  holding  the  upper  part  of  streams,  having  a  right  of  innocent  passage 
through  them  to  the  Ocean.  We  shall  prepare  her  to  see  us  pracliee  on  this, 
and  she  will  not  oppose  it  by  force. ' ' 

And  under  the  doctrine  announced  in  that  letter,  Jefferson  immediately 
organized  the  Lewis  and  Clark  Expedition  which  made  its  way  across  Spanish 
territory  to  Old  Oregon,  and  connected  with  Gray's  discovery  under  Washing- 
ton's authority  at  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river,  thus  raising  under  the  au- 
thority of  these  two  great  Presidents  the  American  flag  from  Ocean  to  Ocean — 
and  planting  the  stakes  for  the  American  Title  to  Old  Oregon. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
183-t-18-16 

THE  PROVISIONAL  GOVERNMENT — A  COUNTRY  WITHOUT  LAWS  OR  CIVIL   GOVERNORS — 

THE  SCHEMING   OF    RIVAL   SECTS    AND  INTERESTS THE   GREAT    WORK   PERFORMED 

BY  THE  PIONEERS — THE  HEROIC  AGE  OP  OREGON. 

The  organization  of  the  Provisional  Government  at  Champoeg  on  May  2nd, 
18i3,  has  come  to  be  regarded  in  Oregon  very  much  as  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence adopted  on  July  4th,  1776,  is  regarded  throughout  the  Nation.  For 
fifty  years  this  remarkable  event  received  no  public  recognition  although  its  or- 
ganization was  a  part  of  the  records  of  the  State ;  and  was  known  only  to  the 
oldest  pioneers  as  a  veritable  fact,  and  to  others  as  a  matter  of  history. 

By  the  passage  of  a  resolution  at  a  meeting  of  its  board  of  directors  on 
December  16,  1899,  the  Oregon  Historical  Society  authorized  its  Committee  on 
Memorials  to  identifj'  and  mark  with  a  stone  monument  the  site  of  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Provisional  Government  at  Champoeg.  Gov.  T.  T.  Geer,  at  the 
request  of  Lewis  B.  Cox,  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Memorials  of  this 
Society,  secured  an  appropriation  of  three  hundred  dollars  at  the  session  of  the 
legislature  in  1900,  with  which  to  defray  the  expense  of  a  small  stone  monument. 
On  May  3d,  1900,  accompanied  by  Francois  Xavier  Matthieu,  the  only  survivor 
of  tlie  notable  meeting  of  fifty-seven  years  before.  Gov.  Geer,  with  the  aid  of 
I\Ir.  Matthieu  and  George  H.  Ilimes,  Secretary  of  the  Oregon  Pioneer  Association, 
identified  the  site  and  marked  it.  Afterwards  the  owners  of  the  premises  deeded 
a  small  piece  of  ground  to  the  Oregon  Historical  Society  in  trust  for  the  State, 
a  contract  for  the  monument  was  made,  and  on  May  2,  1901,  it  was  unveiled  in 
the  presence  of  several  thousand  people.  Judge  Charles  B.  Bellinger,  vice- 
president  of  the  Oregon  Historical  Society,  presided.  Gov.  Geer  made  an  intro- 
ductory address,  Harvey  W.  Scott  delivered  an  historical  address.  Rev.  Harvey 
K.  nines,  D.  D.,  made  an  address  on  the  "Missionary  Element  in  the  Making 
of  Oregon,"  and  Hon.  John  Minto,  a  pioneer  of  1844,  gave  an  address  on  "The 
Relation  of  tlie  American  Settlers  and  Mountain  Men  to  the  Provisional  Govern- 
ment. ' ' 

Since  1901  there  has  been  an  annual  celeliration  at  Champoeg,  and  with  each 
recurrence  of  the  event  a  number  of  persons  became  deeply  impressed  with  its 
historical  importance  and  imbued  with  the  determination  to  secure  sufficient 
ground  adjoining  the  monument  for  a  state  park.  Through  the  personal  efforts 
of  Mr.  Joseph  Buchtel,  beginning  six  years  ago,  aided  by  Mr.  Matthieu  and 
others,  tliis  has  finally^  eventuated  in  the  purchase  of  the  land  to  be  held  in 
perpetuity  by  the  state  as  a  memorial  of  the  founding  of  American  principles 

159 


160  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

and  policies  on  the  Pacific  coast.  For  these  reasons  it  is  deemed  worthy  and 
appropriate  to  devote  a  separate  chapter  of  this  book  to  an  examination  of  the 
circumstances  and  reasons  that  led  up  to  this  unique  pioneer  government — the 
only  one  of  its  kind  in  American  history. 

There  can  be  no  civil  government  anywhere  without  resolute,  independent, 
thinking,  self-reliant  men.  When  Hall  J.  Kelley  who  had  advertised  the  coun- 
try more  than  all  other  persons  or  agencies  combined,  reached  Oregon  in  1834, 
and  found  here  the  Methodist  Missionarj',  Jason  Lee,  there  were  already  in  the 
country  about  twenty-five  American  mountaineers,  who  had  drifted  into  the  "Wil- 
lamette Valley  as  trappers,  and  in  other  ways  not  necessary  to  mention^ — most  of 
whom  had  Indian  wives.  These  men  had  decided  to  stay  here  and  make  their 
homes  here.  Up  to  this  time  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company  had  discouraged  all  per- 
manent settlements,  even  of  their  own  retired  trappers  and  servants,  for  the  rea- 
son that  the  company  wished  to  preserve  Oregon  as  a  great  game  preserve — mere 
hunting  grounds.  Dr.  McLoughlin  had  set  aside  this  rule  in  the  case  of  Etienne 
Lucier,  who  wanted  to  go  to  farming  and  even  proffered  help  to  Lucier ;  but  did 
so  with  the  express  understanding  that  Lucier  should  be  kept  on  the  Fur  Com- 
pany's books  as  one  of  their  servants — and  not  as  an  independent  settler  or  citi- 
zen. And  that  rule  was  to  apply  to  all  Hudson's  Bay  Company  employees.  So 
that  it  was  plain  that  if  there  was  to  be  any  government  for  protection  of  politi- 
cal rights  outsi'de  of  the  control  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  (no  matter  what 
McLoughlin 's  private  opinions  were),  such  government  must  originate  with  and 
be  organized  and  maintained  by  the  Americans,  independent  of,  if  not  in  open 
opposition  to,  the  influence  of  the  Great  Fur  Company  monopoly. 

Naturally  enough  the  first  question  that  came  up  among  these  Americans 
would  be^  whose  country  is  this?  And  under  what  flag  and  government  are  we 
to  live  ?  They  could  see,  and  were  made  to  feel  that  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company 
represented  the  British  Government,  the  historical  and  implacaible  enemy  of  the 
government  they  preferred;  and  that  it  had  a  thousand  times  greater  ability  to 
prevent,  suppress,  and  destroy  any  organization  they  might  attempt  than  they 
had  to  build  it  up.  Any  organization  seemed  hopeless.  And  yet  the  desire  for, 
and  an  impulse  towards,  an  organization  was  manifested  among  these  rough  moun- 
taineers as  early  as  1834  when  they  found  an  educated  American  citizen  who 
might  become  a  leader  had  come  into  the  Willamette  Valley.  These  rough  unedu- 
cated mountaineers  were  not  destitute  of  the  natural  alertness  and  shrewdness 
which  comes  to  the  relief  of  men  in  desperate  circumstances.  But  on  the  con- 
trary their  trials  and  dangers  on  the  frontier,  and  with  the  Indians  had  developed 
and  quickened  their  perception  so  that  they  were  prompt  to  discover  their  true 
position  in  the  country.  They  were  not  interested  in  maintaining  Oregon  as  a 
game  preserve  for  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company.  They  could  see  nothing  in  that 
for  the  future  of  an  American  who  had  a  desire  to  live  as  his  fathers  had.  There 
was  nothing  in  trapping  beaver  for  the  Company  but  the  bare  living  which  the 
Company  employees  from  Canada  got  at  sixty  dollars  a  year.  That  did  not 
appeal  to  Americans.  And  so  the  line  of  cleavage  started.  The  Americans  look- 
ing forward  to  a  settled  country  devoted  to  agriculture,  with  schools,  towns, 
churches,  civilization  and  commerce.  The  H.  B.  Co.  and  the  Canadians  under  the 
influence  of  the  Company,  contented  and  determined  to  -keep  the  country  in  its 
then  unsettled  condition  until  the  British  Government  should  otherwise  decide. 


THE  NEW  YORK 
PUBLIC     "-■■■• 


ftSTOF: 
TILDEH 


THE  CHNTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  1(31 

And  here  at  lliis  jiiiirtiire  arose  tlie  coiile.sl  lieUveeii  the  I'rutestants  and  the 
Catholies.  'I'he  rroteslaut  Jiiissionaries  were  first  iu  the  Oregon  field.  They 
haii  eoiiie  out  to  save  the  Indians,  and  especially  the  Indians  that  had  been  hunt- 
ing for  the  ■■Book  of  Ileaxeii."  The  record  does  not  show  at  any  point,  in  meet- 
ings back  in  the  States,  or  in  any  wise  liere  in  Oregon,  that  the  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries had  at  any  time  considered  the  si)iritual  salvation  of  the  American 
mountaineers  like  ileek,  Newell,  Doughty  and  their  companions.  But  on  the  con- 
trary, as  these  mountaineers  had  a  very  low  opinion  of  Indians  in  general,  the 
Protestant  missionaries  rather  avoided  or  at  least  ignored  them  as  God-forsaken 
sinners,  whose  example  would  militate  against  the  conversion  of  the  heathen. 
But  the  Catholic  priests,  in  their  object  and  purpose  of  coming  to  Oregon,  occu- 
pied a  position  directly  opposed  to  that  of  the  Protestant  missionaries.  The 
Catholies  had  answered  a  call  from  their  fellow  religionists,  settled  in  the  Wil- 
lamette Valley.  They  were  brought  out  from  Canada  to  Oregon  by  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company  to  minister  to  the  Catholic  employees  of  the  Company  and  their 
discharged  employees  settled  in  Oregon — all  white  men,  or  half  white  men — 
members  and  communicants  of  the  Catholic  church.  That  the  Catholic  priests 
did  preach  to  and  teach  Indians  was  quite  true ;  but  that  was  not  their  motive  in 
coming  to  Oregon.  Father  De  Smet  was  the  Catholic  who  came  to  Oregon  to  con- 
vert the  Indians.  He  had  no  connection  with  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  and 
was  an  ardent  American  citizen  who  followed  the  American  flag  and  defended 
the  principles,  constitution  and  laws  of  the  American  government  under  all 
circumstances. 

Here,  then,  was  the  line  of  cleavage  between  the  Americans  and  Protestant 
missionaries  on  one  side,  and  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  (Englishmen)  and  the 
Catholics  on  the  other.  The  Catholic  priests  must  perforce  support  the  British 
side,  because  they  were  themselves,  as  also  all  their  membership,  subjects  of 
Great  Britain.  The  American  mountaineers  having  no  religious  associations 
must  perforce  support  the  Protestant  missionaries  because  they  were  all  Ameri- 
cans in  favor  of  holding  the  country  against  England  and  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Com- 
pany. From  the  time  Jason  Lee  came  over  the  mountains  in  18:54  until  the  time 
Vicar  General  Blanchet  came  in  1838,  the  question  of  a  government,  provisional 
organization,  or  preferably  territorial  organization  b.y  Congress,  was  talked  of  in 
a  general  way  as  a  desirable  movement  to  be  accomplished  sometime.  But  the 
settlers  w^ere  all  friendly  with  each  other  and  no  lines  were  drawn  until  the 
Catholic  leader  came  to  the  front.  He  was  at  once  discovered  to  be  a  man  of 
force  and  ability,  and  a  great  organizer.  If  Blanchet  had  not  come  to  Oregon 
there  would  not  have  been  a  contest  about  an  organization.  For  no  matter  how 
much  the  Fur  Company,  or  the  British  Government  might  have  been  opposed  to 
a  Provisional  Government,  there  was  no  man  on  the  ground  to  organize  the  forces 
against  it  but  Blanchet.  ]\IcLoughlin  was  at  the  head  of  the  Fur  Company  and 
had  all  the  ability,  and  all  the  resources,  and  far  more  than  Blanchet  to  organize 
opposition  to  an  American  organization  but  he  had  no  disposition  to  do  so.  Why 
he  did  not  do  so  has  always  been  a  puzzle  to  historians.  He  was  condemned  by 
his  employers  and  lost  his  position  and  a  salary  of  twelve  thousand  dollars  a 
year  because  he  befriended  Americans  who  were  in  want  for  food  and  clothing. 
But  he  might  have  humanely  assisted  every  naked  starving  American  immigrant, 
as  he  did,  and  yet  effectively  opposed  the  organization  of  a  Provisional  govern- 


162  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

meut.  But  he  did  not  oppose  it.  And  his  course  was  such,  that  when  the- Brit- 
ish oificers,  Warre  and  Vavasour,  made  their  military  reconnoissance  in  1845, 
they  say  in  their  report  to  the  British  Government : 

' '  In  conclusion  we  must  beg  to  be  allowed  to  observe,  with  an  unbiased  opin- 
ion, that  whatever  may  have  been  the  orders,  or  the  motives  of  the  gentlemen  in 
charge  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company's  posts  on  the  west  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains their  policy  has  tended  to  the  introduction  of  the  American  settlers  into 
the  country." 

The  only  explanation  of  McLoughlin's  course  consistent  with  common  sense, 
and  his  honor  as  a  man,  is  that  he  did  not  regard  himself  as  the  Agent  of  the 
British  Government  to  oppose  settlements  by  the  Americans,  although  he  was  a 
British  subject.  And  in  the  light  of  what  McLoughlin  did  in  apparent  opposi- 
tion to  British  claims  to  the  country,  and  his  subsequent  course  in  becoming  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States,  there  should  be  no  doubt  that  he  thought  that  the 
United  States  had  a  just  right  to  the  country,  and  that  settlement  and  organiza- 
tion under  American  laws  and  ideas  would  be  best  for  the  country  and  for  the 
people.  But  other  subjects  of  Great  Britain  and  especially  the  Catholic  settlers 
under  the  tutelage  of  their  religious  teachers,  took  a  different  view  and  a  different 
attitude  from  that  of  McLoughlin.  But  that  there  was  opposition  open  or  con- 
cealed to  an  American  government  cannot  be  doubted.  In  Wyeth  's  memorial 
to  Congress  made  after  his  return  from  Oregon  in  1838,  he  says:  "A  population 
is  growing  out  of  the  occupancy  of  the  country  that  is  not  with  us ;  and  before 
many  years  they  will  decide  to  whom  the  country  belongs,  unless  in  the  mean- 
time the  American  government  shall  make  their  power  felt  and  seen  to  a  greater 
degree  than  has  yet  been  the  case. ' ' 

The  first  semblance  of  authority  of  government  in  Oregon  came  from  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company,  and  through  the  initiative  of  John  McLoughlin.  Prior 
to  the  settlement  of  Americans  in  the  Willamette  Valley  the  authority  of  Mc- 
Loughlin was  absolute,  and  whatever  he  ordered  to  be  done  that  was  the  law, 
and  no  Hudson's  Bay  Company  man  thought  of  disputing  it.  Under  the  British 
Charter  the  Governor  and  Council  of  the  Company  had  authority  to  try  its  own 
employees  for  any  crimes  committed  on  the  Company's  plantation,  forts,  fac- 
tories, or  places  of  trade,  or  make  war  on  any  unchristianized  nation.  But  as 
the  Americans  could  not  be  ranked  within  this  category  McLoughlin  procured 
an  act  of  Parliament  to  be  passed  providing  for  the  appointment  of  Justices  of 
the  Peace  in  different  parts  of  the  country,  and  under  which  James  Douglas  was 
appointed  Justice  of  the  Peace  at  Vancouver,  with  authority  to  try  minor  of- 
fenses, and  to  arrest  persons  charged  with  serious  crimes  and  send  them  over  the 
mountains  to  Canada  for  trial.  But  as  the  Americans  could  not  be  subjected  to 
these  officials  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  the  Methodist  missionaries  in  1839 
attempted  to  set  up  some  sort  of  authority  to  maintain  public  order  and  protect 
life,  and  thereupon  appointed  two  persons  to  act  as  magistrates.  This  was  done 
without  co-operation  of  the  settlers  but  was  tactily  approved  and  acquiesced  in. 
Under  this  authority  David  Leslie  was  appointed  a  justice  of  the  peace;  and 
afterwards  when  T.  J.  Hubbard  was  arrested  and  tried  for  killing  a  man  who  at- 
tempted to  enter  his  (Hubbard's)  cabin  through  the  window,  Leslie  called  a  jury 
of  the  settlers,  took  the  evidence  and  Hubbard  was  tried  and  acquitted  being  the 
first  trial  by  jury  in  Old  Oregon. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  ](;:3 

Meanwhile  these  tentative  efforts  to  establish  some  sort  of  rule  or  authority  in 
the  country  to  protect  life  and  property  were  going  on,  other  efforts  were  being 
quitly  pushed  forward  to  secure  some  recognition  if  not  protection  from  Con- 
gress. The  lirst  step  in  this  direction  was  taken  in  March,  1838,  when  a  memor- 
ial was  prepared,  signed  and  sent  to  Senator  Linn  of  Missouri  who  presented  the 
document  to  the  United  States  Senate  on  January  28th,  18:5!).  This  memorial 
set  forth  to  some  extent  the  natural  resources  and  social  condition  of  the  coun- 
try. Himes  and  Lang's  history  says  that  this  memorial  was  signed  by  "J.  L. 
Whitcomb  and  thirty-five  other  settlers,"  while  Bancroft's  history  recites  that 
"it  was  signed  by  ten  preachers  and  laymen,  Ewing  Young  and  ten  other  col- 
onists, and  nine  French  Canadians."  It  was  the  first  appeal  to  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  for  recognition  and  protection,  and  for  that  reason  alone  is 
of  great  historical  interest,  it  was  doubtless  the  work  of  Jason  Lee,  who  before 
the  memorial  was  drawn  up  and  signed  made  a  trip  to  Umpqua  Valley  to  see 
what  was  there,  and  on  his  return  called  a  meeting  of  the  settlers  to  consider  the 
sub.ject  of  the  memorial.  Banci'oft's  history,  citing  Edward's  sketches  of  Oregon 
MSS.  says  that  P.  L.  Edwards  was  Lee's  instrument  in  drafting  the  memorial. "i 
As  that  memorial  was  important  historically  and  otherwise,  the  following 
paragraph  is  copied:  "We  are  anxious  when  we  imagine  what  will  be,  what  must 
be,  the  condition  of  "so  mixed  a  community,  free  from  all  legal  restraint  and  su- 
perior to  that  moral  influence  which  has  hitherto  been  the  pledge  of  our  safety. 
We  flatter  ourselves  THAT  WE  ARE  THE  GERM  OF  A  GREAT  STATE  and 
are  anxious  to  give  an  early  tone  to  the  moral  and  intellectual  character  of  our 
citizens — the  destinies  of  our  posterity  will  be  intimately  affected  by  the  char- 
acter of  those  who  immigrate.  The  territorj'  must  populate — the  Congi-ess  of  the 
United  States  must  say  by  whom.  The  natural  resources  of  the  country,  with  a 
well-judged  civil  code,  will  invite  a  good  community ;  but  a  good  community  will 
hardly  immigrate  to  a  country  which  promises  no  protection  to  life  or  property. 
*  *  *  We  can  boast  of  no  civil  code.  We  can  promise  no  protection  but  the 
ulterior  resort  of  self  defense.  *  *  *  We  have  thus  briefly  shown  that  the 
security  of  our  persons  and  our  property,  the  hopes  and  destinies  of  our  children, 
are  involved  in  the  subject  of  our  petition.  We  do  not  presume  to  suggest  the 
manner  in  which  the  country  should  be  occupied  by  the  government,  nor  the 
extent  to  which  our  settlement  should  be  encouraged.  We  confide  in  the  wisdom 
of  our  legislators,  and  leave  the  subject  to  their  candid  deliberations."  This  first 
petition  to  Congress  for  protection  to  the  infant  Colony  in  Oregon  was  read  in 
the  United  States  Senate,  laid  on  the  table.  But  prior  to  the  receipt  of  this 
memorial,  Senator  Linn  had  on  his  own  initiative  introduced  a  bill  in  the  Senate, 
authorizing  "The  occupation  of  the  Columbia  or  Oregon  river;  organizing  a  ter- 
ritory north  of  latitude  42°  and  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  to  be  called  Ore- 
gon Territory ;  providing  for  the  establishment  of  a  fort  on  the  Columbia,  and 
the  occupation  of  the  country  by  a  military  force,  establishing  a  port  of  entry. 


1  Philip  L.  Edwards  was  a  layman  who  came  to  Oregon  with  Jason  Lee,  in  1834,  on  a 
salary  to  help  establish  the  Methodist  Mission  among  the  Indians.  He  was  a  Kentuckian  by 
birth,  twenty-three  years  of  age  when  he  reached  Oregon,  a  lover  of  order  and  refinement; 
but  knew  well  how  to  accommodate  himself  to  the  crudities  of  frontier  life  and  manners. 
He  never  considered  himself  a  missimiary ;  and  afterwards  returned  to  Missouri,  studied 
law,  and  did  military  duty  against  the  Mormons  in  1841.  Tn  18.50  he  emigrated  to  Cali- 
fornia, settled  in  Nevada  County,  engaged  in  politics  as  a  Whig,  afterwards  as  a  Repub- 
lican, and  died  May  1st,  1869. 


164  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

and  requiring  that  the  country  should  be  held  subject  to  the  revenue  laws  of  the 
United  States.    Congress  took  no  action  on  this  bill. ' ' 

In  June,  1840,  Senator  Linn  presented  another  memorial  from  Oregon,  signed 
by  seventy  Americans,  from  which  is  taken  the  following  extract : 

"Your  petitioners  represent  that  they  are  residents  in  Oregon  Territory,  and 
citizens  of  the  United  States  or  persons  desiring  to  become  such.  They  further 
represent  that  they  have  settled  themselves  in  said  Territory  under  the  belief  that 
it  was  a  portion  of  the  public  domain  of  the  United  States,  and  that  they  might 
rely  on  the  Government  thereof  for  the  blessings  of  free  institutions  and  the  pro- 
tection of  its  arms.  But  your  petitioners  further  represent  that  they  are  unin- 
formed of  any  acts  of  said  Government  by  which  its  institutions  and  protection 
are  extended  to  them;  in  consequence  whereof,  themselves  and  families  are  ex- 
posed to  be  destroyed  by  the  savages  AND  OTHERS  THAT  WOULD  DO  THEM 
HARM.  And  j^our  petitioners  would  further  represent  that  they  have  no  means 
of  protecting  their  own  and  the  lives  of  their  families,  other  than  self-constituted 
tribunals,  organized  and  sustained  by  the  power  of  an  ill-instructed  public  opin- 
ion, and  the  resort  to  force  and  arms.  And  your  petitioners  represent  these 
.means  of  safety  to  be  an  insufficient  safeguard  of  life  and  property.  Your 
petitioners  therefore  pray  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  to  establish  a  ter- 
ritorial government  in  Oregon  Territory." 

The  above  memorial  is  supposed  to  have  been  drafted  by  Rev.  David  Leslie, 
who  was  also  the  first  justice  of  the  peace.  The  words  "and  others  that  would 
do  them  harm"  in  the  memorial  was  intended  for  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company, 
and  from  all  the  surrounding  facts,  were  wholly  unjustified.  The  Hudson 's  Bay 
Company  in  Oregon  was  then  under  the  control  of  Dr.  John  McLoughlin,  whose 
kindness  and  humanity  had  been  so  often  and  widely  extended  to  starving  immi- 
grants that  no  denial  of  the  false  'accusation  was  necessary.  If  McLouglilin,  or 
his  Company,  had  desired  to  destroy  or  drive  out  the  American  settlers  all  that 
was  necessary  was  for  them,  for  such  bloody  work,  was  to  give  an  intimation  to 
the  Indians,  and  every  American  settler  would  have  been  murdered  within  a 
week.  At  the  time  this  last  memorial  was  sent  to  Congress,  thirty-five  years  after 
Lewis  and  Clark  was  here,  the  population  of  Oregon,  exclusive  of  Hudson 's  Bay 
employees,  was  about  two  hundred  men  and  women  adults.  Of  these  about  one- 
sixth  were  Canadians  French;  nine-tenths  of  them  lived  west  of  the  Cascade 
mountains,  and  nearly  all  of  that  number  in  the  Willamette  Valley. 

Having  by  these  memorials  made  known  their  necessities  and  desires  to  Con- 
gress the  people  patiently  waited  for  action.  But  the  American  Congress  was 
too  busily  engaged  in  schemes  down  in  the  region  of  the  Lone  Star  of  Texas. 
The  extension  of  slavery,  and  the  balance  of  power  between  the  free  and  the 
slave  states  was  already  then  affecting  and  coloring  every  political  movement 
very  much  as  the  tariff'  and  the  trusts  are  at  this  day  controlling  the  political 
and  industrial  life  of  the  Nation.  And  thus  matters  dragged  along  in  the  far 
distant  uneventful  silence  of  Old  Oregon  until  one  of  those  sad  dispensations  of 
Providence  that  must  come  to  all,  fell  upon  the  little  American  community  on 
the  Willamette — the  death  of  Ewing  Young.  Young  had  come  to  Oregon  from 
California  with  Hall  J.  Kelley  in  the  same  year  that  Rev.  Jason  Lee  arrived 
overland  from  the  Atlantic  states.  But  instead  of  carrying  a  commission  to 
preach  the  gospel  as  Lee  had,  it  was  his  misfortune  to  be  denounced  by  the 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  1C,5 

.Mt'xican  governor  of  Oalilornia  as  a  liorsu-thiut  ami  Dr.  .IdIiii  .McLout^'liliii  had 
l>ost('(l  iij)  the  letter  on  a  s\^t\  post  in  the  Willaiiielte  N'alley.  ^■(lun.^■  was  not  a 
horse-thier,  or  a  cattle  rustler,  as  can  he  fouiiil  in  eeiiain  ])arts  of  Oregon  in 
It)  12;  but  he  was  an  energetie  liors('  trader,  and  during  the  seven  years  lie  liad 
elainied  liis  home  in  Old  Oregon  he  had  aeeuinulated  more  property  than  any 
other  American  citizen.  But  now  he  was  dead,  February  15th,  1841,  leaving  no 
known  heirs,  and  a  large  property.  The  entire  American  population  about 
Champoeg  and  the  Missions  attended  his  funeral ;  and  the  fact  of  his  property 
and  the  absence  of  heirs  to  claim  it  forced  the  necessity  of  some  sort  of  a  govern- 
ment so  vividly  upon  the  attention  of  the  people  that  a  temporary  meeting  was 
then  and  there  held  at  this  funeral  of  the  man  who  had  been  denounced  as  a 
thief,  to  take  steps  to  organize  a  government  for  Oregon.  Mimes  and  Lang's 
History  states  that  "A  meeting  of  some  of  the  inhabitants"  was  held  on  the 
Ttli  of  February,  eight  days  before  Young's  death,  "for  the  purpose  of  consult- 
ing upon  steps  necessary  to  be  taken  for  the  formation  of  laws,  and  the  election 
of  ofhi'ers  to  execute  them."  Jason  Lee  presided  over  this  meeting,  and  ad- 
dressed the  same  advising  the  appointment  of  a  committee  to  draft  a  Constitu- 
tion and  laws  for  the  government  of  that  portion  of  the  territory  south  of  the 
Columbia.  A  committee  was  doubtless  appointed,  but  no  names  are  given.  At 
Young's  funeral  on  February  17th,  a  public  meeeting  was  lield  by  the  persons 
attending  that  funeral,  of  which  meeting  Jason  Lee  was  made  chairman  and 
Gustavus  Hines,  another  Methodist  missionary^  was  chosen  secretary,  and  an- 
other person  was  added  "to  the  Committee  of  arrangement,  chosen *at  a  previous 
meeting."  George  W.  Le  Breton  was  made  the  additional  committeman.  Then 
follows  these  proceedings : 

"Resolved — That  it  be  reeommended  that  tiiere  be  a  connuittee  ,of  seven 
elected  for  the  purpose  of  drafting  a  constitution  and  code  of  laws,  for  the 
government  of  the  settlements,  south  of  the  Columbia  River." 

It  was  tlien 

"Rcsolvid — That  all  settlers,  north  of  the  Cohunbia  River,  not  connected 
with  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  be  admitted  to  the  protection  of  our  laws,  on 
making  application  to  that  affect." 

The  meeting  then  proceeded  to  advise  the  committee  of  arrangements,  to 
propose  the  making  of  certain  officers,  to-wit : — 

A  Governor;  a  Supreme  Judge,  with  probate  powers;  three  Justices  of  the 
Peace;  three  Constables;  three  Road  Commissioners;  an  Attorney-General;  a 
Clerk  of  the  Courts,  and  Public  Recorder;  one  Treasurer;  two  Overseers  of  the 
Poor. 

It  was  reeommended  to  nominate  persons  to  fill  the  several  offices,  and  that 
tiiey  be  chosen  viva  voce. 

The  meeting  then  resolved  itself  into  committee  of  the  whole,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  choosing  candidates  for  the  several  offices,  and  after  having  nominated 
persons  to  till  the  various  offices,  it  was 

"Ii( solved — that  the  doings  of  the  committee  of  the  whole  be  dei)osited  in 
the  hands  of  the  chairman,  to  be  presented  to  the  meeting  tomorrow." 

On  motion,  the  meeting  then  adjourned,  to  meet  at  eight  o'clock  to-morrow. 


166  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Februarj^  18,  1841. 

At  a  full  meeting  of  the  inhabitants  of  Willamette  Valley,  at  the  American 
Mission  House, 

David  Leslie  was  elected  chairman,  and  Sidney  Smith,  and  Gustavus  Hines 
were  chosen  secretaries. 

The  doings  of  the  previous  meeting  were  presented  to  the  assembly,  and  were 
accepted,  in  part;  viz: — 

That  a  committee  be  chosen  for  framing  a  constitution,  and  drafting  a  code 
of  laws ;  and  that  the  following  persons  compose  the  committee,  to-wit : — 

Rev.  F.  N.  Blanchet,  Rev.  Jason  Lee,  David  Donpierre,  Gustavus  Hines,  Mr. 
Charlevon,  Robt.  Moore,  J.  L.  Parrish,  Btienne  Lucier  and  Wm.  Johnson. 

I.  L.  Babcock  was  appointed  to  fill  the  office  of  supreme  judge  with  probate 
powers. 

Geo.  W.  Le  Breton  was  chosen  to  fill  the  office  of  clerk  of  courts,  and  public 
recorder. 

Wm.  Johnson  was  chosen  to  fill  the  office  of  high  sheriff. 

Xavier  Laderaut,  Pierre  Billique,  and  Wm.  McCarty,  were  chosen  constables. 

"Resolved — That,  imtil  a  code  of  laws  be  adopted  by  this  community.  Dr. 
Babcock  be  instructed  to  act,  according  to  the  laws  of  the  State  of  New  York. 

"Resolved — That  this  meeting  now  adjourn,  to  meet  on  the  first  Tuesday  of 
June,  at  the  new  building,  near  the  Catholic  church. ' ' 

Tuesday,  June  1,  1841. 

An  adjourned  meeting  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Willamette  Valley,  at  the 
new  building  near  the  Catholic  church,  was  called  to  order  by  the  chairman. 

On  motion,  the  doings  of  the  former  meeting  was  read. 

The  report  of  the  committee,  for  drafting  a  constitution  and  code  of  laws, 
was  called  for,  and  responded  to  by  the  Chairman  and  others,  that  no  meeting 
of  the  committee  had  been  held,  consequently  no  report  had  been  prepared. 

Rev.  F.  N.  Blanchet  requested  to  be  excused  from  serving  further  upon  the 
committee  to  draft  a  constitution  and  code  of  laws,  and  was  excused. 

On  motion, 

"Resolved—That  one  person  be  chosen  to  make  up  the  number  of  said  com- 
mittee. ' ' 

Dr.  Bailey  was  chosen. 

On  motion, 

"Resolved — That  this  committee  be  instructed  to  meet  on  the  first  Monday 
in  August,  next." 

On  motion, 

"Resolved — That  this  committee  be  instructed  to  report  to  an  adjourned 
meeting  on  the  first  Tuesday  in  October,  next." 

"On  motion, 

"Resolved — That  the  committee,  for  drafting  constitution  and  laws,  be  in- 
structed to  confer  with  the  Commodore  of  the  American  Squadron,  and  John 
McLoughlin,  chief  factor  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  with  regard  to  forming 
a  constitution,  and  code  of  laws,  for  this  community. 

"Resolved — That  the  motion,  to  adopt  the  report  of  the  nominating  com- 
mittee, presented  at  a  former  meeting,  be  reconsidered. 


I'HANCnlS  .\A\IKi;   .\IAIl'llli;i 

Sole  survivor  of  Champoeg  meeting,  now  94  years  of  age — 1912.  The  man  whose  vote 
to  organize  the  provisional  government  of  1S43,  under  the  American  flag,  most  probahly 
gave  the  territory  of  Old  Oregon  to  the  United  States  instead   nf  Great  Britain 


THE  CENTP]NNIAL  HISTORY  OB'  OREGON  167 

"Resolved — That  the  committee  to  draft  a  constitution,  etc.,  be  iustructed 
to  take  into  cousideratioii,  the  uumber  aud  liind  of  offices  it  will  be  necessary 
to  create,  in  accordance  with  tlieir  constitution  and  code  of  laws,  and  report  the 
same  to  the  next  meeting,  and  that  the  report  of  the  nominating  committee  be 
referred  to  said  committee. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  this  meeting  adjourn,  to  meet  at  the  American 
Mission  House,  at  eleven  o'clock,  on  the  first  Tucsdaj-  in  October  next. 

"(Signed)     Sidney  Smith, 

"GUST.WUS    HiNES, 

"Secretaries." 

There  is  no  record  of  any  meeting  having  been  held  on  the  first  Tuesday  in 
October  of  1841.  as  was  provided  for  iri  the  adjournment  of  the  meeting  of  -Tune 
1st,  1841. 

The  next  meting  of  which  there  is  any  record  of  was  held  at  the  Oregon  In- 
stitute (Salem)  February  2,  1843,  of  which  the  following  is  the  record: 

"A  public  meeting,  of  a  number  of  the  citizens  of  this  colony,  was  called,  in 
order  to  take  into  consideration  the  propriety  of  adopting  some  measures,  for  the 
protection  of  our  herds,  &c.,  in  this  country. 

' '  On  motion, 

"Dr.  I.  L.  Babcock  was  called  to  the  chair,  who  proceeded  to  state  the  objects 
of  the  meeting,  and  the  necessity  of  acting. 

' '  Mr.  W.  H.  Gray  moved,  and  Mr.  Torn  seconded  the  motion, — That  a  commit- 
tee of  six  be  appointed  to  notify  a  general  meeting,  and  report  business,  &c., 
which  motion  was  carried,  and  Messrs.  Gray,  Beers,  Gervais,  Willson,  Barnaby 
and  Lucier,  were  appointed  said  committee. 

' '  Mr.  Beers  moved,  that  a  general  meeting  be  called,  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Jos. 
Gervais,  on  the  first  Monday  in  March  next,  at  ten  o'clock  A.  M.,  which  motion 
was  carried. 

"AV.  H.  Willson,  I.  L.  Babcock, 

"Secretary.  Ghainnan. " 

The  next  meeting  was  held  according  to  the  above  adjournment,  and  has  passed 
into  history  as, ' '  The  Wolf  Meeting, ' '  aud  the  following  are  the  proceedings : 

Wolf  Meeting 
' '  Journal 

"Of  a  meeting  at  the  house  of  J.  Gervais  1st  Monday  in  March,  1843. 

"In  pursuance  of  a  resolution  of  a  previous  meeting,  the  citizens  of  Willamette 
Valley  met,  and  the  meeting  being  called  to  order, 

"Mr.  James  O'Neil  was  chosen  chairman. 

"Mr.  Mantine  was  chosen  as  secretary,  but  declining  to  serve, 

' '  Mr.  Le  Breton  was  chosen. 

"The  doings  of  the  former  meeting  were  read. 

"The  committee,  appointed  to  notify  a  general  meeting  and  report  business, 
made  the  following  report,  to-wit : — 

"Your  committee  beg  leave  to  report  as  follows: 

"  'It  being  admitted  by  all,   that  bears,  wolves,  panthers,  &c.,  &c.,  are  destruc- 


168  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

tive  to  the  useful  animals,  owned  by  the  settlers  of  this  colony,  your  committee 
would  respectfully  submit  the  following  resolutions,  as  the  sense  of  this  meeting, 
by  which  the  community  may  be  governed  in  carrying  on  a  defensive  and  destruc- 
tive War  against  all  such  animals : — 

"  'Resolved — 1st.  That  we  deem  it  expedient  for  this  community,  to  take  im- 
mediate measures  for  the  destruction  of  all  wolves,  bears,  and  panthers,  and  such 
other  animals  as  are  known  to  be  destructive  to  cattle,  horses,  sheep,  and  hogs. 

"  '2nd.  That  a  treasurer  be  appointed,  who  shall  receive  all  funds  and  dis- 
pense the  same,  in  accordance  with  drafts  drawn  on  him,  by  the  committee  ap- 
pointed to  receive  the  evidences  of  the  destruction  of  the  above-named  animals; 
and  that  he  report  the  state  of  the  treasury,  by  posting  up  public  notices,  once  in 
three  months,  in  the  vicinity  of  each  of  tlje  committee. 

' '  '  3rd.  That  a  standing  committee  of  eight  be  appointed,  whose  duty  it  shall 
be,  together  with  the  treasurer,  to  receive  proofs  or  evidences  of  the  animals, 
for  which  a  bounty  is  claimed,  having  been  killed  in  the  Willamette  Valley. 

'■  '4th.  That  a  bounty  of  fifty  cents  be  paid  for  the  destruction  of  a  small 
wolf;  $3.00,  for  a  large  wolf;  $1.50,  for  a  lynx;  $2.00  for  the  bear;  and  $5.00  for 
the  panther. 

'■  '5th.  That  no  bounty  be  paid,  unless  the  individual  claiming  said  bounty 
give  satisfactory  evidence,  or  by  presenting  the  skin  of  the  head  with  the  ears,  of 
all  animals  for  which  he  claims  a  bounty. 

' '  '  6th.  That  the  committee  and  treasurer  form  a  board  of  advice  to  call  pub- 
lic meetings,  whenever  they  may  deem  it  expedient,  to  promote  and  encourage  all 
persons  to  use  their  vigilance  in  destroying  all  the  animals  named  in  the  4th 
resolution. 

■■  "7th.  That  the  bounties,  specified  in  the  4th  resolution,  be  limited  to  whites 
and  their  descendants. 

' '  '  8th.  That  the  proceedings  of  this  meeting  be  signed  bj^  the  chairman,  and 
Secretary,  and  a  copy  thereof  be  presented  to  the  recorder  of  this  colony. ' 

"On  motion,  the  report  was  accepted. 

' '  It  was  then  moved  and  seconded,  that  the  report  be  laid  on  the  table,  which 
was  carried. 

"It  was  moved  and  seconded,  that  the  first  resolution,  in  the  report  of  the 
committee,  be  adopted,  which  was  carried. 

"It  was  moved  and  seconded,  that  a  sum  be  raised,  by  contribution,  for  the 
protection  of  our  animals,  which  was  carried. 

' '  It  was  moved  and  seconded,  that  the  third  resolution,  as  amended  be  adopted, 
which  was  carried. 

"It  was  moved  and  seconded,  that  two  collectors  be  appointed  to  receive  all 
subscriptions,  retaining  five  per  cent,  for  collecting  the  same,  and  pay  the  amount 
over  to  the  treasurer,  taking  his  receipt  for  the  same,  which  was  carried. 

"On  motion,  the  fifth  resolution  was  adopted. 

' '  On  motion,  the  sixth  resolution,  as  amended,  was  adopted. 

' '  On  motion,  it  was 

"  'Resolved — That  no  one  receive  a  bounty  (except  Indians)  unless  he  pay  a 
subscription  of  $5.00.' 

' '  On  motion  the  seventh  resolution  was  adopted. 

"On  motion,  the  eighth  and  ninth  resolutions  were  adopted. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OK  OUKOON  UiO 

"  It  wan  moved  and  set-oiuU'd,  tluit  the  Indians  reeeive  one-liali'  as  much  as  the 
whites. 

'■  It  was  moved  ami  sccoiuled  tiiat  ail  eiaims,  i'or  bounlies,  be  presented  williin 
ten  days  i'rom  tiie  time  of  becoming  entitled  to  said  bounties,  and,  if  there  should 
be  any  doubts,  the  individual  claiming  a  bounty  shall  give  his  oath  to  the  various 
circumstances,  which  was  carried. 

"On  motion,  W.  H.  Gray  was  chosen  treasurer. 

"It  was  moved,  that  Messrs.  JMcRoy,  Gei'\'ai.s,  Mantine,  8.  Smith,  Doughty, 
O'Neil,  Shortess,  and  Lucier,  be  the  standing  committee,  which  motion  was 
carried. 

"It  was  moved,  that  G.  \V.  Le  Breton  and  Mr.  Bridges  be  the  collectors, 
carried. 

"On  motion,  the  first  resolution  was  adopted. 

'  ■  '  h'vsulved — That  no  money  be  paid  to  any  white,  or  his  descendants,  previ- 
ous to  the  time  of  his  subscription. 

"  ' Kcsohrd — That  the  bounty  of  a  minor  child  be  paid  to  a  parent  or 
guardian. 

"  'Resolved — That  the  draft  for  receiving  subscriptions,  lie  drawn  by  ilr. 
Gi-ay  and  Mr.  Le  Breton. 

"  'Resolved — That  drafts  on  Fort  Vancouver,  the  mission,  and  the  nulling 
company,  be  received  on  subscriptions,  as  pa.yment. 

"  'Resolved — That  a  committee  be  appointed  to  take  into  consideration  the 
propriety  of  taking  measures  foi'  llie  civil  and  military  protection  of  this  colony. 

"  'Resolved — That  said  connuittee  consist  of  twelve  persons: 

"  'Messrs.  Dr.  Ira  L.  Babcock,  Dr.  E.  L.  White,  James  O'Neil,  Robert  Shortess, 
Robert  Newell,  Etienne  Lucier,  Joseph  Gervais,  Thomas  Jeffer.son  Hubbard,  Wil- 
liam H.  Gray,  Solomon  H.  Smith,  Charles  ilcRoy  and  George  Gay." 

"On  motion  the  meeting  adjourned. 

"G.  W.  Le  Breton,  James  O'Neil. 

' '  Secretary.  President. 

This  record  shows  that  up  to  this  point,  when  the  whole  cjuestion  of  the  or- 
ganization of  a  government  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  committee  of  twelve  rep- 
resentative settlers,  there  was  no  discrimination  in  favor  of  the  Protestant  mission- 
aries, or  against  the  Catholics  or  Canadian  French.  The  Americans  were  in  the 
majority,  at  all  these  preliminary  meetings,  and  instead  of  ignoring  or  discrimin- 
ating against  any  class  or  religion,  they  carefully  recognized  all  classes  and  relig- 
ions as  fully  entitled  to  participate  in  any  proposed  organization.  Vicar  General 
Blanchet  was  chairman  of  the  committee  of  February  18,  1841,  while  Donpierre, 
Charlevon,  Lucier,  Laderaut,  Billique  and  Le  Breton,  all  members  of  the  Catholic 
church,  were  on  the  committee  with  him  or  appointed  to  other  important  po- 
sitions. Yet,  notwithstanding  this,  Blanchet  resigned  his  trust  in  June,  1841. 
And  although  the  meeting  of  M&rch  1,  1843,  was  appointed  for  and  held  at  the 
house  of  a  Catholic  Frenchman — Joseph  Gervais — who  was  also  appointed  a  mem- 
ber of  the  final  committee  of  twelve  on  organization — yet  Blanchet  was  able  to 
pull  out  every  Catholic  and  Frenchman  from  the  meeting  of  March  1,  1843,  except 
Le  Breton  and  Lucier.  And  to  fully  understand  this  movement  in  the  wilderness 
of  Oregon,  attention  is  called  to  the  fact  that  the  })nlilic  meeting  at  the  house  of 


170  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

Joseph.  Gervais  on  March  1,  1843,  had  itself  assumed  to  act  as  a  government,  had 
fixed  bounties  for  the  destruction  of  wild  animals,  that  collectors  be  appointed, 
a  standing  committee  appointed,  oaths  must  be  taken,  drafts  for  money  orders 
made,  and  a  committee  appointed  to  consider  measures  for  the  civil  and  military 
protection  of  a  colony.  The  rugged  issue  was  now  to  be  faced  and  decided 
whether  there  should  be  a  government  to  protect  life  and  property,  or  whether 
there  should  be  a  condition  of  anarchy — and  every  man  must  show  on  which  side 
of  the  line  he  stood. 

The  "Wolf  Meeting"  was  held  on  March  1,  1843,  and  within  four  days  there- 
after an  address  of  the  Canadian  citizens  of  Oregon,  and  signed  by  fifty  persons, 
was  delivered  to  the  foregoing  committee  of  twelve. 

It  is  evident  from  this  address,  which  was  said  to  have  been  drafted  by  Blan- 
chet,  that  the  Catholics  and  French  felt  that  they  were  being  forced  into  an  em- 
barrassing position,  and  that  they  should  give  the  reasons  for  not  uniting  with 
the  Americans  to  organize  a  government.  But  these  Canadians  were  not  desti- 
tute of  apologists  and  supporters  among  influential  Americans.  George  Aber- 
nethy,  who  afterwards  became  governor  under  the  Provisional  Government,  at  a 
debating  society  at  "The  Palls"  (Oregon  City)  during  the  winter  of  1842-3, 
offered  a  resolution  to  the  effect  that  it  would  not  be  expedient  to  form  an  inde- 
pendent government,  if  the  United  States  would  within  four  years  extend  its 
jurisdiction  over  Oregon."  And  William  Johnson,  the  only  member  of  the  first 
committee  appointed  to  draft  a  constitution  and  laws  who  was  not  a  Frenchman 
or  a  missionary,  declared  there  was  "not  yet  any  necessity  for  laws,  lawyers  or 
magistrates."  And  when  Capt.  Wilkes,  of  the  U.  S.  Exploring  Expedition,  was 
applied  to  for  his  support  of  the  proposition  to  organize  a  government,  he  prompt- 
ly condemned  the  scheme  for  the  reason  "that  only  a  small  minority  of  the  in- 
habitants desired  to  establish  a  government,  that  laws  were  not  necessary,  and 
would  be  a  poor  substitute  for  the  moral  code  the  people  had  followed  this  year." 
Nevertheless,  the  Americans  had  put  their  hands  to  the  plow,  and  they  refused 
to  turn  back. 

Below  follows  the  address  of  the  Canadians : 

"March  4,  1843. 

"We,  the  Canadian  citizens  of  the  Willamette,  considering,  with  interest  and 
reflection,  the  subject  which  unites  the  people  at  the  present  meeting,  present  to 
the  American  citizens,  and  particularly  to  the  gentlemen  who  called  said  meeting, 
the  unanimous  expression  of  our  sentiments  of  cordiality,  desire  of  union  and  in- 
exhaustible peace  between  all  the  people,  in  view  of  our  duty  and  the  interest  of 
the  new  colony,  and  declare, 

' '  1st.  That  we  wish  for  laws,  or  regulations,  for  the  welfare  of  our  persons, 
and  the  security  of  our  property  and  labors. 

"2nd.  That  we  do  not  intend  to  rebel  against  the  measures  of  that  kind 
taken  last  year,  by  a  part  of  the  people ;  although  we  do  not  approve  of  certain 
regulations,  nor  certain  modes  of  laws,  let  those  magistrates  finish  their  time. 

"3rd.  That  we  will  not  address  a  new  petition  to  the  Government  of  the 
United  States,  because  we  have  our  reasons,  till  the  line  be  decided,  and  the  fron- 
tiers of  the  states  fixed. 

"4th.  That  we  are  opposed  to  the  regulations  anticipated,  and  exposed  to 
consequences  for  the  quantity,  direction,  &c.,  of  lands,  and  whatsoever  expense 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  171 

for  the  same  lands,  because  we  have  no  direct  guarantee  from  the  government  to 
come,  and,  perhai)s,  tomorrow,  all  those  measures  may  be  broken. 

"5th.  That  we  do  not  wish  a  provisional  mode  of  government,  too  self  in- 
terested, and  full  of  degrees,  useless  to  our  power,  and  overloading  the  colony  in- 
stead of  improving  it ;  besides,  men  of  laws  and  science  are  too  scarce,  and  have 
too  much  to  do  in  such  a  new  country. 

"6th.  That  we  wish  either  the  mode  of  senate  or  council,  to  judge  the  diffi- 
culties, punish  the  crimes,  (except  capital  penalties,)  and  make  the  regulations 
suitable  for  the  people. 

"7th.  That  the  same  council  be  elected  and  composed  of  members  from  aU 
parts  of  the  country,  and  should  act  in  body,  on  the  plan  of  civilized  countries 
in  parliament,  or  as  a  .jury,  and  to  be  represented,  for  example,  by  the  president 
of  said  council,  and  another  member,  as  judge  of  peace,  in  each  county,  allowing 
the  principle  of  recalling  to  the  whole  senate. 

"8th.  That  the  members  should  be  influenced  to  interest  themselves  to  their 
own  welfare,  and  that  of  the  public,  by  the  love  of  doing  good,  rather  than  by 
the  hope  of  gain,  in  order  to  take  off  from  the  esteem  of  the  people  all  suspicions 
of  interest  in  the  persons  of  their  representatives. 

"9th.  That  they  must  avoid  every  law  loading,  and  inexpedient  to  the 
people,  especially  to  the  new  arrivals.  Unnecessary  taxes,  and  whatever  records 
are  of  that  kind,  we  do  not  want  them. 

"10th.  That  the  militia  is  useless  at  present,  and  rather  a  danger  of  bad 
suspicion  to  the  Indians,  and  a  delay  for  the  necessary  labors ;  in  the  same  time, 
it  is  a  load;  we  do  not  want  it,  either,  at  present. 

"11th.  That  we  consider  the  country  free,  at  present,  to  all  nations,  till  gov- 
ernment shall  have  decided ;  open  to  every  individual  wishing  to  settle,  without 
any  distinction  of  origin,  and  without  asking  him  anything,  either  to  become  an 
English,  Spanish,  or  American  citizen. 

"12th.  So  we,  English  .subjects,  proclaim  to  be  free,  as  well  as  those  who 
came  from  France,  California,  United  States,  or  even  natives  of  this  country ; 
and  we  desire  unison  with  all  the  respectable  citizens  who  wish  to  settle  in  this 
country;  or,  we  ask  to  be  i-eeoguized  as  free  amongst  ourselves,  to  make  such 
regulations  as  appear  suitable  to  our  wants,  save  the  general  interest  of  having 
justice  from  all  strangers  who  might  injure  us,  and  that  our  reasonable  customs 
and  pretensions  be  respected. 

"13th.  That  we  are  willing  to  submit  to  any  lawful  government,  when  it 
comes. 

"14th.  That  we  do  not  forget  that  we  must  make  laws  only  for  necessary 
circumstances.  The  more  laws  there  are,  the  more  opportunities  for  roguery, 
for  those  who  make  a  practice  of  it ;  and,  perhaps  the  more  alterations  there 
will  be  some  day. 

' '  ISth.  That  we  do  not  forget  in  a  trial,  that  before  all  fraud  on  fulfilling  of 
liome  points  of  the  law,  the  ordinary  proofs  of  the  certainty  of  the  fact  ought 
to  be  duly  weighed,  so  that  justice  may  be  done,  and  no  shame  give  for  fraud. 

"16tli.  In  a  new  country,  the  more  men  employed  and  paid  by  the  public 
the  less  remains  for  industry. 

"17th.  That  no  one  can  be  more  desirous  than  we  are  for  the  prosperity, 
ameliorations,  and  general  peace  of  the  country,  and  especially  for  the  guar- 


172 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 


ant}'  of  our  rights  and 
who  are,  or  may  become, 

Xavier  Laderout, 
Antoine  Bonenfant, 
Andre  La  Chapelle, 
Pierre  Papin, 
Louis  B.  VanDalle, 
Jean  B.  Ducharme, 
Fabien  Maloin, 
Lue  Pagnon, 
Etienne  Gregoire, 
Amable  Arquoit, 
Pierre  Delard, 
Louis  A.  Van  Dalle, 
Andre  Sanders, 
Pierre  Pariseau, 
Charles  Rondeau, 
Andre  Dubois, 
David  Donpierre, 


liberties;  and  such  is  the  wish  we  make  for  all  those 
our  fellow  covintrymen,  etc.,  for  long  years  of  peace. 
"Signed  by 


Pierre  Depot, 
Moyse  Lore, 
Pierre  Le  Course, 
Gideon  Sencalle, 
Thomas  Moisan, 
Pierre  Gauthier, 
X.  Laderaut, 
F.  N.    Blanchet, 
Joseph  Bernabe, 
Baptiste  Deguire, 
Adolphe  Chamberlain, 
Je.an  Gingi-as, 
Alexis  Aubiehon, 
Jean  Servans, 
Michelle  Laferte, 
Jean  B.  Dalcourse, 
Louis  Osent. 


Jean  B.  Aubiehon, 
Antoine  Felice, 
Michel  La  Framboise, 
Joseph  Gervais, 
Jean  B.  Papin, 
Olivier  Briscbois, 
Thomas  Roi, 
Louis  Boivers, 
Andre  Longtain, 
Alexis  La  Pratte, 
Pierre  Beleque, 
Augustin  Remon, 
Joseph  Matte, 
Francois  Bernier, 
M.  Charlevon, 
M.  Maitune." 


After  receiving  the  address  of  the  Canadians,  the  Committee  of  Twelve  ap- 
pointed at  the  meeting  of  March  1st,  1843,  called  a  public  meeting  of  all  the 
citizens  of  the  valley  without  regard  to  their  nationality  or  religion  to  meet  at 
"  Champooick "  on  May  2nd,  1843,  to  finally  decide  the  momentous  question, 
whether  there  should  be  a  government  in  Oregon  or  not.  Rev.  John  S.  Griffin, 
a  Congregational  minister,  familiarly  known  in  later  life  as  "Father  Griffin," 
rode  all  over  the  Willamette  Valley  to  personally  deliver  the  call  of  the  Commit- 
tee to  every  settler  and  urge  them  to  attend  the  meeting.  And  they  came,  both 
sides, — not  all  the  Americans,  however — honest,  determined  men.  The  day,  and 
the  hour  for  meeting  arrives.  The  address  of  the  Canadian  citizens  given  on  the 
preceding  page  was  first  read  to  the  meeting ;  and  then  the  report  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Twelve  on  organization.  The  issues  between  the  contending  parties 
were  thus  fairly  shown.    The  feeling  was  intense. 

Behold  the  picture;  the  Bishop  of  his  flock,  with  centuries  of  training  and 
culture  in  his  face,  holds  the  volatile  children  of  the  distant  St.  Lawrence  on  one 
side  with  steady  poise,  while  over  against  them  were  many  sturdy  spirits— 
thirty-three  from  ten  States  of  the  North,  four  from  four  States  of  the  South, 
nine  from  the  United  Kingdom,  including  Canada,  and  six  from  localities  un- 
known— plainsmen,  trappers — men  inured  to  dangers  and  trials  from  boyhood 
to  manhood — and  missionaries  of  the  Cross;  and  surrounding  all,  the  sullen  red 
men  swathed  in  their  fiery  blankets,  silently  beholding  the  strange  scene  in 
wondering  awe  as  to  which  of  these  must  be  his  future  master.  To  portray 
the  scene  demands  the  genius  of  a  Michael  Angelo,  and  when  it  is  done  true 
to  history,  the  canvas  will  immortalize  the  painter. 

We  get  a  glimpse  of  the  contending  forces  as  they  rally  in  coon  skin  caps 
and  buckskin  trousers  on  the  banks  of  the  Willamette  May  2nd,  1843,  to  try  out 
the  momentous  issue.    The  leaders  of  the  rival  forces  are  rallying  every  man  for 


ilATTllIEU    AT   THE   MONUMENT 
The  names  of  the   fiftv-two  men   voting  for  organization  are   engraved  thereon 


THE  N 
PUBLIC 


"  fiSTcr., 

TIUBEIv  ' 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  ORE(JON  17;! 

the  I'niy.  enthnsiiii;-  llieiii  with  the  i);itriolic  iiiaiiiteiuuici'  of  Ihoir  principles, 
ami  \\\\\\  (■(iiii'.-iuc  lo  iiiaiiilaiii  Ihrir  rights.  I  »i-.  I.  I.,  lialiciick  is  ciioseii  cliair- 
luaii  oi'  the  lueetiufj;,  and  Win.  II.  (iray,  George  W.  LeBreton  and  \V.  II.  Willson. 
seri'etaries.  The  report  of  tlie  Coniinittee  of  Twelve  is  read  |>l•o|l(]^in>4■  a  jilan 
for  till'  organization  of  a  Provisional  (Joverunieiit.  Tlie  falcfiil  lionr  lias  coiiie; 
the  ehainiiau  ealls  foi-  order;  the  ayes  and  noes  arc  called  lor  and  against  a  gov- 
eriiiiicnt  :  the  .Vmcricans  vote  seatteringly,  hesitatingly  ami  inetfeetually.  Then 
comes  till'  vote  against  a  government,  and  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  men  I  rained 
for  the  occasion,  tire  a  solid  shot,  voting  loudly  and  as  one  man: — everything 
seems  lost  for  the  Americans.  A  few  brave  spirits  refuse  to  be  beaten,  will  not 
admit  defeat,  and  call  for  a  division  and  polling  the  men.  The  division  is  or- 
dered by  the  chairman ;  and  pandemonium  breaks  loose.  The  Hudson's  Bay  men 
and  Catholic  Canadians  rapidly  mingle  with  the  Americans  to  prevent  division 
and  bitterly  remonstrate  against  any  government  organization.  Neighborhood 
friendships,  peace  of  the  community,  every  consideration  is  recalled  to  prevent 
any  action ;  when  suddenly,  as  if  leaping  out  of  the  earth,  springs  forth  the  stal- 
\\art  form  of  Joseph  L.  ileek,  and  shouts  above  the  din  of  contending  voices : 

DIVIDE!  DIVIDE!  WHO'S  FOR  A  DIVIDE! 

All  in  favor  of  tlie  American  Flag,  folhuv  mc 

Instantly  the  commotion  is  silenced.  The  Americans  line  up  after  the  natural 
born  leader  of  men,  and  as  the  lines  lead  out  to  the  banks  of  the  beautiful  river, 
the  decision  hangs  in  the  balance.  The  secretaries  go  down  the  lines  of  deter- 
mined men,  resolutely  facing  each  other  with  that  grim  courage  which  betokens 
the  real  heroes  of  a  great  cause ;  and  it  looks  fearfully  like  a  drawn  battle.  Sud- 
denly a  Frenchman — (the  Frenchman  has  always  helped  Americans  out  when 
they  most  needed  him)  a  Frenchman  steps  out  from  the  ranks  of  those  of  his 
native  land,  conquers  the  greatest  trial  of  his  life,  and  Francois  Xavier  Matthieu 
slowly  crosses  over  to  the  American  side  and  takes  rank  with  his  fellow-country- 
man, Etienne  Lucier — and  Oregon  is  saved  to  the  nation — fifty-two  votes  for  or- 
ganizing the  Provisional  Government  of  Oregon,  and  fifty  votes  against. 

"It  was  then  moved  and  carried,  that  the  report  of  the  committee  be  taken  up, 
and  disposed  of  article  by  article. 

"A  motion  was  made  and  carried,  that  a  supreme  .judge,  with  probate  powers, 
be  chosen  to  officiate  in  this  conununity. 

"]Moved  and  carried,  that  a  clerk  of  the  court,  or  recorder,  be  chosen. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  a  sheriflf  be  chosen. 

"]\Ioved  and  carried,  that  three  magistrates  be  chosen. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  three  constables  be  chosen. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  a  committee  of  nine  persons  be  chosen,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  drafting  a  code  of  law^s,  for  the  government  of  this  community,  to  be 
presented  to  a  public  meeting  to  be  hereafter  called  by  them,  on  the  tiftli  day 
of  July,  next,  for  their  acceptance. 

"A  motion  was  made  and  cai-ricd.  that  a  treasurer  be  chosen. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  a  major  and  three  captains  be  chosen. 

"Moved  and  carried  that  we  now  proceed  to  choose  the  persons  to  till  the  vari- 
ous offices,  by  ballot. 

"W.  H.  Willson  was  chosen  to  act  as  supreme  .judge,  with  ju'dbate  powers. 


174  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

'  ■  G.  W.  Le  Breton  was  chosen  to  act  as  clerk  of  court,  or  recorder. 

'■J.  L.  Meek  was  chosen  to  fill  the  office  of  sheriff. 

"W.  H.  Willson  was  chosen  treasurer. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  the  remainder  of  the  officers  be  chosen  by  hand 
ballot,  and  nominations  from  the  floor. 

"Messrs.  David  Hill,  Robert  Shortess,  Robert  Newell,  Alanson  Beers,  Thomas 
J.  Hubbard,  Wm.  H.  Gray,  James  0  'Neil,  Robert  Moore,  Wm.  M.  Doughty  were 
chosen  to  act  as  the  legislative  committee. 

"Messrs.  Burns,  Judson  and  A.  T.  Smith,  were  chosen  to  act  as  magistrates. 

' '  Messrs.  Ebbert,  Bridges,  ajid  Lewis,  were  chosen  to  act  as  constables. 

"Mr.  John  Howard  was  chosen  mayor. 

"  'Messrs.  Wm.  McCarty,  C.  McRoy,  and  S.  Smith,  were  chosen  captains.' 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  the  legislative  committee  make  their  report  on  the 
5th  day  of  July  next,  at  Champooick. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  the  services  of  the  legislative  coimnittee  be  paid  for, 
at  $1.25,  per  day,  and  that  the  money  be  raised  by  subscription. 

' '  Moved  and  carried,  that  the  mayor  and  captains  be  instructed  to  enlist  men 
to  form  companies  of  mounted  riflemen. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  an  additional  magistrate  and  constable  be  chosen. 

"Mr.  Gampo  was  chosen  as  an  additional  magistrate. 

"Mr.  Matthieu  was  chosen  as  an  additional  constable. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  the  legislative  committee  shall  not  sit  over  six  days. 

"The  meeting  was  then  adjourned. 

"The  question  having  arisen,  with  regard  to  what  time  the  newly-ajjpointed 
officers  shall  commence  their  duties,  the  meeting  was  again  called  to  order,  wihen 

"It  was  moved  and  carried,  that  the  old  officers  remain  in  office  till  the  laws 
are  made  and  accepted,  or  until  the  next  public  meeting. 

' '  Attest  : 

G.  W.  Le  Breton." 

The  following  account  of  what  took  place  at  the  time  the  vote  was  taken  to 
decide  whether  there  should  be  an  organization  or  not,  was  given  to  the  author 
of  this  book  by  Col.  Meek  himself  at  the  county  fair  in  Washington  county  in 
September,  1867,  and  then  in  Meek's  presence  written  down  in  a  memorandum 
book.    Says  Meek : 

"When  the  ayes  and  noes  were  called  for  adopting  the  report  of  the  com- 
mittee, the  ayes  voted  weak  and  scattering,  ahd  the  noes  voted  solid  and  loud, 
as  if  trained  and  prepared.  It  looked  as  if  we  were  beaten,  but  the  chairman 
being  an  American  did  not  want  to  decide  that  way,  and  said  he  was  not  sure 
how  it  was,  and  proposed  a  division  and  counting  the  men.  The  British  all  op- 
posed division,  and  mixed  up  with  the  Americans  arguing  against  any  organiza- 
tion. This  confusion  continued  for  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  when  Le  Breton 
and  Lucier  came  to  me  and  said,  'Joe,  we  must  do  something  to  get  this  thing 
decided;  you  must  lead  off  and  get  the  men  separated.'  I  then  stepped  out, 
clear  outside  of  the  crowd,  swung  my  hat  in  the  air,  sounded  the  war  whoop  and 
yelled  at  the  top  of  my  voice : 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  175 

••  •DIVIDE!  DIVIDE!    \VIIO\S  FOR  A  DIVIDE! 

'All  in  farur  of  llu   American  Flag,  folhw  md' 

"1  lliou^'lit  tiR'  appeal  tu  tlu'  flag  would  catdi  llicni,  and  it  did,  and  every 
American  lined  up  al'ter  me.  The  secretaries  then  aeted  as  tellers  and  com- 
menced eountiug  the  men.  As  1  looked  down  the  line  it  was  awful  close.  Before 
the  counting  was  half  done.  Matthieu  who  had  lined  up  with  the  Canadians, 
left  them  and  walked  over  to  our  side,  and  took  a  position  alongside  of  Lueier. 
JIatthieu's  vote  decided  it,  for  we  oidy  had  two  nuijority.  The  British  then 
mounted  their  horses  anil  I'ude  away,  and  we  went  on  and  completed  our 
organization." 

And  so  was  born  the  tirst  American  government  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

The  following  are  the  names  of  the  "immortals"  who  saved  the  day  for 
American  institutions  on  May  2nd,  1843.  The  fifty-two  persons  voting  for  the 
adoption    of    the    committee's    report   were   as   follows: 

Armstrong,  Pleasant  M. ;  place  of  birth,  New  York ;  born,  1815  ;  church  prefer- 
ence, Presbyterian;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1840. 

Babcock,  Dr.  I.  L. ;  place  of  birth,  New  York;  church  preference,  Methodist; 
arri\ed  in  Oregon,  1840. 

Bailey,  Dr.  W.  J.;  place  of  birth,  Ireland;  born,  1804:  church  preference. 
Episcopalian;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1835. 

Beers,  Alanson;  place  of  birth,  Connecticut;  born.  ISOO;  church  preference, 
Methodist;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1837. 

Bridges,  J.  C. ;  church  preference,  unknown. 

Burns,  Hugh;   church  preference,  Presbyterian;   arrived   in   Oregon,   1842. 

Campo,  Charles ;  church  preference,  unknown. 

Cannon,  William;  place  of  birth,  Pennsylvania:  born,  1755:  church  prefer- 
ence, unknown;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1812. 

Clark,  Rev.  Harvey ;  place  of  birth,  Vermont :  born,  1807 ;  church  preference, 
Congregationalist ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1840. 

Cra\^ford,  Medorem;  place  of  birth.  New  York;  born,  1819;  church  prefer- 
ence, no  choice ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1842. 

Cook,  Amos;  place  of  birth,  Maine;  born,  1818;  church  preference,  ilethodist; 
arrived  in  Oregon,  1840. 

Davie,  Allen  J.;  place  of  birth,  Alabama;  boi-n,  1816;  church  preference. 
Baptist ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1842. 

Doughty,  William  il. ;  place  of  bii-th.  North  Carolina ;  born,  1812 ;  church 
preference,  no  choice ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1841. 

Ebberts,  George  W. ;  place  of  birth,  KentuckA- ;  born,  1810 ;  church  preference. 
Baptist ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1833. 

Fletcher,  Francis;  jjlace  of  birth,  England;  born,  1815;  church  prefei-enee. 
Episcopalian;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1840. 

Gay,  George;  place  of  birth,  England;  born,  1810;  church  preference,  EpiscO: 
palian;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1835. 

Gale,  Joseph ;  place  of  birth.  District  of  Columbia ;  born,  1800 ;  church  prefer- 
ence. Episcopalian:  arrived  in  Oregon.  1834. 

Gray,  William  H. :  place  of  birth.  New  York:  born,  1810:  church  preference, 
Presbyterian ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1836. 


176  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Griffin,  Rev.  Jolm  S. ;  place  of  birtli,  Vermont ;  born,  1807 ;  cliurch  preference, 
Congregationalist ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1839. 

Hauxhurst,  Webley ;  place  of  birth.  New  York ;  born,  1809 ;  church  prefer- 
ence, Methodist ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1834. 

Plill,  David ;  place  of  birth,  Connecticut ;  born,  1809 ;  church  preference, 
Congregationalist;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1842. 

Howard,  John;  church  preference,  Presbyterian. 

Holnian,  Joseph ;  place  of  birth,  England ;  born,  1815 ;  church  preference, 
Methodist ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1840. 

Hines,  Rev.  Gustavus ;  place  of  birth.  New  York ;  born,  1809 ;  church  prefer- 
ence, Methodist;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1840. 

Hubbard,  T.  J. ;  place  of  birth,  Massachusetts ;  born,  1806 ;  church  preference, 
unknown;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1834. 

Johnson,  AVilliam ;  place  of  birth,  England ;  born,  1784 ;  church  preference. 
Episcopalian  ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1835. 

Judson,  Rev.  L.  H. ;  place  of  birth,  Connecticut ;  born,  1802 ;  church  prefer- 
ence, Methodist;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1840. 

Le  Breton,  Geo.  W. ;  place  of  birth,  Massachusetts ;  bom,  1810 ;  cliurch  prefer- 
ence, Catholic;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1840. 

Leslie,  Rev.  David ;  place  of  birth,  New  Hampshire ;  born,  1797 ;  church 
preference,  Methodist;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1837. 

Lewis,  Reuben;  place  of  birth.  New  York;  born,  1814;  church  preference, 
Presbyterian ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1842. 

Lucier,  Etienne ;  place  of  birth,  Canada ;  born,  1783 ;  church  preference. 
Catholic :  arrived  in  Oregon,  1812. 

*']\Iatthieu,  Francois  X.:  place  of  birth,  Canada;  born,  1818;  church  prefer- 
ence. Catholic ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1842. 

Meek,  Joseph  L. ;  place  of  birth,  Virginia ;  born,  1810 ;  church  preference, 
Methodist;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1829. 

MeCarty,  William ;  church  preference.  Catholic ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1834. 

McKay,  Charles;  place  of  birth,  at  sea  (Scotch)  ;  born,  1808;  church  prefer- 
ence, Presbyterian;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1841. 

Moore,  Robert ;  place  of  birth,  Pennsylvania ;  born,  1781 ;  church  preference, 
Presbyterian ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1840. 

Morrison,  John  L. ;  place  of  birth,  Scotland ;  born,  1793 ;  church  preference, 
Presbyterian ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1842. 

Newell,  Dr.  Robert;  place  of  birth,  Ohio;  born,  1804;  church  preference. 
Episcopalian ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1840. 

O'Neil,  James  A.;  place  of  birth.  New  York;  church  preference,  Methodist; 
arrived  in  Oregon,  1834. 

Parrish,  Rev.  J.  L. ;  place  of  birth.  New  York ;  born,  1806 ;  church  preference, 
Methodist;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1840. 

Piekernell,  John  E. ;  place  of  birth,  England ;  church  preference.  Episco- 
palian. 

Robb,  James  R. ;  place  of  birth,  Pennsylvania  ;  born,  1816 ;  church  preference, 
Methodist;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1842. 


*Only  one  now  alive. 


•  lOSKl'll     BLl11TI';L 

The  pioneer  who  raised  the  money  to  erect  tlio   nioniiniciit   :nul  preserve 
the    site    of    the    Champoeg    meeting 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  177 

Russell,  Osborn;  plarc  oi'  liii-tli,  Ohio;  born,  ISICI;  clnircli  prcferencp,  un- 
known; aiTived  in  Oregon,   1S42. 

Shortess,  Robert;  iilacc  nf  biilli,  I'l^nnsylvimia  :  born,  1804;  elum-li  [irei'er- 
ence,  Methodist;  arrixcil  in  (>i'c^on.  1S4(I. 

Sniitli,  Alvin  T. ;  place  oT  birth,  Oonnedirut  ;  liorn,  1.SU2  ;  elnireh  preference, 
Congregationalist ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1840. 

Smith,  Sidney;  place  of  birth,  New  York;  born,  1809;  cluirch  preference, 
unknown;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1839. 

Smith,  Solomon  II.;  place  of  birth,  New  Hampshire;  born,  1809;  church 
preference,  Congregationalist ;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1832. 

Tibbetts,  Calvin;  place  of  birth,  Massachusetts;  church  preference,  Congre- 
gationalist; arrived  in  Oregon,  1832. 

Weston,  David;  place  of  birth,  Indiana;  born,  1820;  church  preference,  un- 
known; arrived  in  Oregon,  1842. 

Wilkins,  Caleb;  place  of  birth,  Ohio;  born,  1810;  church  preference.  Baptist; 
arrived  in  Oregon,  1835. 

Wilson,  A.  E.;  place  of  birth.  Massachusetts;  church  preference,  unknown; 
arrived  in  Oregon,  1842. 

Willson,  Dr.  W.  H. ;  place  of  birth.  New  Hampshire;  born,  1805;  church 
preference,  Methodist;  arrived  in  Oregon,  1837. 

STATES  OR  COUNTRIES  REPRESENTED 

Alabama,  1 ;  Canada,  2;  Connecticut  4;  District  of  Columbia,  1;  England,  5; 
Indiana,  1;  Ireland,  1;  Kentucky,  1;  Maine,  1;  Massachusetts,  4;  New  Hamp- 
shire, 3;  New  York,  lO";  North  Carolina,  1;  Ohio,  3;  Pennsylvania,  4;  Vermont, 
2 ;  Virginia,  1 ;  Scotland,  1 ;  Unspecified,  6.     Total,  52. 

Church  preference  :  Baptists,  3  ;  Catholics,  4 ;  Congregationalists,  6  ;  Episco- 
palians, 7;  jMethodists,  14:  Presbyterians,  8;  unknown,  10.     Total,  52. 

*FRENCn    SETTLERS    WHO    VOTED    AGAINST    THE   ORGANIZATION    OP    THE    PROVISIONAL 
GOVERNMENT  AT   CHAMPOEG,   MAY   2,   1843 

Aubichon,  Alexis ;  Aubichon,  Jean  B. ;  Ausant,  Louis ;  Arquoit,  Amable ; 
Bargeau,  Cyfois;  Beleque,  Pierre;  Biscornais,  Pascal;  Boivers,  Louis;  Bonenfant, 
Antoine;  Briscbois,  Alexis;  Briscbois,  Olivier;  Brunelle,  Joseph;  Chalifoux, 
Andre  ;  Chamberlain,  Adolph  ;  Cornoyer,  Joseph  ;  Delard,  Joseph ;  Depot,  Pierre ; 
Despart,  Joseph;  Donpierre,  David;  Dubois,  Andre;  Ducharme,  Jean  B. ;  Felice, 
Antoine ;  Forcier,  Louis ;  Gagnon,  Luc ;  Gauthier,  Pierre ;  Gervais,  Joseph ;  Gin- 
gras,  Jean  ;  Gregoire,  Etienne  ;  La  Chapelle,  Andre  ;  La  Bonte,  Louis ;  Laderout, 
Xavier ;  Laferte,  Michelle ;  La  Framboise,  Michelle ;  Lalcoure,  Jean  B. ;  Lambert 
Augustin;  La  Pratte.  Alexis;  Longtain,  Andre;  Lore,  Moyse ;  Matte,  Joseph; 
Maloin,  Fabien;  IMongrain,  David;  Papin,  Pierre:  Pariseau,  Pierre;  Remon, 
Augustin  ;  Roi,  Thomas ;  Rondeau,  Charles ;  Sanders,  Andre ;  Senecalle,  Gideon  : 
Servant,  Jaques;  Van  Dalle.  Louis  B. 


*  All  Catholics.  After  permanent  organization,  the  majority  of  these  men  acted  the 
part  of  good  citizens  by  supporting  the  Provisional  Government;  and  all  became  naturalized 
as  soon  as  possible  after  the  United  States  extended  its  jurisdiction  over  the  "Oregon 
Country,"  March  3,  1849. 


178  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

The  above  list  was  compiled  by  George  H.  Himes,  secretary  of  the  Oregon 
Pioneer  Association  foi*  the  past  twentj'-eight  years,  and  assistant  secretary  of 
the  Oregon  Historical  Society  since  the  date  of  its  organization,  December  17,. 
1898.  It  is  the  result  of  careful  investigation  for  over  twenty-five  years,  and 
the  information  indicated  was  secured  largely  by  personal  intercourse  with  a 
number  of  the  persons  named. 

By  comparing  the  list  of  these  who  voted  against  organization  with  the  list 
of  those  signing  Bishop  Blauchet's  address  against  au  organization,  it  will  be 
seen  that  twenty-one  Catholic  Canadians  including  the  Bishop  himself,  signed  the 
address  but  did  not  attend  the  public  meeting  to  vote  against  the  Provisional 
Government. 

The  names  of  the  French  settlers  were  secured  from  Hon.  P.  X.  Matthieu, 
who,  as  a  merchant  at  Butteville  for  more  than  thirty  years,  had  their  names 
upon  his  books. 

There  has  been  much  discussion  of  what  did  actually  take  place  at  the  Cham- 
poeg  meeting.  It  is  evident  upon  the  face  of  it,  that  what  has  been  printed  as 
■the  proceedings  of  that  meeting  is  an  imperfect  report.  The  Hon.  L.  P.  Grover 
was  authorized  by  the  territorial  legislature  of  1849,  to  collect  all  the  papers 
and  records  of  the  provisional  government  for  publication ;  and  in  a  note  ap- 
pended to  the  work  says:  "Within  the  proper  depository  of  the  public  papers, 
he  has  not  been  able  to  find  entire  and  satisfactory  records  of  all  that  he  is  sat- 
isfied has  transpired  in  Oregon  of  a  public  general  nature,  and  which  would  be 
of  eminent  historic  importance."  The  fact  that  the  three  secretaries  of  that 
meeting  were  active  partisans  of  the  purpose  to  form  a  government,  and  were 
actively  advocating  such  purpose  at  the  meeting,  will  explain  why  a  fuller  ac- 
count of  the  proceedings  was  not  made.  The  most  striking  and  important  event 
of  the  meeting  was  Meek's  dramatic  appeal  for  a  "division,"  and  yet  that  is 
not  mentioned  in  the  "Archives"  but  that  it  actually  took  place  there  can  be 
no  doubt.  The  following  persons  told  the  writer  of  this  book  substantially  what 
Meek  told  him,  viz. :  Rev.  J.  S.  Griffin,  Medorem  Crawford,  Robert  Shortess,  Wil- 
liam M.  Doughty,  George  W.  Ebberts  and  P.  X.  Matthieu. 

But  while  much  may  have  been  lost  of  interesting  history,  there  is  the  printed 
record  of  335  octavo  pages  to  show  the  minds,  thoughts,  sentiments,  and  prin- 
ciples of  the  pioneers  as  ' ' state  builders ; ' '  and  the  state  of  Oregon  is  the  glorious 
monument  to  their  memory. 

In  organizing  this  provisional  government,  the  Americans  did  not  seek  to  ex- 
clude the  Canadians  from  any  part  in  the  work ;  but  on  the  contrary  used  all  their 
influence  to  have  them  co-operate.  At  the  meeting  of  Pebruary  2nd,  1843,  they 
adjourned  to  meet  at  the  house  of  Joseph  Gervais.  a  Canadian,  who  voted  against 
organization;  and  at  the  "Wolf  Meeting,"  Gervais  and  Maitune  were  appointed 
on  the  standing  committee — both  Canadians. 

That  the  Americans  long  and  earnestly  sought  to  have  the  Canadians  unite 
with  them  in  organizing  a  Provisional  Government  is  proved  by  the  statements 
of  John  McLoughlin.  In  a  statement  prepared  by  McLoughlin  evidently  to 
make  clear  his  record,  but  not  published  in  his  lifetime,  a  copy  of  which  was 
published  by  Mrs.  P.  P.  Victor  in  the  Quarterly  of  the  Oregon  Historical  So- 
ciety, June,  1900,  Dr.  McLoughlin  says: 

"In  the  spring  of  1842  the  Americans  invited  the  Canadians  to  unite  with 


TUE  CENTKNNIAL  HISTOliY  OF  OREGON  179 

them  and  organize  a  temporary  government,  but  the  Canadians  apprehensive  it 
might  interfere  with  their  aUogianee,  declined,  and  the  project,  which  originated 
with  the  (Methodist)  Mission,  I'ailcd.  *  *  *  in  1843  the  Americans  again 
proposed  to  the  Canadians  to  Join  and  I'orm  a  temporary  government,  but  the 
Canadians  declined  for  the  same  reason  as  befoi'e." 

But  after  thus  twice  refusing  to  join  with  the  Americans,  and  after  the  or- 
ganization had  been  completed,  and  declared  that  joining  the  Provisional  Gov- 
ernment would  not  require  any  person  to  abjure  their  allegiance  to  any  other 
government  or  king.  Dr.  MeLoughlin  gave  his  support  to  the  Provisional  Gov- 
ernment and  asked  favors  and  franchises  of  it. 

The  legislative  committee  appointed  on  May,  2nd,  went  to  work  on  May  16, 
1843,  as  a  legislative  body,  electing  Robert  Moore,  chairman,  and  G.  W.  Le 
Breton,  secretary ;  and  held  sessions  with  prayers.  On  July  5th,  1843,  a  public 
meeting  of  all  the  inhabitants  of  "Oregon  Territory"  was  held,  pursuant  to  ad- 
journment to  hear  the  report  of  the  legislative  conunittee,  and  transact  such 
other  business  as  might  come  before  them.    The  following  proceedings  were  had : 

"The  chairman  of  the  meeting  being  absent,  the  meeting  was  called  to  order 
by  G.  W.  Le  Breton. 

"On  motion,  Rev.  G.  Hines,  was  called  to  the  chair. 

"Mr.  Moore,  chairman,  of  the  legislative  conunittee,  presented  his  report, 
which  was  read  and  accepted. 

"Moved,  by  L.  H.  Judson,  the  report  upon  ways  and  means  be  accepted. 

"Carried. 
"Movefl   by    J.  MeLoughlin,    that    the    first    article    of   judiciary    report    be 
adopted. 

"Carried. 

"Moved,  by  L.  H.  Judson,  second  article  be  adopted. 

"Carried. 

"Moved,  by  C.  McRoy,  that  the  third  article  be  adopted 

"Carried. 

"Moved,  by  J.  Ilolman,  that  the  fourth  article  be  adopted. 

' '  Carried. 

"Section  second.    Organic  laws. 

"The  first,  second,  third,  and  fourth  articles  adopted. 

"The  fifth  article  amended,  as  recorded,  adopted. 

"The  sixth,  seventh,  eighth,  ninth,  tenth,  and  eleventh  articles,  adopted. 

"The  twelfth  article  amended,  as  recorded,  adopted. 

"The  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  fifteenth,  and  sixteenth  articles,  adopted. 

"The  seventeenth  article  amended,  by  inserting  the  word  'one'  for  'three,' 
adopted. 

"The  eighteenth  article,  and  nineteenth  resolution,  adopted. 

"IMoved  and  carried,  that  the  committee,  for  carrying  into  effect  the  nine- 
teenth resolution,  be  chosen,  by  nomination,  from  the  floor. 

"Messrs.  Lee,  Hines,  and  Walker,  were  chosen. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  the  members  of  the  executive  committee  be  now 
chosen,  by  ballot. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  the  highest  number  of  votes  decide  the  choice. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  the  votes  be  taken  to  the  table,  to  be  counted. 


180  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

"Messrs.  Hill,  Beers,  and  Gale,  were  chosen  to  be  the  members  of  the  executive 
committee. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  we  proceed  to  elect  a  justice  of  the  peace  in  place 
of  Mr.  Burns,  resigned. 

"Robert  Moore  was  chosen  justice  of  the  peace. 

"Moved  and  carried,  to  adopt  the  remainder  of  the  judiciary  report;  viz. : — to 
adopt  the  laws  of  Iowa,  as  recorded,  by  amending  them  so  far  as  to  retain  the 
fees  of  New  York,  for  jurors  and  witnesses,  instead  of  those  of  Oregon  Territory. 

"Moved  and  carried,  to  adopt  the  military  laws.  Amended  so  as  to  continue 
the  officers  in  command  during  good  behavior. 

"Moved  and  carried,  to  adopt  the  report  of  the  districting  committee. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  no  person  be  allowed  to  speak  more  than  twice  to 
any  one  resolution. 

"Moved  and  carried,  to  proceed  to  appoint  a  justice  of  the  peace,  for  Yamhill 
district. 

"On  motion,  James  O'Neil,  Esq.,  was  chosen. 

"On  motion,  A.  Cook  was  appointed  constable. 

"On  motion,  Joel  Turnham  was  chosen  constable  for  Champooiek  district, 
in  place  of  Mr.  Bridges,  left  the  country. 

"The  report  of  committee,  upon  ways  and  means,  was  adopted  as  amended 
and  recorded. 

"The  report  of  committee,  upon  land  claims,  was  adopted,  with  the  proviso, 
as  recorded. 

"Moved  and  carried,  to  purchase  several  law  books,  of  Jas.  O'Neil,. to  be  the 
property  of  this  community. 

' '  Moved  and  carried,  to  adopt  the  report  of  legislative  committee,  as  a  whole. 

"Moved  and  carried  to  excuse  the  legislative  committee  from  further  serv- 
ices. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  the  committee  chosen  to  carry  into  effect  the  nine- 
teenth resolution,  have  access  to  all  public  records,  and  also  to  have  authority 
to  call  upon  any  individual  for  information,  necessary  to  carry  out  their  instruc- 
tions. 

"Resolved.  That  the  chairman  of  this  meeting,  assisted  by  the  Rev.  Messrs. 
Lee,  Clarke,  and  Leslie,  be  a  committee  to  draft,  and  administer  the  oath  of  office, 
to  the  civil  officers,  elected  on  the  second  of  May,  1843 ;  and  that  said  officers  be 
required  to  subscribe  to  the  same,  and  administer  the  oath  to  the  supreme  judge, 
who  shall  hereafter  cpalify  all  civil  and  military  officers,  to  be  elected  by  the 
people. 

"Moved  and  carried,  that  the  committee,  to  qualify  officers,  proceed  to  their 
duty,  as  far  as  practicable,  this  evening. 

"On  motion,  adjourned. 

"A  true  copy  from  original  papers. 

"Attest.  G.  W.  Le  Breton, 

"Recorder." 

"The  legislative  committee  recommended  that  the  territory  be  divided  into 
districts,  as  follows: 

"First  district,  to  be  called  the  Twality  district,  comprising  all  the  country 


THE  CEXTKNNIAli  II18T0KY  OF  OKKGON  181 

sdiitli  (iT  llic  iKji-tlicrn  licKiiidiiry  liin'  of  llir  liiili-il  States,  west  of  the  Willam- 
vUv.  or  .Miillniiiiiali,  ri\cr,  north  of  tlic  ^'iiinhill  river,  and  cast  of  the  Pacific 
ocean. 

"Serontl  district,  to  lie  called  Hie  ^'ainliill  district,  einbraeinf;'  all  the  counti'y 
west  of  the  Willamette,  or  Alnlluiuiiah,  river,  aud  a  supposed  line^running  north 
and  south  I'roin  said  river,  south  of  the  Yamhill  river,  to  the  ])arallel  of  42  "  north 
latitude,  or  the  boundary  line  of  the  United  States  and  ('alifornia,  aud  east  of 
llie  I'acilic  ocean. 

"Third  district,  to  be  called  the  Clackamas  district,  comprehending-  all  the 
territory  not  included  in  the  other  three  districts. 

'■|''ourtli  district,  to  be  called  the  Champooiek  district,  and  bounded  on  the 
north  by  a  supposed  line  drawn  from  the  north  of  the  Anchiyoke  (Mollala) 
river,  running  due  east  to  the  Eoeky  mountains,  west  by  the  Willamette  or  Mult- 
nomah river,  and  a  supposed  line  running  due  south  from  said  river  to  the  par- 
allel of  42°  north  latitude;  south  by  the  boundary  line  of  the  United  States  and 
California,  and  ea.st  by  the  summit  of  the  Rocky  mountains. 

"The  legislative  committee  also  recommend  that  the  a))ove  districts  be  desig- 
nated as  Oregon  Territory. 

"Approved  by  the  jjeople,  July  5,  1S43."  ' 

REPORT  OF  THE  LEGISLATIVE   COMMITTEE   ON   WAYS   AND   MEANS 

Tlie  legislative  eonnnittee  report  that  a  subscription  j)aper  as  follows  be  put 
in  circulation  to  collect  funds  for  defraying  the  expenses  of  the  government: 

We,  the  subscribers,  pledge  ourselves  to  pay,  annually,  to  the  treasurer  of 
Oregon  territory  the  sums  affixed  to  our  respective  names  for  the  purpose  of 
defraying  the  expenses  of  government — provided  that,  in  all  eases,  each  indi- 
vidual subscriber  may,  at  any  time,  withdraw  his  name  from  said  subscription 
upon  paying  up  all  arrearages  and  notifying  the  treasurer  of  the  colony  of  such 
desire  to  withdraw. 

The  following  are  the  principal  provisions  of  the  original  constitution,  ap- 
proved by  the  people,  July  5,  1848 : 

Sec.  1.  We,  the  people  of  Oregon  territory,  for  purposes  of  nuitual  pro- 
tection, and  to  secure  peace  and  prosperity  among  ourselves,  agree  to  adopt  the 
following  laws  and  regulations,  until  such  time  as  the  United  States  of  America 
extend  their  jurisdiction  over  us. 

Art.  1.  No  person,  demeaning  himself  in  a  peaceable  and  orderly  manner, 
shall  ever  be  molested  on  account  of  his  mode  of  worship  or  religious  sentiments. 

Art.  2.  The  inhabitants  of  said  territory  shall  always  be  entitled  to  the 
benefits  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  and  trial  by  jury ;  of  a  proportionate  rep- 
resentation of  the  people  in  the  legislature,  and  of  judicial  proceedings,  accord- 
ing to  the  course  of  common  law.  All  persons  shall  be  bailable,  unless  for  capi- 
tal offences,  where  the  proof  shall  be  evident  or  the  presumption  great.  All 
fines  shall  be  moderate  and  no  cruel  or  unnsual  punishments  inflicted.  No  man 
shall  be  deprived  of  his  liberty  but  by  the  judgment  of  his  peers  or  the  law  of 
the  land;  and  should  the  public  exigencies  make  it  necessary  for  the  common 
preservation  to  take  any  person's  property,  or  to  demand  his  particular  services, 
full  compensation  shall  be  made  for  tlie  same.    And.  in  the  just  preservation  of 


182  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

rights  and  property,  it  is  understood  and  declared  that  no  law  ought  ever  to  be 
made,  or  have  force,  in  said  territory,  that  shall  in  manner  whatever,  interfere 
with  or  affect  private  contracts  or  engagements,  bona  fide,  and  without  fraud, 
previously  formed. 

Art.  3.  Religion,  morality  and  knowledge,  being  necessary  to  good  gov- 
ernment, and  the  happiness  of  mankind,  schools  and  the  means  of  education 
shall  forever  be  encouraged. 

The  utmost  good  faith  shall  always  be  observed  towards  the  Indians.  Their 
lands  and  property  shall  never  be  taken  from  them  without  their  consent,  and 
in  their  property  rights  and  liberty  they  shall  never  be  invaded  or  disturbed, 
unless  in  just  and  lawful  wars,  authorized  by  the  representatives  of  the  people ; 
but  laws,  founded  in  justice  and  humanity,  shall,  from  time  to  time,  be  made 
for  preventing  injustice  being  done  to  them,  and  for  preserving  peace  and 
friendship  with  them. 

Art.  4.  There  shall  be  neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  in  said  ter- 
ritory otherwise  than  for  the  punishment  of  crimes  whereof  the  party  shall  have 
been  duly  convicted. 

Sec.  2,  Art.  1.  Be  it  enacted  by  the  authority  aforesaid  that  the  officers 
elected  on  the  2d  of  May,  inst.,  shall  continue  in  office  until  the  2d  Tuesday  in 
May,  1844,  and  until  others  are  elected  and  qualified. 

Art.  2.  Be  it  further  enacted,  that  an  election  of  civil  and  military  officers 
shall  be  held  annually  on  the  second  Tuesday  in  May  in  the  several  districts  at 
such  places  as  shall  be  designated  by  law.  - 

Art.  3.  Each  officer  heretofore  elected,  or  hereafter  to  be  elected,  shall,  be- 
fore entering  upon  the  duties  of  his  office,  take  an  oath  or  affirmation  to  sup- 
port the  laws  of  the  territory  and  faithfully  to  discharge  the  duties  of  his  office. 

Art.  5.  The  executive  power  shall  be  vested  in  a  committee  of  three  per- 
sons, elected  by  the  qualified  voters  at  the  annual  election,  who  shall  have  power 
to  grant  pardons  and  reprieves  for  offences  against  the  laws  of  the  territory,  to 
call  out  the  military  force  of  the  territory  to  repel  invasion  or  suppress  insurrec- 
tion, to  take  care  that  the  laws  are  faithfully  executed  and  to  recommend  such 
laws  as  they  may  consider  necessary  to  the  representatives  of  the  people  for  their 
action.  Two  members  of  the  committee  shall  constitute  a  quoi'um  to  transact 
business. 

Art.  6.  The  legislative  power  shall  be  vested  in  a  committee  of  nine  persons, 
who  shall  be  elected  by  the  qualified  electors  at  the  annual  election,  giving  to 
each  district  a  representation  in  ratio  of  its  population,  excluding  Indians;  and 
the  said  members  of  the  committee  shall  reside  in  the  district  for  which  they 
shall  be  chosen. 

Art.  7.  The  judicial  power  shall  be  vested  in  a  supreme  court,  consisting 
of  a  supreme  judge  and  two  justices  of  the  peace,  a  probate  court;  and  in  jus- 
tices of  the  peace.  The  jurisdiction  of  the  supreme  court  shall  be  both  appellate 
and  original.  That  of  the  probate  court  and  justices  of  the  peace,  as  limited  by 
law — provided,  that  individual  justices  of  the  peace  shall  not  have  jurisdiction 
of  any  matter  of  controversy  when  the  title  or  boundary  of  land  may  be  in  dis- 
pute, or  where  the  sum  claimed  exceeds  fifty  dollars. 

Art.  12.  The  laws  of  Iowa  Territory  shall  be  the  law  of  this  territory,  in 
civil,  military  and  criminal  cases,  where  not  otherwise  provided  for,  and  where 


THE  CENTENNIAI.  HISTORY  OF  OKKGON  183 

uo  statute  of  Iowa  Territory  applies,  tlie  priueiples  of  comiiion  law  and  equity 
shall  govern. 

Art.  17.  All  male  persons  of  the  age  of  sixteen  years  and  upwards,  and  all 
females  of  the  age  of  fourteen  and  upwards,  shall  have  the  right  of  engaging  iu 
marriage — provided  that  where  either  of  the  parties  shall  be  under  the  age  of 
twenty-one,  the  eonseut  of  the  parents  or  guardians  of  such  minors  shall  be 
necessary  to  the  validity  of  such  matrimonial  engagement.  Every  ordained  minis- 
ter of  the  gospel  of  any  religious  denomination,  the  supreme  judge,  and  all  jus- 
tices of  the  peace,  are  hereby  authorized  to  solemnize  marriages,  according  to 
law,  to  have  the  same  recorded,  and  pay  the  recorder's  fee.  All  marriages  shall 
be  recorded  by  the  territorial  recorder  within  one  month  from  the  time  of  such 
marriage  taking  place  and  being  made  known  to  him  officially.  The  legal  fee 
for  marriage  shall  be  one  dollar  and  for  recording  the  same  fifty  cents. 

Art.  19.  Resolved.  That  a  committee  of  three  be  appointed  to  draw  up  a 
digest  of  the  doings  of  the  people  of  this  territory,  with  regard  to  an  organiza- 
tion, and  transmit  the  same  to  the  United  States  government,  for  their  informa- 
tion. 

THE   MILITIA 

Art.  1.  Any  person  now  holding,  or  hereafter  wishing  to  establish  a  claim 
consisting  of  three  or  more  companies  of  mounted  riflemen. 

THE  LAW  OP  LAND  CLAIMS 

Art.  1.  Any  person  now  holding,  or  hereafter  wishing  to  establish  a  claim 
to  land  in  this  territory,  shall  designate  the  extent  of  his  claim  by  natural 
boundaries,  or  by  marks  at  the  corners,  and  on  the  lines  of  such  claim,  and  have 
the  extent  and  boundaries  of  said  claim  recorded  in  the  office  of  the  territorial 
recorder,  in  a  book  to  be  kept  by  him  for  that  purpose,  within  twenty  days  fi'om 
the  time  of  making  said  claim — provided,  that  those  who  shall  already  be  in  pos- 
session of  land  shall  be  allowed  one  year  from  the  passage  of  this  act  to  file  a  de- 
scription of  his  claim  in  the  recorder's  office. 

Art.  3.  No  individual  shall  be  allowed  to  hold  a  claim  of  more  than  one 
square  mile  or  six  hundred  and  forty  acres  in  a  square  or  oblong  form,  accord- 
ing to  the  natural  situation  of  the  premises ;  nor  shall  any  individual  be  allowed 
to  hold  more  than  one  claim  at  the  same  time.  Any  person  complying  w-ith  the 
provisions  of  these  ordinances  shall  be  entitled  to  the  same  recourse  against 
trespass  as  in  other  cases  by  law  provided. 

Art.  4.  No  person  shall  be  entitled  to  hold  such  a  claim  upon  city  or  town 
sites,  extensive  water  privileges,  or  other  situations  necessary  for  the  transaction 
of  mercantile  or  manufacturing  operations,  and  to  the  detriment  of  the  commun- 
ity— provided,  that  nothing  in  these  laws  shall  be  so  constructed  as  to  affect  any 
claim  of  any  mission  of  a  religious  character  made  previous  to  this  time  of  an 
extent  not  more  than  six  miles  square. 

Approved  by  the  people,  July  5,  1843. 

The  legislative  committee  met  again  at  AVillamette  Falls,  June  18,  1844,  and 
daily  transacted  legislative  business  until  June  27,  when  it  adjourned  to  meet 
again  on  the  thii-d  Monday  of  December.  1844.   The  enacting  clause  of  every  law 


184  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

was:  "Be  it  enacted  by  the  house  of  representatives  of  Oregon  territory." 
Among  the  laws  passed  at  this  session  was  an  act  to  authorize  John  McLoughlin 
to  operate  a  ferry  at  Willamette  Falls;  an  act  to  prevent  the  inti-oduction,  sale 
or  manufacture  of  ardent  spirits  in  Oregon;  an  act  to  prevent  slavery  in  Ore- 
gon. N.  H.  King  applied  for  a  divorce  from  his  wife  to  this  legislature,  and  it 
was  not  granted.  John  McLoughlin  was  authorized  to  construct  a  canal  at  Wil- 
lamette Palls.  P.  Ermatinger  and  others  sent  in  a  petition  to  incorporate  Ore- 
gon City,  which  was  unfavorably  reported  upon  by  A.  L.  Love.ioy,  the  only  law- 
yer in  the  legislature. 

The  second  Executive  Committee,  composed  of  Peter  Grant  Stewart,  Osborn 
Russell  and  Dr.  William  J.  Bailey,  elected  May  14,  1844,  presented  to  the 
adjourned  meeting  of  the  legislature  on  December  17,  1844,  the  following  mes- 
sage. This  is  the  first  executive  document  in  connection  with  the  new  govern- 
ment as  far  as  now  known: 

To  the  Honorable  the  Legislative  Committee  of  Oregon, 

Gentlemen  : — As  the  expectation  of  receiving  some  information  from  the 
United  States,  relative  to  the  adjustment  of  the  claims  of  that  government  and 
of  Great  Britain,  upon  this  country,  was  the  principal  cause  of  the  adjournment 
of  this  assembly  from  June  last  to  this  day,  we  feel  it  our  duty  to  communicate 
such  information  as  we  have  been  able  to  collect  on  the  subject,  and  likewise  to 
recommend  the  adoption  of  further  measures  for  the  promotion  and  security  of 
the  interests  of  Oregon. 

The  lines,  defining  the  limits  of  the  separate  claims  of  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain,  to  this  portion  of  the  country,  had  not  been  agreed  upon  when 
our  latest  advices  left  the  United  States — and,  as  far  as  we  can  learn,  the  ques- 
tion now  stands  in  the  same  position  as  before  the  convention  in  London,  in 
1818.  At  that  time,  the  United  States  government  proposed  to  draw  the  division 
line,  on  the  49th  parallel  of  north  latitude,  from  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  to  the 
Pacific  ocean.  To  this  Great  Britain  would  only  consent  in  part,  that  the  line 
should  run  on  the  49th  parallel,  from  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  to  the  dividing 
ridge  of  the  Rocky  mountains ;  and  it  was  finally  agreed  upon  between  the  par- 
ties, that  all  the  country  lying  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains,  and  on  the  Pacific 
ocean,  should,  with  its  harbors,  bays,  and  rivers,  remain  open  for  ten  years,  to 
the  vessels,  subjects,  or  citizens,  of  both  countries.  But  it  was,  at  the  same  time, 
expressly  understood,  that  the  said  agreement,  was  not  to  be  construed  to  affect, 
or  prejudice,  the  claims  of  either  party,  or  any  other  power,  to  any  portion  of 
said  country.  Before  this  agreement  expired  another  convention  was  held  in 
London,  in  1827,  by  the  two  contracting  powers;  by  which  the  former  treaty 
was  extended,  with  the  provision,  that  when  either  of  the  parties  thought  fit,  after 
the  20th  of  October,  1828,  to  abrogate  the  convention,  they  were  at  liberty  to 
do  so,  by  giving  twelve  months '  notice  to  the  other  contracting  party ;  but  noth- 
ing contained  in  the  treaty  of  1827,  was  to  be  construed,  so  as  to  affect  in  any 
manner  the  claims  which  either  of  the  contracting  parties,  or  anj'  other  power, 
might  have  to  any  of  the  country  lying  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains. 

The  subject  has  again  been  called  up  for  investigation  by  the  two  powers, 
and  a  negotiation  was  begun  at  Washington  in  the  early  part  of  the  present  year, 
but  was  for  the  time  being  suspended  on  account  of  a  disagreement  between  the 


GEORGE  ABERNETHY 
Governor  of  the  Oregon  Provisional  Government,  1845   to  1849 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OKIOUON  185 

imrlics;  aihl  mitit'c  oL'  tlir  aluoji'Mt  inn  of  the  (•(iinciuidii  of  1S27.  liail  not  liceii 
given  liy  <'itlici-  party,  when  our  last,  iui'ormatiou  lel'l  llic  Uuilud  States.  And 
We  lind  that  aflrr  all  the  negotiations  that  have  been  carried  on,  between  the 
United  States  and  (J  real  Britain  rehitive  to  settling  their  claims  to  this  country 
from  October,  1818,  up  to  May,  1844,  a  period  of  nearly  twenty -six  years,  the  ques- 
tion n-niains  in  the  following  unsettled  position,  viz.:  Neither  of  the  parties 
in  (|uestiou  claim  exclusive  right  to  the  country  lying  west  of  the  Rocky  moun- 
tains between  the  parallels  of  42  degrees,  and  54  tlegrees,  4U  minutes  north 
latitude,  and  bordering  on  the  Pacific  ocean.  But  one  claims  as  much  right  as  the 
other,  and  both  claim  the  right  of  joint  occupancy  of  the  w'hole,  without  prejudice 
to  the  claims  of  any  other  state  or  power  to  any  part  of  said  country. 

We  have  submitted  to  yon  this  information,  gentlemen  of  tl;e  assembly,  for 
two  i)articular  reasons : 

1st.  To  correct  an  error  that  occurred  in  our  last  communication  to  this 
body,  relative  to  the  claims  of  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  to  this 
country. 

2nd.  That  you  may  bear  in  mind,  while  legislating  for  the  people  of  Ore- 
gon the  position  in  which  this  country  stands,  with  regard  to  those  claims. 

We  would  advise  that  provision  be  made  by  this  body,  for  the  framing  and 
adoption  of  a  constitution  for  Oregon,  previous  to  the  next  annual  election, 
which  may  serve  as  a  more  thorough  guide  to  her  officers,  and  a  more  firm  basis 
of  her  laws.  It  should  be  constructed  in  such  a  manner  as  would  best  suit  the 
local  situation  of  the  country,  and  promote  the  general  interests  of  the  citi- 
zens, withovit  interfering  with  the  real  or  pretended  rights  of  the  United 
States  or  Great  Britain;  except  when  the  protection  of  life  and  property  ac- 
tually require  it. 

We  would  suggest,  for  your  information,  that  this  government  has  now  in 
possession  notes  given  by  different  individuals  residing  in  the  country,  amount- 
ing to  .'f;3, 734.26,  most  of  which  are  already  due.  These  notes  are  a  balance  in 
favor  of  the  estate  of  Ewing  Young,  of  Oregon,  deceased,  intestate,  A.  D. 
1841,  after  all  legal  dues,  debts  and  damages  are  paid,  that  have  come  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  administrator,  or  probate  courts  of  Oregon  up  to  this  date. 
We  would  therefore  advise  that  those  demands  should  be  collected,  and  appro- 
priated to  the  benefit  of  the  country;  the  government  being  at  all  times  re- 
sponsible for  the  payment  of  them,  to  those  who  may  hereafter  appear  to  have 
a  legal  right  to  the  same. 

W(-  would  again  call  your  attention  to  a  measure  recommended  in  our  last 
communication,  to-wit:  The  expediency  of  making  provision  for  the  erec- 
tion of  a  public  jail  in  this  country.  Although  the  community  has  suifered 
very  little  as  yet,  for  the  want  of  such  a  building,  and  perhaps  another  year 
might  pass  without  its  being  occupied,  wdiich  it  is  hoped  might  be  the  case; 
yet  we  ai-e  assured  that  it  is  better  policy  to  have  the  building  standing  without 
a  tenant,  than  a  tenant  without  the  building.  And,  in  order  to  promote  industry, 
and  the  peace  and  welfare  of  the  citizens  of  Oregon,  this  government  must  be  pre- 
pared to  discontinue  indolence  and  check  vice  in  the  bud. 

We  recommend  to  your  consideration  the  propriety  of  making  pi-ovision 
for  filling  public  offices  which  are  now,  or  may  become  vacant,  by  resignation 
or  otherwise,   previous  to  the  next  annual  election. 


186  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

"We  would  recommend  that  the  act  passed  by  this  assembly,  in  June  last, 
relative  to  blacks  and  mulattoes,  to  be  so  amended  as  to  exclude  corporeal 
punishment,  and  require  bonds  for  good  behavior  in  the  stead. 

We  consider  it  a  highly  important  subject  that  the  executive  of  this  govern- 
ment should  have  lavi^s  V7hich  may  direct  them  in  settling  matters  relative  to 
lands  reserved  by  Indians,  which  have  been,  or  hereafter  may  be,  settled  upon 
by  whites. 

We  would  also  recommend  that  provisions  be  made  for  the  support  of  luna- 
tics and  insane  persons  in  Oregon. 

With  regard  to  the  state  of  the  treasury,  we  would  refer  you  to  the  treas- 
urer's report  to  this  assembly. 

We  are  informed  that  the  number  of  emigrants  who  have  come  from  the 
United  States  to  this  country,  during  the  present  year,  amounts  to  upwards  of 
750  persons. 

We  would  recommend  that  the  act  passed  last  June,  defining  the  northern 
boundaries  of  Twality  and  Clatsop  counties  be  so  explained  as  not  to  conflict  with 
the  act  passed  in  this  assembly  in  June,  1843,  extending  the  limits  of  Oregon  to 
54  degrees,  40  minutes  north  latitude. 

And  we  would  suggest,  in  conclusion,  that  to  preserve  the  peace,  good  order, 
and  kind  feelings  which  have  hitherto  existed  among  the  inhabitants  of  this  coun- 
try, depends  very  much  upon  the  calm  and  deliberate  judgment  of  this  assembly. 
And  we  sincerely  hope  that  Oregon,  by  the  special  aid  of  Divine  Providence, 
may  set  an  unprecedented  example  to  the  world,  of  industry,  morality  and  virtue. 

And,  although,  we  may  now  be  unknown,  as  a  state  or  power,  yet  we  have  the 
advantages  by  vmited  efforts  of  our  increasing  population,  in  a  diligent  atten- 
tion to  agriculture,  arts,  and  literature,  of  attaining,  at  no  distant  day,  to  as  con^ 
spicuous  an  elevation  as  any  state  or  power  on  the  continent  of  America. 

But,  in  order  to  carry  this  important  measure,  and  arise  to  that  distinguished 
station,  it  becomes  the  duty  of  every  citizen  of  this  country,  to  take  a  deep  inter- 
est in  its  present  and  future  welfare. 

As  descendants  of  the  United  States,  and  of  Great  Britain,  we  would  honor 
and  respect  the  countries  which  gave  us  birth ;  and,  as  citizens  of  Oregon,  we 
should,  by  a  uniform  course  or  proceeding,  and  a  strict  observance  of  the  rules 
of  justice,  equity,  and  republican  principles,  without  party  distinction,  use  our 
best  endeavors  to  cultivate  the  kind  feeling,  not  only  of  our  native  countries, 
but  of  all  the  powers  or  states  with  whom  we  may  have  intercourse. 

(Signed) 

OsBORN  Russell, 
P.  G.  Stewart, 

Executive  Committee  of  Oregon. 


TREASURER  S  REPORT 

(Dated) 

Willamette  Falls,  December  16,  1844. 

At  this  meeting  of  the  legislature  the  territorial  treasurer,  W.  H.  Willson, 
presented  the  first  report  on  the  treasury  as  follows: 


THE  CENTENNTAI.  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  187 


Received  of  collector,  in  taxes $313.31 

For  licouses  for  two  ferries 40.00 

One  fine 5.00 

Total $358.31 

Expended  for  stationery $  20.38 

Mr.  Hathaway 's  house 15.00 

Judge  Babcock  's  salary 60.00 

Services  of  secretary  in  house  ,. 20.00 

Total $115.38 

Balance  remaining  in  treasury $242.93 

On  l)eL-(,'iiil)cr  20,  1844,  Representative  Love.ioy  reports  to  the  legislature  that 
Jolin  ]\I('Loughlin  had  donated  a  lot  in  Oregon  City  on  which  to  build  a  .jail. 

The  bill  to  incorporate  Oregon  City  was  read  a  third  time  and  passed  on 
December  24,  1844,  making  Oregon  City  the  oldest  incorporated  town  on  the 
Pacitic  coast,  and  the  only  town  holding  its  charter  fi'oni  the  provisional  govern- 
ment. 

The  next  session  of  fhe  legislature  was  held  at  Oregon  City  beginning  June 
24,  1845.  New  men  now  began  to  appear  in  the  government,  among  them  Jesse 
Applegate,  a  native  of  Kentucky,  but  who  came  across  the  plains  from  Missouri 
in  1843,  and  for  the  first  time  the  members  of  the  legislature  took  an  oath  of  office 
as  follows,  which  oath  was  prepared  by  Mr.  Applegate : 

"  I  do  solemnly  swear  that  I  will  support  the  organic  laws  of  the  Provisional 
government  of  Oregon,  so  far  as  the  said  organic  laws  are  consistent  with  my  du- 
ties as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  or  a  subject  of  Great  Britain,  and  faithfully 
demean  myself  in  office,  so  help  me  God. ' ' 

One  of  the  first  resolutions  at  this  session  was  offered  by  W.  H.  Gray,  author- 
izing the  appointment  of  a  committee  of  five  to  draft  a  memorial  and  petition, 
to  the  congress  of  the  United  States,  setting  forth  the  condition,  situation,  rela- 
tion, and  wants  of  this  country. 

The  name  of  J.  W.  Nesmith  appears  in  connection  with  government  matters 
for  the  first  time  and  before  the  legislature  as  "judge  of  Oregon."  There  is, 
however,  no  official  record  of  his  appointment  or  election.  Nevertheless  it  is 
certain  that  he  was  appointed  supreme  judge  of  Oregon  in  Deeem])er,  1844,  to 
fill  the  vacancy  caused  by  the  resignation  of  Dr.  Ira  L.  Babcock,  and  that  on  the 
first  Tuesday  in  June,  1845,  he  was  unanimously  elected  to  the  position  of  circuit 
judge,  his  name  being  on  all  the  tickets— printed  tickets,  too — the  first  in  Oregon 
—two  copies  of  which  he  sent  back  to  a  relative  living  near  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 
This  statement  is  based  upon  a  letter  written  by  Nesmith  on  June  27,  1845. 

On  June  28,  1845,  Representative  Garrison  offered  the  following  resolutions: 

''Resolved,  That  whereas,  the  people  of  Oregon  assembled  en  masse,  did  on 

the  2nd  day  of  May,  1843,  resolve  that  no  tax  should  be  levied  upon  this  people. 


188  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

confirming  the  same  by  the  adoption  of  the  report  of  the  committee  of  ways  and 
means,  adopted  by  the  legislative  committee,  and  referred  to  the  people  en  masse, 
and  by  them  enacted  July  5,  1843,  therefore, 

''Resolved,  That  this  house  has  no  right  to  levy  a  tax  of  anj'  kind  without  the 
consent  of  the  free  voters  of  this  territory  previously  obtained. 

"Resolved,  That  all  acts  and  parts  of  acts  on  that  subject,  passed  by  the  legis- 
lative committee,  were  contrary  to  the  express  resolution  and  action  of  the 
people. ' ' 

So  we  see  that  Oregon  started  out  in  favor  of  the  referendum  on  taxation. 

And  on  the  same  day  the  memorial  to  congress  was  presented  by  W.  H.  Gray, 
and  signed  by  Osborn  Russell  and  P.  G.  Stewart,  two  members  of  the  Execu- 
tive Committee,  by  Judge  Nesmith,  Mr.  Speaker,  and  all  the  members  of  the  legis- 
lature, and  then  delivered  to  Dr.  "White,  Indian  agent,  to  be  conveyed  to  congress 
at  Washington,  D.  C. 

On  July  5,  1845,  the  legislature  passed  a  resolution  that  the  members  should 
receive  two  dollars  a  day  for  their  services,  and  then  adjourned  to  meet  again  at 
Oregon  City,  on  August  5,  1845. 

The  legislature  met  again  at  Oregon  City,  August  5,  1845,  the  following  mem- 
bers being  present :  Applegate,  Foisy,  Garrison,  H.  A.  G.  Lee,  B.  Lee,  W.  H.  Gray, 
Robert  Newell,  David  Hill,  Sidney  Smith,  M.  M.  McCarver,  McClure  and  Straight. 
An  election  being  taken  to  select  a  speaker — Gray  received  8  votes ;  H.  A.  G.  Lee, 
2 ;  and  McCarver  1.  McCarver  then  questioned  the  propriety  of  electing  Gray, 
claiming  to  be  himself  still  the  speaker.  Whereupon  the  legislative  body  requested 
Mr.  McCarver  to  resign.  But  McCarver  did  not  resign  and  proceeded  to  appoint 
a  committee  on  ways  and  means,  claims,  judiciary,  private  land  claims,  roads, 
Indian  affairs  and  education. 

Mr.  Gray  now  inquired  if  in  the  opinion  of  the  speaker,  the  house  was  properly 
organized;  and  the  "chair"  decided  in  the  affirmative.  Whereupon,  Gray  ap- 
pealed from  the  decision  of  the  speaker  to  the  house  when  the  decision  of  the 
"chair"  was  reversed,  and  a  resolution  passed  to  remove  McCarver  from  the 
office  of  speaker,  and  Robert  Newell  was  elected  chairman  in  his  place. 

So  the  reader  can  see  that  this  was  a  real  flesh  and  blood  legislature,  the  strife 
for  public  station  starting  early  in  Oregon  and  as  trifling  as  this  incident  was, 
it,  with  other  resolutions  copied  hereafter  decided  the  future  course  of  an  able 
and  energetic  man,  and  impelled  Mr.  McCarver  to  leave  Oregon  and  cast  in  his 
fortunes  with  Puget  Sound. 

By  the  9th  of  August,  1845,  Meek  had  secured  more  offices  than  any  other 
citizen,  having  been  appointed  by  the  legislature  sheriff,  marshal  and  collector 
of  the  revenue. 

On  the  9th  of  August  the  legislature  passed  resolutions  deelai-ing  that  it  had 
not  the  power  to  set  aside  or  annul  contracts  made  and  entered  into  by  the  officers 
of  the  government. 

And  also  a  resolution  calling  upon  Joseph  L.  Meek  to  report  the  amount  of 
revenue  he  had  collected  in  the  year  1844,  and  how  he  had  disbursed  the  same. 

On  this  day,  J.  W.  Nesmith  resigned  the  office  of  "Judge  of  Oregon,"  and  the 
legislature  proceeded  to  elect  a  successor  in  the  office.  The  choice  resulting  in  the 
election  of  Nineveh  Ford,  of  Yamhill  county,  which  then  included  what  is  now 
Polk.    Ford  declined  the  office.    And  Ford  is  hardly  to  be  regarded  as  a  public 


THE  CENTENN'IAr.  HISTORY  OK  OIM<;(iON  189 

liciK'tactor,  as  it  is  related  of  him,  that,  when  he  and  his  good  wife  were  about 
slartiug  from  Missouri  to  Oregon,  Nineveh  remarked  that  it  was  likely  there  was 
nothing  growing  in  that  country  that  was  good  for  "greens,"  and  that  as  they 
i-oukl  not  get  along  without  "hog's  jowl  and  greens,"  they  had  better  take  some 
seed  and  roots  with  them,  which  they  did,  by  bringing  the  "dandelion"  to  this 
country,  where  it  did  not  exist  before,  and  planting  it  in  the  virgin  soil  of  Oregon, 
tiiiiiiMl  hiose  an  unmitigated  pest  to  all  pastures,  lawais,  gardens  and  orchards. 

<)ii  August  15th,  the  legislative  assembly  shows  its  pronounced  sentiment  on 
two  subjects  by  resolutions  as  follows: 

"licsolvcd,  That  M.  M.  JlcCarver  has  been  ojjposiMl  to  the  organic  law,  as 
adopted  by  the  people  of  Oregon,  and  contrary  to  the  voice  of  this  house  in  regu- 
lai-  session,  clandestinely,  and  in  a  manner  unworthy  the  confidence  reposed  in  him, 
placed  his  name  to  a  copy  of  those  laws  transmitted  to  the  United  States,  thereby 
conveying  a  false  impression,  and  did,  also,  sign  his  name  to  two  resolutions  con- 
trary to  a  direct  vote  of  this  house ;  therefore, 

'■//  IS  further  resolved,  That  we  disapprove  of  the  course  lie  has  pursued, 
and  feel  ourselves  under  the  humiliating  necessity  of  signifying  the  same  to  the 
United  States  government  b.y  causing  a  copy  of  this  resolution  to  accompany  those 
documents. ' ' 

Mr.  Hill  introduced  the  following : 

"Resolved,  That  no  pei-son  belonging  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  or  in 
their  service,  shall  ever  be  considered  as  citizens  of  the  government  of  Oregon, 
nor  have  the  right  of  elective  franchise;"  which  resolution  was  rejected. 

From  these  proceedings  it  can  be  seen  that  the  pioneer  lawmakers  could  not 
only  deal  with  a  stern  hand  with  those  who  trifled  with  the  interests  of  the  people, 
but  they  could  also  be  just  and  magnanimous  to  those  who  did  not  support  the 
Provisional  government. 

On  August  16th  a  bill  was  reported  "to  prevent  litigation."  If  such  a  meas- 
ure was  proposed  to  the  legislature  of  the  present  day,  the  la\\yers  and  judges 
would  be  paralyzed. 

On  August  18th  the  house  went  into  secret  session  to  till  the  office  of  supreme 
judge  for  Oregon,  which  resulted  in  choosing  Peter  H.  Burnett  for  that  position. 

Mr.  Burnett  accepted  the  office  and  so  far  as  is  known,  discharged  its  duties 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  people  and  credit  to  himself.  After  the  United  States 
assum.ed  control  and  organized  the  territorial  government,  Mr.  Burnett  was  ap- 
pointed one  of  the  district  judges,  but  declined  the  office,  removed  to  California 
and  became  the  first  governor  of  that  state. 

The  following  are  some  of  the  proceedings  for  the  ensuing  session  of  the  legis- 
lature for  August  19,  1845  : 

"On  motion  of  ]\Ir.  Barton  Lee, 

'■  h'l  siilnd.  Tli;it  when  this  house  adjourns  tomoi'row  night,  it  adjourns  sine 
die. 

"Oumotionof  Mr.  Hill, 

"Resolved;  Tluit  all  resolutions  and  other  proceedings  of  this  house  calculated 
to  cast  censure  upon  the  speaker,  be  expunged  from  the  journals,  and  the  clerk  is 
hereby  authorized  to  erase  the  same;  which,  after  some  discussion,  was  laid  upon 
the  table. 

"The  house  proceeded  to  the  election  of  district  judges,  for  the  Clackamas 


190  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

district  which  resulted  ia  the  choice  of  P.  G.  Stewart  for  district  judge  for  three 
years ;  Fred  Prigg  for  two  years,  and  P.  W.  Pettygrove  for  one  year;  and  William 
Holmes  was  elected  sheriff  for  Clackamas  county. 

' '  The  house  then  proceeded  to  the  election  of  district  judges  for  Clatsop  dis- 
trict, which  resulted  in  the  choice  of  W.  T.  Perry  for  three  years ;  Robert  Shortess 
for  two  years  and  Calvin  Tibbetts  for  one  year;  and  Thomas  Owens  was  duly 
elected  sheriff  for  Clatsop  county. 

"The  house  proceeded  to  the  election  of  district  judges  for  the  district  of 
Vancouver,  which  resulted  in  the  choice  of  James  Douglas  for  three  years ;  M.  T. 
Simmons  for  two  years,  and  Charles  Forrest  for  one  year.  John  R.  Jackson  was 
elected  sheriff  for  Vancouver  district.  The  house  adjourned  to  9  o  'clock  tomorrow 
morning. ' ' 

Governor  Abernethy  sent  in  his  annual  message  but  it  has  been  lost,  as  well  as 
his  first  message.  So  far  in  this  history  of  the  legislature  bills  on  all  sorts  of  sub- 
jects had  been  proposed,  but  very  few  of  them  adopted;  and  very  few  of  these 
old  provisional  laws  can  now  be  found.  To  determine  the  character  of  the  legis- 
lation, we  have  to  depend  on  the  journal  of  the  legislature  printed  in  the 
' '  Archives. "  • 

It  is  to  the  honor  of  W.  S.  Gray,  whose  daughter,  Mrs.  Jacob  Kamm,  resides 
in  Portland,  and  other  descendants  at  Astoria,  that  he  prepared  and  introduced, 
December  13,  1845,  into  the  first  legislative  body  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains, 
the  first  law  to  provide  for  the  education  of  all  children  by  common  public 
schools. 

On  December  16th,  Mr.  McClure  introduced  a  bill  to  provide  for  postoffices 
and  post  roads.  On  the  same  day  the  committee  of  the  whole  reported  a  bill 
to  authorize  Samuel  K.  Barlow  to  construct  the  wagon  road  over  the  mountains 
south  of  Mt.  Hood,  and  which  is  the  same  road  the  Portland  automobilists  are 
now  using  for  "joy  rides"  to  the  mountains.  A  large  part  of  the  immigration 
to  Oregon  passed  over  the  road  to  reach  Portland  and  Oregon  City. 

On  Friday,  December  19,  W.  G.  T 'Vault  was  elected  postmaster-general 
of  Oregon.  T 'Vault,  "Old  T"  as  everybody  called  him,  was  a  rare  gem. 
Being  a  native  of  Kentucky,  and  coming  from  Arkansas,  he  had  all  the  vernacular 
of  the  colored  population,  with  an  odd  cargo  of  miscellaneous  information  and  a 
limited  amount  of  book  education.  Dryden  might  have  had  "Old  T"  in  mind 
when  he  wrote : 

"A  man  so  various  that  he  seemed  to  be 
Not  one,  but  all  mankind 's  epitome ! 
Stiff  in  opinion,  always  in  the  wrong. 
Everything   by   starts,    and   nothing   long." 

He  had  an  ambition  to  be  an  editor,  and  did  conduct  several  newspaper  en- 
terprises, which  were  more  entertaining  to  his  fellow  ci'aftsmen  even  than  to 
his  patrons.  Punctuation  of  his  editorials  was  one  of  his  strong  points.  And 
in  a  brilliant  description  of  a  gorgeous  sunset  in  Rogue  river  valley,  he  at- 
tempted to  tell  his  readers  that  he  was  seated  on  the  hiU  back  of  the  old  town 
of  Jacksonville,  and  made  the  opening  sentence  read:  "Seated  on  the  emi- 
nence of  an  evening,  etc. ' '  All  his  exchanges  copied  the  line  with  ribald  remarks 
about  the  "Eminence  of  that  evening,"  but  fortunate  for  the  comfort  of  Ore- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  1<)] 

goii's  first  ai3(l  last  iiostiiuister-general,  he  did  not  sco  what  the  boys  were 
hmgliiug  about. 

At  the  next  annual  session  of  the  legislature,  eoiunienced  and  held  at  Ore- 
gon City,  December  1,  184(),  we  get  hold  of  the  first  governor's  message  to  any 
legislature  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains.  Geoi-ge  Abernethy,  whose  portrait 
appears  on  another  page,  had  been  elected  governor  at  the  previous  election. 
"We  give  below  the  proceedings  introdiicing  the  message  and  the  document 
itself : 

"The  speaker  announced  a  comnninication  from  the  governor.  The  reading 
of  the  communication  was  called  for,  when  Mr.  Newell  moved  that  the  secre- 
tary of  the  territory  read  the  communication.  The  speaker  decided  the  motion 
out  of  order;  whereupon  IMV.  Newell  appealed  from  the  decision  of  the  chair. 
The  house  sustained  the  decision  of  the  speaker.  Mr.  Newell  moved  that  the 
rules  be  suspended.  Mr.  T 'Vault  demanded  the  yeas  and  nays,  which  were  as 
follows:  Ayes — Messrs.  Chamberlain,  Looney,  McDonald,  Newell,  Peers, 
Straight  and  Tolmie,  7.  Nays — Messrs  Hall,  Hembree,  Lownsdale,  Meek,  Sum- 
mers, T 'Vault  and  ilr.  Speaker,  7.     So  the  rules  were  not  suspended." 

The  communication  from  the  governor  was  then  read  as  follows: 

"To  the  Honorable  the  Legislative  A.ssembly  of  Oregon, 

"Fellow  Citizens:  The  duty  of  addressing  you  at  the  opening  of  your  ses- 
sion again  presents  itself. 

"The  duty  of  legislating,  for  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  the  community, 
again  devolves  upon  you. 

"May  we  be  guided  and  directed  by  that  wisdom  which  never  errs. 

"The  boundary  question — a  question  of  great  importance  to  us  as  a  people 
-;-there  is  every  reason  to  believe,  is  finally  settled.  The  following  is  an  ex- 
tract from  the  Polynesian,  a  paper  published  at  the  Sandwich  Islands,  of 
the  29th  of  August,  last: — 

"  'The  senate  ratified  the  treaty  upon  the  Oregon  (piestion,  by  a  vote  of 
41  to  14.' 

"This  the  Polynesian  credits  to  the  New  York  Gazette,  and  Times,  of  the 
10th  of  June;  showing  that  a  treaty  had  been  entered  into,  and  probably  con- 
eluded,  between  the  two  governments.  The  provisions  of  the  treaty  are  not 
yet  known  to  us  in  Oregon,  farther  than  what  we  eaji  gather  from  the  letter 
of  Mr.  George  Seymour,  the  British  commander-in-chief  in  the  Pacific,  to  the 
agents  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  at  the  Sandwich  Islands,  being  an  extract 
of  a  private  letter  from  A.  Forbes,  Esq.,  consul  at  Tepic,  to  George  Seymour: 

"  'I  send  you  an  American  newspaper,  which  ilr.  Bankhead  has  requested 
may  be  forwarded  to  you,  and  which  shows  that  the  Oregon  question  is  entirely 
settled ;  the  49th  degree  is  to  run  on  to  the  Straits  of  Fuca ;  the  whole  Island  of 
Vancouver  being  left  in  possession  of  England;  and  the  said  Straits  of  Fuca, 
Puget  Sound,  &c.,  remaining  free  to  both  parties.  The  Columbia  river  is  also 
to  remain  free  to  both  parties,  until  the  expiration  of  the  charter  of  the  Hudson 's 
Bay  Company,  when  the  whole  to  the  south  of  the  49th  degree,  is  to  belong  to 
America  with  the  exceptions  mentioned.' 

"Should  this  information  prove  correct,  we  may  shortly  expect  officers 
from  the  United  States  government,  to  take  formal  possession  of  Oregon,  and 
extend  over  us  the  protection  we  have  longed  and  anxiously  looked  for. 


192  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

"The  notice  that  the  joint  occupancy  of  Oregon  would  cease,  after  twelve 
months,  was  given,  by  the  president  of  the  United  States,  to  the  government  of 
Great  Britain. 

"The  president  in  his  message  of  1845,  before  the  notice  was  given,  speak- 
ing of  Oregon,  says: 

"  'As  yet,  we  have  not  been  made  acquainted  with  any  action  of  congress, 
that  would  extend  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States  over  us,  but  from  the 
feeling  which  prevailed  in  congress,  with  regard  to  this  country,  and  the  senti- 
ments set  forth  by  the  president,  previous  to  the  notice  being  given,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  now  the  notice  being  given,  the  boundary  line  is,  in  all  probability, 
finally  settled. 

"We  shall,  in  a  few  months  at  the  farthest,  be  again  living  under,  and  en- 
joying the  protection  of,  the  Stars  and  Stripes  of  our  loved  country,  and,  ere 
long,  we  maj^  reasonably  hope,  be  added  to  the  brilliant  constellation  of  states. 

"The  law  establishing  the  postoffice  department  needs  altering,  very  ma- 
terially. It  was  found,  after  being  in  operation  but  a  very  short  time,  that  the 
rates  of  postage  were  altogether  too  high,  amounting  to  a  prohibition.  Very 
few  letters  passed  through  the  office;  the  revenue  arose  almost  entirely  from 
the  postage  on  the  newspapers,  but  fell  so  far  short  of  the  expenses,  that  the 
postmaster-general,  at  the  close  of  the  third  quarter,  stopped  sending  the  mails. 
I  would  recommend  that  the  rates  of  postage  be  reduced  to  five  cents  on  each 
single  letter,  double  letters  and  packages  in  proportion,  and  one  cent  on  each 
newspaper.  A  mail  route  should  be  kept  up  between  the  principal  sections  of 
the  territory;  and  I  have  no  doubt,  if  the  postage  is  reduced,  the  revenue,,  aris- 
ing from  the  receipts  of  the  office,  will  nearly  or  quite  pay  the  expenses. 

"There  will  be  several  proposals  laid  before  you  in  regard  to  locating  the 
seat  of  government,  but  under  the  present  aspect  of  affairs  I  think  it  best  to  post- 
pone the  subject  for  the  present. 

"A  subject  of  great  importance  to  us,  as  a  people,  presents  itself  in  our  com- 
mercial regulations.  That  this  will  be  a  commercial  nation  there  can  be  no 
doubt  in  the  mind  of  anj'  person  acquainted  with  our  location ;  it  therefore  is  our 
duty  to  commence  preparing  the  way  for  shipping  to  enter  our  harbors. 

"The  first  requisite  for  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river  is  a  good  pilot  or 
pilots.  Many  ships  employed  in  the  whale  fishery  would,  no  doubt,  enter  our 
river  and  remain  mth  us  during  the  winter  if  they  were  sure  of  obtaining  a 
good  pilot  to  bring  them  safely  over  the  bar  and  conduct  them  out  when  ready 
for  sea.  Vessels  can,  without  doubt,  enter  and  depart  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Columbia  river  with  as  much  safety  as  they  can  the  majority  of  the  seaports  in 
the  United  States ;  and  it  needs  only  a  careful  pilot  well  acquainted  with  the 
currents,  landmarks  and  shoals  to  make  it  perfectly  safe  for  vessels  to  enter  our 
port.  I,  therefore,  recommend  that  a  branch  be  established  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Columbia  river,  and  that  a  board  of  commissioners  be  appointed,  whose  duty  it 
shall  be  to  examine  all  persons  applying  for  a  license  to  act  as  pilots,  as  to  their 
capability  so  to  act. 

"Connected  with  this  is  the  means  to  prevent  seamen  from  deserting.  If 
seamen  are  at  liberty  to  leave  their  vessels  and  secrete  themselves  among  the  in- 
habitants, or  be  provided  for  and  be  protected  by  them  until  their  vessels  leave, 
we  can  never  hope  to  see  vessels  frequent  our  ports  for  the  purpose  of  refitting 


(^^ 


(•FnciALS  OK   l'l!il\ISIOXAL  ( ;( l\Ki;X  M  KXT 


THE  CENTI<:NNIA1.  IIISTOKY  of  ORKCiON  198 

and  obtaining  supplies.  T,  therefore,  rei-onnuend  that  a  lieavy  penalty  be  im- 
posed on  any  person  who  shall  entice  a  seaman  to  leave  his  ship,  or  who  shall 
harbor,  secrete  or  employ,  or  in  any  wise  assist  a  deserter. 

"This  may  appear  severe,  but  when,  on  reflection,  we  consider  that  these 
men  voluntarily  entered  into  a  contract  to  perform  certain  duties,  and  that  the 
safety  of  the  vessel  they  belont;  to  and  the  lives  and  property  on  board,  depend 
on  th^r  faithfully  tilling  their  contract,  the  severity  vanishes  at  once.  We  should 
consider  that  a  vessel  lightly  manned  (which  must  be  the  case  if  part  of  the 
ship's  crew  desert,  as  there  are  no  seamen  hei"e  to  supply  their  places),  runs  great 
risks  in  working  out  of  our  harbor,  a  risk  that  shipmates  and  shipowners  will  not 
be  likely  to  run.  Unless  regulations  be  made  that  will  prevent  desertion,  owners 
of  vessels  will  avoid  our  ports,  and  without  vessels,  the  produce  of  the  farmer 
must  remain  on  his  hands,  and  in  this  way  work  an  injury  all  around,  and  one 
that  will  be  felt  by  all  classes  in  the  community. 

"Our  courts,  as  at  present  regulated,  have  not  answered  the  expectations  of 
the  framers  of  the  law;  but,  as  the  jurisdictions  of  our  courts  will  soon  cease, 
it  will  probably  be  not  worth  while  to  enter  into  any  new  arrangements. 

"I  regret  to  be  compelled  to  inform  you  that  the  jail  erected  in  Oregon  City, 
and  the  property  of  the  territory,  was  destroyed  by  fire  on  the  night  of  the  18th 
of  August  last,  the  work  no  doubt  of  an  incendiary.  A  reward  of  $100.00  was 
immediately  offered,  but  as  yet  the  offender  has  not  been  discovered.  Should 
you  think  it  best  to  erect  another  jail.  I  would  suggest  the  propriety  of  building 
it  of  large  stones,  clamped  together.  "We  have  but  little  use  for  a  jail,  and  a' 
small  building  would  answer  all  purposes  for  many  yeai's,  I  have  no  doubt,  if 
we  should  be  successful  in  keeping  ardent  spirits  out  of  the  territory. 

"There  is  one  subject  which  I  would  lay  before  you,  in  reference  to  the  In- 
dian population,  and  that  is  the  extent  the  law  intends  to  allow  the  whites  in 
their  villages.  Complaints  are  made  by  Indians  that  they  are  encroached  upon 
by  the  whites.  Cannot  some  method  be  devised  by  which  their  villages  can  be 
surveyed,  and  stakes  set,  inside  of  which  the  whites  may  not  be  permitted  to  en- 
ter and  build?  The  Indians  inhabited  their  villages  previous  to  our  arrival, 
and  should  be  protected  by  us.  The  time  is  no  doubt  near  at  hand  when  the 
agent  of  the  United  States  government  will  be  here  and  these  matters  will  be 
arranged  by  him;  but  until  he  arrives  I  deem  it  necessary  that  some  pro- 
vision be  made  by  you,  as  it  may  save  trouble  and  difficulty. 

' '  Another  emigration  has  crossed  the  Rocky  mountains,  and  most  of  the  party 
has  arrived  in  the  settlements.  About  152  wagons  reached  this  place  very  early 
in  the  season,  via  Barlow's  road,  for  which  a  charter  was  granted  him  at  your 
last  session.  About  100  wagons  are  on  their  way,  if  they  have  not  already 
reached  the  upper  settlements  by  a  southern  route.  They  have,  no  doubt,  been 
detained  by  traveling  a  new  route.  The  difficulties  attending  the  opening  of  a 
wagon  road  are  very  great,  and  probably  will  account  in  some  measure  for  their 
detention.  The  emigration  falls  very  far  short  of  last  year,  probably  not  num- 
bering over  one  thousand  souls.  This  is  accounted  for  by  a  great  part  of  the 
emigration  turning  off  to  California. 

"We  trust  that  those  coming  among  us  may  have  no  cause  to  regret  the  de- 
cision that  brought  them  to  Oregon.  1  would  call  your  attention  to  the  subject 
of  education,  without  which  no  country  can  be  prosperous;  it,  therefore,  becomes 

Vol,  1—13 


194  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

the  duty  of  the  legislature  to  provide  liberally  for  the  education  of  the  rising 
generation.  I  am  happy  to  say  that  the  past  year  has  amply  repaid  the  tiller's 
toil.  Our  harvest  has  been  abundant,  and  the  season  for  gathering  in  the  crops 
was  dry,  enabling  the  farmer  to  secure  the  reward  of  his  labor  free  from  injury. 
During  the  past  season  we  have  enjoyed  throughout  the  territoiw,  the  blessings 
of  health ;  these  blessings  and  mercies  call  for  our  gratitude.  May  we  ever  feel 
our  dependence  on  the  Divine  Being,  through  whom  we  receive  them,  afid  our 
prayers  continually  ascend  to  him  for  wisdom  to  guide  us  in  the  important  duties 
to  which  we  are  called. 

"George  Abernethy. 
"Oregon  City,  December  1,  1846." 

On  motion  of  Mr.  T 'Vault,  the  governor's  message  and  accompanying  docu- 
ments were  referred  to  committee  of  the  whole,  and  made  the  special  order  of 
the  day  for  tomorrow. 

This  pioneer  governor's  message  not  only  shows  the  character  of  the  ques- 
tions which  the  pioneer  law-makers  and  state  builders  had  to  wrestle  with,  but  it 
shows  also  the  common  sense,  great  responsibility  and  patriotic  conscience  which 
these  men  brought  to  the  discharge  of  their  duties. 

On  December  5,  1846,  Representative  T 'Vault  reported  from  the  judiciary 
committee  a  bill  to  regulate  the  writ  ad  quod  damnum;  which  was  suiScientlv 
learned  and  profane  to  suit  the  most  fastidious  member  of  the  Oregon  Bar  As- 
.  soeiation. 

On  December  9  the  legislature  passed  the  following  resolution : 

'^Resolved,  That  the  select  committee  on  the  national  railroad  be  instructed 
to  memorialize  the  congi-ess  of  the  United  States  on  that  suject."  There  was 
at  that  time  not  a  mile  of  railroad  within  three  thousand  miles  of  Oregon  City ; 
but  Oregon  was  not  to  be  behind  on  this  subject,  and  got  its  first  railroad  con- 
nection across  the  continent  thirty-seven  years  later  by  the  hands  of  Henry  Vil- 
lard,  via  the  Columbia  river,  Spokane  and  St.  Paul. 

On  December  17,  1846,  Governor  Abernethy  vetoed  a  bill  to  regulate  "the 
manufacture  and  sale  of  wine  and  distilled  liquors, ' '  and  as  this  is  a  live  issue  in 
Oregon  politics  today,  we  give  the  message  in  full : 

"Oregon  City,  December  17.  1846. 

' '  Gentlemen  :  I  return  to  your  honorable  body  the  act  entitled  '  An  act  to 
regulate  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  wine  and  distilled  spirituous  liquors, '  with 
my  objections  to  the  same. 

' '  Previous  to  our  organization  as  a  provisional  government  public  sentiment 
kept  liquor  from  being  manufactured  or  sold  in  this  territorJ^  Heretofore, 
every  act  of  the  legislatiire  has  been,  as  far  as  ardent  spirits  were  concerned, 
prohibitory  in  character.  The  act  before  me  is  the  first  act  that  has  in  any  man- 
ner attempted  to  legalize  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  ardent  spirits.  At  the 
session  of  the  legislature  in  June,  1844,  an  act  was  passed  to  prevent  the  intro- 
duction, sale  and  distillation  of  ardent  spirits  in  Oregon ;  and  as  far  as  my  knowl- 
edge extends,  the  passage  of  that  act  gave  satisfaction  to  the  great  majority  of 
the  people  throughout  the  territory.  At  the  session  of  December,  1845,  several 
amendments  were  proposed  to  the  old  law  and  passed.  The  new  features  given 
to  the  bill  by  those  amendments  did  not  accord  with  the  views  of  the  people ;  the 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  1% 

iiisi'i-lioii  1)1'  till'  words  "give'  and  'gift'  in  the  first  and  second  sections  of  the 
bill,  they  thought,  was  taking  away  their  rights,  as  it  was  considered  that  a  man 
had  a  riglit  to  give  away  his  property  if  he  chose.  There  were  several  objections 
to  the  bill,  which  I  set  forth  to  your  honorable  body  in  my  message.  I  would 
recommend  that  the  amendments  passed  at  the  December  se.ssion  of  1845  be  re- 
pealed ;  and  that  the  law  passed  on  the  25th  of  June,  1844,  with  such  alterations 
as  will  make  it  agree  with  the  organic  law,  if  it  does  not  agree  with  it,  be  again 
made  the  law  of  the  land.  It  is  said  by  many  that  the  legislature  has  no  right  to 
prohibit  the  introduction  or  sale  of  liquor,  and  this  is  probably  the  strongest 
argument  used  in  the  defense  of  your  bill.  But  do  you  not  as  effectually  prohibit 
ever}'  person  who  has  not  the  sum  of  one,  two  or  three  hundred  dollars  to  pay  for 
his  license,  as  does  the  law  now  on  the  statute  book?  Are  not  your  pi'oposed  fines 
and  penalties  as  great  or  greater  than  those  of  the  old  law?  Where,  then,  is  the 
benefit  to  the  people?  There  is  no  doubt  in  my  mind  but  that  the  law  will  be 
evaded  as  easily  and  as  often  under  the  new  law  as  it  was  under  the  old,  and,  in 
addition  to  this,  there  will  be  the  legal  manufacturers,  importers  and  sellers  who 
will  be  able,  under  the  sanction  of  law,  to  scatter  all  the  evils  attendant  upon  the 
use  of  alcoholic  drinks.  "We  are  in  an  Indian  country ;  men  will  be  found  who  will 
supply  them  with  licjuor  as  long  as  they  have  beaver,  blankets  and  horses  to  pay 
for  it.  If  a  quantity  should  be  introduced  among  the  Walla  Wallas  and  other 
tribes  in  the  upper  country  who  can  foretell  the  consequences — there  we  have 
families  exposed,  cut  off  from  the  protection  of  the  settlements,  and  perhaps  at 
the  first  drunken  frolic  of  the  Indians  in  that  region  they  may  be  cut  off  from 
the  face  of  the  earth.  But  we  need  not  go  so  far;  we  are  exposed  in  every  part 
of  our  frontier,  and  when  difficulties  once  commence,  we  cannot  tell  where  they 
will  cease. 

' '  It  has  been  proved  before  the  house  of  commons  that  one-half  of  the  insan- 
ity, two-thirds  of  the  pauperism  and  three-fourths  of  the  crimes  of  Great  Brit- 
ain, may  be  directly  traced  to  the  use  of  alcoholic  drink.  The  testimony  of  our 
most  eminent  judges  in  the  United  States,  shows  that  the  same  proportion  of 
crime  is  attributable  to  ardent  spirits  in  that  country.  Statistics  might  be  pro- 
duced showing  the  enormous  evil  and  expense  of  an  indiscriminate  use  of  liquor. 

"As  to  revenue,  the  small  amount  received  for  licenses,  instead  of  being  rev- 
enue, would  be  swallowed  up  in  the  expenses  attending  trials  for  crimes,  etc., 
caused  by  the  crime  of  these  licenses. 

"But  leaving  all  other  countries  out  of  view,  let  us  consider  our  own  state. 
Surrounded  by  Indians,  no  military  force  to  aid  the  executive  and  other  officers 
in  the  discharge  of  their  duties,  not  a  solitarj^  prison  in  the  land  in  which  to 
confine  offenders  against  the  laws,  and  consequently  no  way  of  enforcing  the 
penalties  of  the  law.  I  think  these  things  should  call  for  calm  and  serious  re- 
flection, before  passing  your  final  vote  on  this  bill.  My  opinion  is,  the  people 
are  opposed  to  legalizing  the  introduction  and  sale  of  liquor  in  this  land.  I  may 
be  mistaken,  and  therefore  should  be  in  favor  of  the  old  law,  or  something  sim- 
ilar should  be  adopted,  of  referring  the  whole  matter  to  the  polls  at  the  next 
general  election.  If  the  people  say  'no  liquor,'  continue  to  prohibit;  if  they  say, 
through  the  ballot  box.  'we  wish  liquor,'  then  let  it  come  free,  the  same  as  dry 
goods,  or  any  other  article  imported  or  manufactured ;  but,  until  the  people  say 
they  want  it.  I  hope  ynu  will  use  your  influence  to  keep  it  out  of  the  territory. 


196  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

"It  is  with  regret  that  I  return  any  bill  unsigned,  but  I  feel  that  we  both 
have  duties  to  perform  and  when  we  think  duty  points  out  the  way,  I  trust  we 
may  always  be  found  willing  to  follow  it. 

"Geoege  Abernethy.  " 

treasurer's  report 

State  of  the  Treasury,  December,  1846 

Funds  in  hand 

Amount  due  by  George  Abernethy,  per  account $  81.54 

Amount  due  by  John   H.   Couch    16.92 

Amount  due  by  F.  W.  Pettygrove    11.27 

Amoi^nt  due  by  H.  B.  Gomp    (Fort  Vancouver)    16.42 

$    126.15 

LIABILITIES 

Amount  due  H.  B.  Comp  (Oregon  City) $    140.94 

Amount  collected  of  estate  of  Ewing  Young 2,815.00 

Scrip  outstanding  at  this  date,  not  paid 1,879.64 

$4,835.59 
Receipts  since  December  1,  1846,  to  date. 

Taxes  from  John  R.  Jackson,  sheriff  Lewis  county $  24.48 

Taxes  from  John  R.  Jackson,  sheriff  Vancouver  county 57.73 

Taxes  from  Wm.  Holmes,  sheriff  Clackamas  county 115.00 

License  paid  by  R.   K.   Payne 100.00 

License  paid  by  H.  N.  Winslow    100.00 

Absentee  tax,  paid  by  John  R.  Jackson  (Vancouver)    10.00 


$    407.31 
Taxes  from  John  R.  Jackson  (error). 

The  receipts  since  December  1,  1846,  have  been  paid  me  wholly  in  scrip. 
Interest  paid  on  scrip,  December  9   3.59 


$   403.72 

Balance    liabilities    $4,431.86 

John  P.  Brooks,  Deputy  Treasurer. 
December  9.  1846. 

MESSAGE 

Of  the  Governor  of  Oregon  Territory,  December  7,  1847. 

■"To  the  Honc/rable  the  Legislative  Asseinbly  of  Oregon  Territory, 

' '  Fellow  Citizens  :  Contrary  to  the  expectation  of  all  who  reside  in  this 
territory,  you  are  again  convened  under  the  provisional  government  of  Oregon. 
After  learning  that  the  boundary  line  question  was  settled,  there  was  hardly  a 
■doubt  resting  in  the  mind  of  any  individual  with  regard  to  the  extension  of  the 


THK  CKNTEN.XlAlj   HISTORY  OF  OREGON  1U7 

.jurisdiction  of  the  United  States  ovei-  this  territory.  We  have  been  sadly  dis- 
appointed, and  hope,  which  was  so  fondly  cherished,  begins  to  sink  into  despair 
in  the  hearts  of  many. 

"Our  situation  is  not  a  pleasant  one,  on  account  of  the  uncertainty  of  it.  We 
may  be  in  less  than  six  months  under  the  laws  and  government  of  the  United 
States;  and  we  may,  on  the  other  hand,  exist  in  our  present  state  several  years. 
This  uncertainty  will,  no  doubt,  embarrass  you  in  your  proceedings.  If  we  re- 
main as  we  are  for  any  length  of  time,  ways  and  means  must  be  devised  for  I'ais- 
lug  a  more  extensive  revenue.  The  laws  should  be  published  in  a  convenient 
L'orm;  a  fund  set  apart  for  treating  with  Indians,  and  many  other  things  pro- 
vided for  that  we  have  thus  far  dispensed  with,  but  which  must  be  attended  to  in 
order  that  we  may  carry  out  the  principles  under  which  we  have  associated. 

' '  This  being  the  first  session  of  the  present  congress,  they  will  have  more  time 
to  devote  to  the  formation  of  a  government  for  this  territory  than  at  the  last  ses- 
sion. The  probability  is  that  peace  between  the  United  States  and  Mexico  will 
have  been  restored,  and  relieve  congress  from  the  care,  and  anxieties  attendant 
upon  a  war,  and  also  relieve  the  government  from  the  very  heavy  expense  which 
must  necessarily  attend  the  carrying  on  of  a  war.  These  things  lead  to  the  hope 
that  among  the  first  acts  of  congi-ess  will  be  the  passage  of  an  act  to  establish  a 
territorial  government  in   Oregon. 

"This  will  release  us  from  our  present  embarrassments  and  place  us  under 
a  permanent  form  of  government.  Hoping  that  this  may  be  the  case,  I  will  call 
your  attention  to  such  subjects  as  are  most  pressing  in  their  character,  and 
which  cannot  well  be  dispensed  with.  The  judiciary,  has  now  regulated, 
answers  every  purpose  required  of  it,  and  proves  to  be  a  far  better  system  than  the 
old  one.  There  is  one  thing,  however,  needed  very  much  in  connection  with  it, 
and  that  is  a  prison.  Should  an  offender  be  sentenced  to  imprisonment  by  the 
judge,  there  is  no  place  in  the  ten'itory  to  confine  him,  and  consequently  he 
escapes  the  punishment  his  crimes  justly  merit.  This  .should  not  be  so,  and  I 
hope  you  will  provide  means  during  yoiir  present  session  for  the  erection  of 
a  jail. 

"In  my  message  of  1845,  I  recommended  that  in  addition  to  gold  and  silver, 
wheat  should  be  the  only  article  used  in  the  country  as  legal  tender.  The 
legislature  added  treasury  drafts  and  orders  on  solvent  merchants.  I  would  rec- 
ommend the  repeal  of  that  part  of  the  act  which  makes  treasury  drafts  and 
orders  on  solvent  merchants  a  lawful  tender — receiving  treasury  drafts,  how- 
ever, in  payment  of  taxes  and  debts  due  the  government.  Gold  and  silver  are 
much  more  plentiful  in  the  territory  now  than  two  years  ago,  and  could  be  made 
the  only  lawful  tender  without  detriment  to  the  community ;  still,  I  think  wheat 
had  better  remain  in  connection  with  gold  and  silver;  it  is  a  staple  article,  and 
can  always  be  disposed  of  to  merchants  and  others. 

"I  would  recommend  an  alteration  in  the  law  relating  to  the  recording  of 
land  claims.  The  organic  law  requires  that  claims  be  recorded  in  the  office  of 
the  territorial  recorder.  This  answered  very  well  while  our  population  was 
small  and  nearly  all  living  in  one  district,  liut  our  population  is  increasing  rap- 
idly and  spreading  over  a  large  extent  of  country:  new  counties  have  been 
formed,  and  probably  in  a  shoi-t  time  others  will  be  set  off  and  lands  taken  up 
still   further  from  the  tci-rit(iriri!   recorder's  offirc  tliaii  at  tlio  pr(>s<'nt  time     Tii 


198    s  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

view  of  this,  I  think  it  advisable  that  j^ou  propose  an  amendment  to  the  organic 
law,  making  the  clerk  of  the  coiTnty  court  recorder  of  all  land  claims  located 
within  his  count}',  and  dispense  with  the  office  of  territorial  recorder. 

The  act  entitled  "An  act  to  regulate  the  mantifacture  and  sale  of  wine  and 
distilled  spirituous  liquors, ' '  passed  at  the  last  session  of  the  legislature,  I  would 
recommend  for  revision.  An  act  to  prevent  the  introduction,  manufacture,  and 
sale  of  ardent  spirits  in  Oregon,  would  be  far  more  preferable  to  a  majoritj' 
of  the  people  of  this  territory.  In  our  early  history  ardent  spirits  were  unknown 
among  us ;  every  effort  was  made  to  keep  it  out  of  the  territory,  and,  to  a  great 
extent,  successfully,  until  1846,  when,  owing  to  the  defects  in  the  law  passed 
at  the  session  of  1845,  some  persons  violated  the  statutes,  and  liquor  was  made 
and  sold  in  the  territory;  but  it  was  not  done  openly,  nor  carried  on  to  any 
great  extent.  The  last  legislature  licensed  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  ardent 
spirits.  I  hope  the  present  legislature  will  repeal  the  license  law.  Would 
it  not  be  better  to  have  the  law  opposed  to  ardent  spirits,  than  to  have  the  manu- 
facture and  sale  of  it  legalized  by  the  statute  ?  It  is  argued  by  some  persons  that 
you  have  not  the  right  to  put  it  down,  and  by  others,  that  it  is  interfering 
with  the  liberties  of  the  people,  and  depriving  them  of  their  rights.  I  think 
you  have  the  right  to  prevent  its  introduction;  no  one  can  dispute  your  right 
to  regulate  it  down  to  the  medical  profession.  AVith  regard  to  taking  away  the 
liberties  of  the  people,  prohibitory  laws  are  passed  by  all  legislatures.  I  will 
simply  give  one  instance.  In  a  law  of  Massachusetts,  passed  March  23,  1833, 
it  is  declared  that  any  person  who  shall,  in  violation  of  the  law,  sell  a  lottery 
ticket,  or  knowingly  suffer  one  to  be  sold,  in  anj'  building  owned  or  rented  bj' 
him,  within  the  commonwealth,  he  shall  forfeit  and  pay  a  sum  not  less  than  one 
hundred,  nor  more  than  two  thousand  dollars;  and  that  if  any  person,  after  con- 
viction, shall  repeat  the  offense,  he  shall  be  sentenced  for  e^-ery  subsequent 
offence,  to  labor  in  the  house  of  correction,  or  in  the  common  jail,  for  a  term  of 
time  not  less  than  three  months,  nor  more  than  twelve  months.  This  was  not 
considered  by  the  people  as  taking  away  their  liberties,  though  it  deprives  some 
of  the  liberty  of  ruining  themselves,  and  others  from  making  monej^  out  of  their 
ruin.  And  is  not  this  statute  founded  in  the  true  principles  of  legislation,  not 
to  license  evil,  but  to  defend  the  community  from  it  ?  Other  states  have  passed 
similar  laws.  When  a  crime  is  committed  by  any  person  when  under  the 
influence  of  liquor,  where  does  the  responsibility  rest?  The  individual,  when 
sober,  informs  us  he  did  not  know  what  he  was  doing ;  the  seller  says,  I  have  a 
license  to  sell  liquor,  and  sold  it  to  him  according  to  law.  AVould  it  not  be  for 
the  interest  of  the  territory  to  take  away  this  plea  from  the  seller?  The  license 
system  throws  a  bulwark  around  the  dealer  in  ardent  spirits,  behind  which  he 
entrenches  himself.  Remove  this  bulwark,  place  the  law  against  him,  and 
public  sentiment  will  put  him  down.  The  temperance  cause  is  an  onward  one ; 
we  hear  of  state  after  state  deciding  through  the  ballot  box,  that  no  license  to 
sell  liquor  shall  be  gi-anted  within  its  bounds ;  and  the  supreme  court  at  Wash- 
ington, to  which  several  cases  had  been  carried  from  the  circuit  courts  arising 
from  the  liquor  question,  decided  at  the  last  term  of  the  court  that  the  states 
have  a  right  to  regulate  the  trade  in,  and  the  licensing  of,  the  sale  of  ardent 
spirits. 

Our  organic  law  saj'S  that  the  legislature  shall  have  the  power  to  regulate  the 


.   THE  CENTENNIAL  IIISTOUY  OF  OREGON  I'.Hl 

introdiu/tioii,  inaiiuraetui'r,  or  .sale,  of  ardent  spirits.  In  tlie  L'liited  Slates, 
some  of  the  .states  prohibit  the  granting  of  licenses.  The  supreme  court  says 
the  states  have  the  right  to  reguhite  the  licensing  of  the  sale  of  ardent  spirits, 
and,  under  the  right  to  regulate,  the  states  j)rohiI)it  and  the  court  upholds  thcin 
in  it. 

The  question,  shall  the  license  system  be  continued,  or  shall  the  introduction, 
manufacture,  and  sale  of  ardent  spirits,  be  prohibited?  is  in  your  hands;  anil. 
I  hope,  in  deciding  upon  it,  you  will  take  the  happiness  and  future  prosperity 
of  the  territory  into  your  consideration.  You  are  well  aware  of  our  situation, 
with  regard  to  the  Indian  population,  and  have  seen  the  effect  liquor  has  upon 
them.  You  may  have  heard  them  say,  if  the  "Boston  people  would  not  furnisli 
us  liquor,  we  would  not  become  such  fools!"  I  leave  the  question  with  you, 
sincerely  hoping  that,  should  we  come  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United 
States,  the  coming  year,  we  may  be  found  with  a  law  on  our  statute  books 
prohibiting  the  sale  of  ardent  spirits  in'  this  territory. 

'"Our  relations  with  the  Indians  become  every  year  more  embarrassing. 
They  see  the  white  man  occupying  their  land,  rapidly  filling  up  the  country, 
and  they  put  in  a  claim  for  pay.  They  have  been  told  that  a  chief  would  come 
out  from  the  United  States  and  treat  with  them  for  their  lands ;  they  have  been 
told  this  so  often  that  they  begin  to  doubt  the  truth  of  it ;  at  all  events,  they  saj' 
he  will  not  come  till  we  are  all  dead,  and  then  what  good  will  blankets  do  us? 
We  want  something  now.  This  leads  to  trouble  between  the  settler  and  the  In- 
dians about  him.  Some  plan  should  be  devised  by  which  a  fund  can  be  raised 
and  presents  made  to  the  Indians  of  suiBcient  value  to  keep  them  quiet  until  an 
agent  arrives  from  the  United  States.  A  number  of  robberies  have  been  com- 
mitted by  the  Indians  in  the  upper  country  upon  the  emigi'ants,  as  they  were 
passing  through  their  territory.  This  should  not  be  allowed  to  pass.  An  ap- 
propriation should  be  made  by  you  sufficient  to  enable  the  superintendent  of 
Indian  affairs  to  take  a  small  party  in  the  spring,  and  demand  restitution  of  the 
property  or  its  equivalent  in  horses.  Without  an  appropriation  a  sufficient  party 
could  not  be  induced  to  go  up  there,  as  the  trip  is  an  expensive  one. 

"The  emigration  the  past  season  has  been  much  larger  than  any  preceding 
one,  amounting  to  between  four  and  five  thousand  souls.  They  have  all  arrived 
in  the  settlements,  unless  a  few  families  should  still  be  at  the  Dalles  and  Cas- 
cades, and  scattered  themselves  over  the  territory.  The  most  of  them  are  farm- 
ers and  nid'hanics:  they  will  add  much  to  the  future  welfare  and  prosperity  of 
Oregon. 

"During  the  past  year  we  have  been  visited  by  a  number  of  vessels,  some  of 
them  drawing  more  water  than  the  vessels  which  have  usually  visited  us.  I  am 
happy  to  say  they  received  full  cargoes  on  board  and  crossed  the  bar  in  safety. 
The  provisions  of  the  pilot  law  have  been  carried  out.  and  its  good  effects  are  al- 
ready visible.  The  able  pilot  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  has  made  himself  thor- 
oughly acquainted  with  the  channels  and  currents,  thus  diminishing  the  dangen 
formerly  attending  vessels  coming  into  the  river.  The  time  is  not  far  distant 
when  our  river  will  be  entered  with  more  ease  and  facility  than  many  of  the 
ports  in  the  United  States  on  the  Atlantic  coast,  and  captains  will  wonder  why 
the  entrance  was  so  much  dreaded,  forgetting  that  they  are  reaping  the  benefits 
of  experience. 


200  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

"The  cause  of  education  demands  your  attention.  School  districts  should 
be  formed  in  the  several  counties,  and  school  houses  built.  Teachers  would  be 
employed  by  the  people,  I  have  no  doubt,  and  thus  pave  the  way  for  more  ad- 
vanced institutions. 

"In  closing,  allow  me  to  unite  with  you  in  expressions  of  gratitude  to  that 
Being  who  has  preserved  us  during  the  past  year  and  granted  us  the  blessings  of 
health,  peace  and  prosperity.  May  we  continue  to  merit  His  mercies  by  ac- 
knowledging our  dei^endence  on  Him  and  keeping  His  law  before  us. 

"Geo.  Abernethy. 
"Oregon  City,  December  7.  1847." 

On  December  17,  1847,  Joseph  L.  Meek  was  appointed  messenger  to  carry 
the  news  of  the  Whitman  massacre  to  Washington  Citj-,  and  lay  it  before  con- 
gress, and  resigned  his  seat  in  the  legislature  and  made  that  remarkable  trip  by 
hoi'sebaek  across  the  continent  in  the  middle  of  the  winter  of  1847-8. 

The  following  extract  from  the  letter  of  Hugh  Burns,  commissioner  of  the 
currency,  to  the  legislature,  dated  Oregon  City,  February  8,  1849,  will  show  the 
troubles  of  that  officer  in  financing  the  treasury  of  Oregon,  in  fighting  the  In- 
dians at  that  date. 

"On  the  28th  of  March  last,  or  near  that  time,  the  commissary  general  told 
me  that  when  he  was  at  The  Dalles,  it  became  necessary  for  him  to  take  wagons 
and  oxen,  the  property  of  Phelaster  and  Philemon  Lee,  to  the  amount  of  $250.00. 
I  consented  to  give  bonds  to  that  amount  and  did  so,  but  in  a  few  days  I  was 
called  upon  bj'  different  persons  for  bonds  for  a  very  large  amount.  I  refused 
to  execute  bonds  to  them  until  I  could  see  the  other  two  commissioners,  and  when 
we  met  together  it  was  thought  best  not  to  give  any  more  bonds  for  any  prop- 
erty, as  we  knew  nothing  about  it ;  so,  for  these  reasons  we  refused  to  give  bonds 
for  any  more  of  the  property  taken  at  The  Dalles  by  the  commissarj'  general. 

' '  There  is  another  matter  I  wish  to  explain ;  it  is  this :  When  I  commenced  to 
coUect  funds,  I  was  not  able  to  obtain  any  money  except  orders  on  the  stores  in 
Oregon  City ;  in  consequence  of  this,  it  was  impossible  for  the  commissary  general 
to  obtain  articles  for  the  use  of  the  army. 

"He  told  me  he  could  get  axes  and  spades,  and  these  articles  were  verj-  much 
wanted  to  make  roads  for  wagons  to  pass  up  the  Columbia  river.  Philip  Foster 
had  subscribed  $50.00  to  be  paid  on  the  stores,  and  John  B.  Price,  $25.00,  to  be 
paid  also  on  the  stores.  These  gentlemen  told  me  if  I  would  give  them  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  premium,  they  would  let  me  have  cash,  and  I  told  them  I  would  do 
so.  Mr.  Foster  gave  me  $37.50,  and  I  gave  him  a  bond  for  $50.00.  Mr.  Price 
gave  me  $18.75,  and  I  gave  him  a  bond  for  $25.00.  This  I  did  for  the  best.  But 
should  your  honorable  body  third?  otherwise,  I  am  ready  to  pay  to  this  govern- 
ment out  of  my  own  funds,  the  amount  of  premium  that  I  found  at  that  time 
necessary  to  allow.  I  bring  this  to  your  pai'ticular  notice,  because  it  was  noticed 
at  the  time  by  one  of  the  presses  of  Oregon  City.  Whatever  your  decision  on  this 
point  may  be,  I  alone  am  responsible,  as  my  associates  know  nothing  of  the  mat- 
ter. The  commissary  general  or  his  agent,  A.  J.  Hembi-ee,  Esq.,  obtained  a  loan 
of  $196.50,  or  thereabouts,  from  Thomas  Justins,  for  which  they  agreed  to  get 
him  a  bond  for  $216.33.  I  first  refused  to  give  the  bond  for  that  amount,  but 
the  commissary  general  being  very  much  in  want  of  cash,  and  upon  considera- 


Seal  of  the 

Provisional  Government 

called   the 

"Salmon  Seal  " 


Five  Pollars. 

The    Beaver    Money,    liolil — Minted 
at   Oregon    City    in    1S49 


THE  CENTKXMAI.  HISTORY  OK  ORE(iON  201 

tioii,  Soulier  tluiii  tin-  iiioiK'y  should  lie  rctiinicd.  I  executed  the  bond  to  'riioiiia.s 
.Justins  for  $211).:?.").  All  bonds  issued  by  us  bear  interest  at  the  rate  ol'  10  per 
cent,  per  anuiim.  and  all  signed  by  the  goveruoi'  and  countersigned  by  the  secre- 
tary of  this  territory.  All  the  Iiooks  and  ]ia])ers  belonging  are  hereby  trans- 
mitted for  your  examination. 

"Owing  to  the  resignation  of  (leii.  A.  L.  Lovejoy  as  one  of  the  eoinmissionei's. 
and  the  absence  of  Dr.  AY,  11.  W'illson.  this  doeuiueiit  will  appear  with  but  one 
signature. 

■■(Signed)      Hugh  Hriixs.  ConunissioiK  r. 
''Oregon  City.  T■'^'bl■nal•y   S.   1(S4!I."' 

On  February  10,  1849.  some  enterjirisiiig  real  estate  agent  applied  to  the 
legislature  for  a  "charter'"  to  enable  him  to  get  into  the  real  estate  business  in 
the  great  northwest  "on  the  ground  tloor. "'  The  legislature  turned  him  down 
in  the  following  resolution: 

"Jt'csolvcd,  That  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  this  house  to  grant  a  charter  to  any 
individual  or  company  for  treating  for  wild  lands  in  this  territory,  or  for  holding 
treaties  with  the  Indian  tribes  for  the  purchasing  of  lands."' 

On  Februarj-  14,  1849.  the  legislature  amended  the  oath  of  office  of  the  jiro- 
visional  government  from  the  form  set  out  on  a  preceding  page  to  the  following : 

"I  do  solemnly  swear  that  I  will  support  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States  and  the  organic  laws  of  the  provisional  government  of  Oregon,  and  faith- 
fully demean  myself  in  office,  so  help  me  God."  Thus  after  recognizing  the  citi- 
zenship of  the  British  subjects  in  the  government  for  six  years,  they  .shut  the 
doors  to  any  further  courtesies  in  that  direction.  It  is  probable  that  that  action 
was  taken  through  the  influence  of  Samuel  R.  Thurston. 

The  last  acts  of  the  legislature  and  of  officials  of  the  pi-ovisional  govei-nment 
are  dated  February  16,  1849.  On  that  day  the  legislature  divorced  John  P. 
Brooks  from  his  wife.  Mary  Ann ;  passed  an  act  for  the  relief  of  Jason  Wheeler : 
an  act  providing  for  w'eighing.  assaying,  melting  and  stamping  gold  coin : 
against  which  last  act  Representative  W.  J.  Martin  filed  a  protest  ''because  the 
act  was  a  violation  of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,"  and  made  this  ter- 
ritory a  shaving  machine  by  only  allowing  $16.50  for  an  ounce  of  gold  dust. 

The  legislature  then  ad.iourned  sine  die,  and  passed  into  history  as  the  first 
and  only  state  forming  and  successfully  carrying  on  a  provisional  government 
on  the  American  continent.  And  having  during  its  existence  of  six  years,  two 
months  and  twenty-eight  days,  established  courts,  administered  justice,  pun- 
ished crime,  coined  money,  raised  military  forces  and  made  war  on  the  Indians, 
granted  titles  to  land  and  made  laws  which  all  obeyed,  provided  for  common 
schools,  education,  religion  and  the  public  welfare,  and  all  other  things  that  any 
American  state  could  do. 

That  the  Americans  long  and  earnestly  sought  to  have  the  Canadians  unite 
with  them  in  organizing  a  provisional  government  is  proved  by  the  statements 
of  John  McLoughlin.  In  a  statement  prepai'ed  by  McLoughlin,  evidently  to 
make  clear  his  record,  but  not  published  in  his  lifetime,  a  copy  of  which  was 
published  by  IMrs.  F.  F.  Victor  in  the  Quarterly  of  the  Oregon  Historical  Society, 
June,  1900,  Dr,  McLoughlin  says: 

'■In  the  spring  of  1842  the  Americans  invited  the  Canadians  to  unite  with 


202  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTOEY  OF  OREGON 

them  and  organize  a  temporary  government,  but  the  Canadians,  apprehensive  it 
might  interfere  with  their  allegiance,  declined,  and  the  project,  which  origi- 
nated with  the  (Methodist)  mission,  failed.  *  *  *  Jn  1843  the  Americans 
again  proposed  to  the  Canadians  to  join  and  form  a  temporary  government,  but 
the  Canadians  declined  for  the  same  reason  as  before." 

But  after  thus  twice  refusing  to  join  with  the  Americans  and  after  the  or- 
ganization had  been  completed  and  declared  that  joining  the  provisional  govern- 
ment would  not  require  any  person  to  abjure  their  allegiance  to  any  other  gov- 
ernment or  king.  Dr.  McLoughlin  gave  his  support  to  the  provisional  govern- 
ment and  asked  favors  and  franchises  of  it. 

The  record  now  given  of  this  pioneer  legislature  seems  sufficient  to  show  the 
character  of  the  men  and  measures  of  the  pioneer  provisional  government  of 
Oregon,  every  session  of  which  was  held  within  the  territory  this  history  is  to 
cover. 

Especial  attention  is  called  to  the  fact  that  this  "Independent"  govern- 
ment, called  "The  Provisional  Government,"  was  organized  by  the  plain,  com- 
mon people  of  the  western  states  in  a  wilderness  two  thousand  miles  distant  from 
an  American  state  or  British  colony.  So  far  as  is  known,  not  a  single  man  tak- 
ing part  in  the  movement  had  ever  had  any  experience  in  legislative  or  state  con- 
cerns before.  While  it  is  possible  that  there  were  fifty  or  more  men  in  the  "Wil- 
lamette valley  who  did  not  participate  in  the  primary  organization,  yet  as  the 
record  stands  there  were  practically  as  many  men  opposed  to  the  organization 
as  favored  it.  There  were  quite  a  number  of  Americans  about  Oregon  City  (then 
called  "The  Falls")  who  did  not  take  interest  in  the  matter  or  were  afraid  to 
incur  the  displeasure  of  the  fur  company,  and  did  not  attend  the  Champoeg 
meeting. 

The  real  pioneers  were  the  men  and  women  who  came  here  before  1846.  They 
did  not  know  from  any  act  of  the  United  States  whether  this  would  be  American 
or  British  territory.  But  they  came  to  make  it  American.  Those  who  came  after 
1846  took  no  chances.  It  was  then  decided  to  be  United  States  territory.  They 
came  to  reap  where  others  had  sown.  They  wanted  security  before  they  would 
move.  The  real  pioneers  put  up  all  the  security  and  ran  all  the  risks  of  the  in- 
vestment. The  rooms  of  the  Oregon  Historical  Society  furnish  mute  but  incon- 
testable evidence  of  the  plain  and  simple  lives  of  our  pioneers.  The  ancient 
wagon,  the  primitive  spinning  wheel,  and  the  rude  weaving  loom,  all  testify 
stronger  than  words,  the  slow  advance  from  purely  hand  work  to  that  of  the 
hand-made  machine,  taking  the  place  of  the  hands. 

The  pioneers  took  little  thought  of  wealth  and  station.  They  passed  over  mil- 
lions of  gold  in  Baker,  Union  and  Grant  counties,  and  on  to  the  Willamette  val- 
ley, to  found  a  state  on  just  laws  that  should  honor  and  bless  mankind  after  all 
the  gold  has  been  worn  to  impalpable  dust. 

When  the  King  of  Spain  was  anxious  to  found  a  state  in  the  new  world,  of 
which  Oregon  was  then  an  unknown  fraction,  he  dispatched  a  royal  decree  in 
1778  to  his  governor,  Don  Pedro  Pierns,  at  old  St.  Louis,  as  follows : 

"The  source  and  origin  of  all  empires  has  been  the  refuge  and  kind  usage 
which  men  find  in  the  gentleness  of  the  laws.  The  evil  administration  of  them 
is  the  greatest  impediment  to  the  building  of  a  government;  for  not  only  are 
those  who  are  present  and  exposed  to  them  exasperated,  but  others  are  prevented 


THE  CENTEiNNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  203 

from  coiuiug.  Hence  as  oui*  laws  are  extremely  mild,  they  ought  not  to  be  ob- 
scured by  ambition  and  self-interest." 

Had  our  illustrious  pioneers  who  set  up  a  government  at  Champoeg  on  May 
2,  1843,  had  a  copy  of  this  royal  message  before  them,  they  could  not  have  pro- 
ceeded with  more  thought  and  consideration  for  that  piece  of  kingly  wisdom, 
than  they  did. 

All  the  actors  in  this  tempoi-ary  government  were  unpretentious  plain  men, 
men  who  were  busily  engaged  in  opening  farms  or  establishing  pioneer  business 
interests.  Not  a  single  man  from  first  to  last  in  the  whole  six  years'  existence  of 
the  provisional  government,  was  found  to  be  actuated  by  selfish  motives  or  aspi- 
rations for  power  and  place.  The  welfare  of  each  and  all  of  the  little  state  was 
the  ambition  of  every  man  who  served  the  state.  It  is  but  a  natural  desire  to 
praise  the  work  of  unselfish  men.  But  a  careful  examination  of  their  whole  rec- 
ord, in  comparison  with  the  state  governments  we  have  had  since  the  provision;]] 
government  passed  into  history,  will  show  that  the  pioneer  government  was,  all 
things  considered,  the  best  government  that  ever  ruled  the  destinies  of  Oregon. 

From  his  longer  service  to  the  provisional  government,  the  governor,  George 
Abernethy,  was  the  most  prominent  member  of  it,  and  his  name  will  go  down  to 
future  ages  as  the  best  governor  Oregon  has  had  to  this  date.  A  plain,  unpre- 
tentious citizen,  with  common  sense  for  talent,  and  unswerving  integrity  for  mo- 
tive power,  he  faithfully,  steadily,  courageously  and  conscientiously  steered  the 
little  craft  through  all  the  dangerous  rocks  and  shoals  and  buffeting  storms  of 
rival  sectarianism,  Indian  wars,  British  intrigues  and  opposition,  until  the  in- 
fant state  was  safely  housed  within  the  aegis  of  the  great  republic. 

The  greatness  of  these  brave  pioneei's  and  the  grandeur  of  their  great  achieve- 
ment has  been  yet  scarcely  recognized  or  appreciated.  But  as  time  rolls  on  the 
genius  and  .iustiee  of  the  laws  and  institutions,  which  these  men  founded,  will 
be  seen  to  be  far  greater  than  any  possible  material  prosperit.y,  and  then  the 
lengthening  shadows  of  their  colossal  work  and  fame  will  cover  the  whole  land, 
and  place  their  names  among  the  greatest  and  best  of  mankind. 

"0  strange  new  state,  that  yet  was  never  young, 
Whose  youth  from  thee  by  gripping  need  was  wrung ; 
Brown  foundling  of  the  woods,  whose  baby  bod 
Was  prowled  round  by  Injuns'  crackling  tread. 
And  who  grew  strong  through  shifts  and  wants  and  pains — 
Nursed,  defended  by  men  with  empires  in  their  brains, 
Who  saw  in  vision  more  states  in  their  train  : 
With  every  hand  iipon  a  vassal  ocean's  mane: 
Thou,  skilled  by  freedom,  and  by  great  events. 
To  pitch  new  states,  as  old  world  men  pitch  tents: 
Thou  taught  by  fate  to  know  Jehovah's  plan. 
That  man's  device  can't  nninnko  the  real  iiinii." 

Of  the  forty  xVmericans  that  came  over  the  mountains  and  settled  in  the  Wil- 
lamette valle.v  in  1842,  only  six — Hugh  Burns,  Medorem  Crawford,  Allen  Davie, 
Reuben  Lewis,  John  L.  Morrison  and  J.  R.  Robb — attended  and  took  part  in  the 
meeting  for  organization.  And  those  who  opposed  the  organization — the  Hud- 
son's Bay  Company — could  have  destroyed  it  at  any  time.     John  ^leLoughlin 


204  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

was  practically  the  governor  of  Oregon  at  that  time ;  and  yet  he  raised  neither 
voice  or  hand  to  defeat  the  Amei-ican  organization;  and  soon  after  the  little 
ship  of  state  was  launched  he  applied  to  it  for  a  franchise  to  operate  a  ferry 
below  the  Palls  of  the  Willamette. 

The  Americans  did  not  forget  his  consideration  for  them,  and  when  a  bill 
was  proposed  in  the  provisional  legislature  on  August  15,  1845,  to  disfranchise 
all  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company  men,  it  was  promptly  voted  down ;  and  the  legisla- 
ture went  farther  and  amended  the  oath  of  membership  in  the  provisional  -gov- 
ernment so  as  to  make  it  read :  ' '  That  I  will  support  the  organic  laws  of  the  pro- 
visional government  of  Oregon  so  far  as  thej'  are  consistent  with  my  duties  as  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States,  or  suhjeet  of  Great  Britain."  When  the  British 
Agents  Warre  and  Vavasour  visited  Oregon  in  1845,  they  reported  that,  although 
the  British  and  Canadian  population  had  protested  against  the  formation  of  the 
provisional  government,  yet  in  their  opinion  it  was  the  judicious  course  for  aH" 
parties  to  preserve  the  peace  and  promote  the  prosperity  of  the  comnuinity  at 
large. 

It  would  be  intensely  interesting  if  the  men  who  formed  this  unexampled 
government  on  the  American  continent  could  be  called  before  the  reader  for 
his  personal  acquaintance.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  it  was  formed  by  a  motley  non- 
descript, unconformalile  lot  of  men  who  could  not  have  worked  harmoniously 
together  for  anj'  other  purpose.  Self-preservation  brought  them  together  and 
compelled  them  to  work  together  for  a  common  and  noble  object.  That  they 
could  bury  their  personal  peculiarities  and  prejudices  and  risk  everything  for 
the  common  good  of  all,  and  work  with  might  and  main  to  carry  out  a  great 
patriotic  work  and  purpose,  shows  that  the  founders  of  the  provisional  govern- 
ment were  the  real  heroes,  and  theirs  ' '  The  Heroic  Age  of  Oregon. ' ' 

The  independent  element  was  made  up  of  mountain  men  like  Joseph  L.  Meek 
and  Robert  Newell,  with  whom  were  co-operating  the  sea-rovers,  independent 
trapi^ers  and  adventurers  of  all  sorts  who  had  drifted  into  the  Willamette  valley 
as  a  haven  of  rest  from  life 's  failures  and  troubles  in  other  quarters  of  the  world. 
But  few  of  them  had  any  book  knowledge,  but  all  had  a  wide  experience  on  the 
border,  before  the  mast,  or  in  life's  struggles  everj'where.  They  had  courage,  in- 
dependence and  confidence  born  of  dangers  and  desperation.  They  would  launch 
the  ship  of  state  while  others  talked  and  parleyed.  And  co-operating  with  these 
trappers  and  sailors,  was  a  man  from  the  missionary  side  who  was  the  most 
active  and  irrepressible  of  the  whole  commnnitj',  and  while  not  always  politic 
or  judicious,  was  alwaj's  an  agitator — William  IT.  Gray.  Gray  wanted  a  gov- 
ernment that  would  oppose  the  Catholics.  Newell  and  Meek  wanted  a  govern- 
ment that  would  be  independent  of  all  sects  and  religions.  Jason  Lee,  the  prime 
mover  of  the  whole  business,  wanted  a  government  with  a  Protestant,  if  not  a 
Methodist  control.  It  is  intensely  interesting  to. trace  out  all  theidiplomatic  !uove- 
ments  of  the  rival  factious  in  this  little  community  of  a  hundred  men  2000  miles 
distant  from  any  organized  county  or  state.  That  the  Americans  earnestly  de- 
sired the  Canadians  to  go  in  with  them  for  organization  is  too  plain  to  dispute. 
For  at  the  outset  the  Canadians  were  freely  appointed  in  the  preliminary  com- 
mittees, and  meetings  were  held  at  the  houses  of  the  Canadians.  But  the  Cana- 
dians, being  Catholics,  accepted  and  trusted  the  leadership  of  their  i-eligious 
teacher,  Blanchet.  Blanchet  was  a  subject  of  Great  Britain,  and  a  stipendiary 
of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company.     He  was  therefore  legally  and  in  honor  liound  to 


TIIIO  CENTKNXIAL   IIIS'I'OI.'Y   OK  OREGON  205 

support  the  interests  that  were  opposed  lo  ii  possible  American  organization. 
.Vnd  tile  address  prepared  by  him,  and  signed  by  all  Ihe  Canadians,  was  the  most 
adroit  and  diplomatic  document  that  could  have  been  constructed  for  tliat 
occasion.  It  was  Ml  of  fair  dealing,  patriotism  and  good-fellowship — yet  it 
was  clearly  against  an  American  organization.  And  the  harmonious  acceptance 
lit  the  final  result  showed  that  Blanchet  was  a  good  citizen,  and  for  peace,  no 
matter  who  ruled. 

The  conduct  of  Jason  Lee  has  been  to  many  persons  a  puzzle.  After  insjjir- 
iiig  and  leading  the  movement  for  organization  up  to  a  certain  point,  he  suddenly- 
dropped  out,  and  does  not  appear  at  all  at  the  Champoeg  meeting.  There  is 
nothing  difficult  about  this.  Lee  was  himself  a  native  of  Canada,  and  knew  bet- 
ter than  any  other  man  in  Oregon  whom  he  had  to  deal  with.  We  are  warranteil 
in  believing  that  as  Blanchet  and  Lee  were  the  acknowledged  leaders  of  rival, 
if  not  hostile  religious  movements,  it  was  poor  politics  for  the  man,  wfio  of  all 
others  most  desii-ed  an  American  organization,  to  appear  at  a  meeting  where  his 
mere  presence  would  provoke  unfriendly  opposition.  Lee  absented  himself 
from  the  Champoeg  meeting  for  the  real  purpose  of  misleading,  if  possible, 
the  Canadians — or  at'least  to  avoid  drawing  their  fire.  The  Methodist  preachers, 
Hines.  Leslie  and  Parrish,  and  the  Congregationalists,  Griffin  and  Clark,  were 
there,  but  Blanchet  did  not  fear  them.  How  far  the  absence  of  Lee  abated  the 
activity  of  the  Canadians  cannot  be  known. 

The  course  of  another  man  at  that  meeting  was  puzzling  to  some  people. 
F.  X.  Matthieu's  vote  decided  the  result;  and  yet  Matthieu  was  the  last  man 
to  line  up  with  the  Americans;  although  he  had  fled  from  British  intolerance 
in  his  native  land,  and  had  advocated  American  organization  to  his  Canadian 
countrymen.  His  course  at  Champoeg  was  dictated  by  the  hope  that  by  staying 
with  his  own  people  to  the  last,  he  might  in  the  end.  take  over  with  him  to  the 
American  side  one  or  more  wavering  Canadians  who  were  halting  between  two 
opinions.  If  there  were  any  such,  and  there  doubtless  was,  they  had  been 
braced  up  against  just  such  a  crisis,  and  did  not  dare  to  incur  the  displeasure 
of  their  leader. 

THE   HISTORIC    SITE 

To  preserve  for  all  time  the  historic  site  of  the  birth  place  of  the  first  Ameri- 
can government  on  the  Pacific  coast,  and  all  the  glorious  memories  that  cluster 
around  it,  Joseph  Buchtel,  of  Portland,  one  of  the  patriotic  pioneers  of  1852, 
has  devoted  much  time  to  raising  the  means  to  secure  a  tract  of  12  acres  of  land 
at  Champoeg,  ad.joining  the  monument  erected  there  in  1901  to  honor  the 
memory  of  the  pi-ovisional  government  convention  of  May  2,  1843 ;  the  additional 
ground  to  be  used  as  a  state  park  for  celebrations  and  pioneer  gatherings.  The 
purchase  of  this  land  has  been  effected  by  ilr.  Buchtel  aided  by  a  number  of 
friends,  and  the  deed  is  being  held  in  escrow  until  the  state  makes  an  appropria- 
tion to  cover  the  cost. 

"No  event  in  the  historj'  of  the  Northwest  was  so  impoi'tant  as  the  convention 
at  Champoeg  in  1843,"  says  Mr.  Buchtel,  "which  saved  all  this  country  to  the 
United  States.  The  ground  ought  to  be  secured,  and  will  be  secured,  in  com- 
memoration of  the  event  and  the  men  who  voted  to  retain  the  country  under  the 
.iurisdietion  of  the  United  States  Government."  ^ 

1  The  movement  for  the  monument  and  paik  eonimentcil  witli  a  few  members  of  tlie 
I  irijxon  Historical  Societv — F.  V.  Ilolmon.  i[.  C.  George. 


J^BEW  FOyNDATIOMS. 


CHAPTER  IX 

1792—18^6 

AMERICAN    TITLE    TO    THE    COUNTRY THE    SPANISH    SEA    COAST    DISCOVERIES — THE 

PAPER    TITLES    OP    SPAIN,    FRANCE    AND    ENGLAND GRAY'S    DISCOVERY    OP    THE 

COLUMBIA  RIVER — THE  PURCHASE  OP  LOUISIANA THE  DOCTRINE  OP   CONTIGUOUS 

SETTLEMENT — THE    LEVS'IS    AND    CLARK    EXPLORATION — THE    PURCHASE    OF    THE 

SPANISH     TITLE THE     CAMPAIGN     OP     "  FIPTY'-POUR     FORTY     OR     FIGHT " THE 

TREACHERY    OF    PRESIDENT    POLK OREGON    SAVED    BY*    THE    AMERICAN    SETTLERS. 

The  vast  region  west  of  tlie  Koeky  mouutains  froutiiig  ou  the  Pacific  ocean 
from  the  northern  boundary  of  California  up  to  Alaska  became  known  to  the 
world  under  the  name  of  "Oregon,"  about  the  year  1770.  And  the  lirst  tangi- 
ble acts  to  obtain  title  to  this  vast  territory  date  back  to  the  voyages  of  Spanish 
explorers  in  1774;  followed  by  the  English  navigator,  Cook,  in  1776,  the  year 
the  American  colonists  declared  themselves  independent  of  Great  Britain.  Six- 
teen years  after  the  Englishmen  filed  a  discoveiy  claim  to  the  country.  Captain 
Robert  Gray,  the  American  trader,  discovered  the  Columbia  river,  which  prac- 
tically drains  the  whole  region  and  laid  the  foundation  for  the  claim  of  the  United 
States. 

Here  then  are  the  claims  of  the  three  nations — Spain.  England  and  the  United 
States — mere  paper  titles,  founded  on  the  trifling  incidents  of  landing  on  the 
sea  coast  of  a  vast  country  of  then  unknown  extent.  Neither  of  these  parties 
had  contributed  anything  whatever  to  the  value  of  the  country,  or  to  any  ex- 
tent worth  mentioning,  made  known  to  the  world  its  resources,  population  or 
boundaries.  The  law  or  custom,  upon  which  any  shadow  of  title  to  the  country 
could  be  founded  by  either  of  these  parties,  was  nothing  more  than  the  comity 
of  courtesy  conceded  among  the  maritime  nations  of  the  world  down  to  that 
period ;  a  right,  comity,  or  courtesy  which  was  always  ignored  and  repudiated  by 
the  strongest,  whenever  it  was  their  interest  to  do  so. 

The  Indians  were  the  original  possessors  of  the  country,  and  held  their  title 
from  occupancy  for  unknown  thousands  of  years.  But  all  three  of  these  so- 
called  civilized  nations  united  to  deny  and  overthrow  the  title  of  the  native 
barbarian.  To  deny  the  title  of  the  Indian,  because  he  was  ignorant,  super- 
stitious and  a  barbarian  or  savage,  was  to  found  rights  on  educational  oppor- 
tunities rather  than  upon  the  foundation  set  forth  by  the  American  Declaration 
of  Independence.  To  deny  the  rights  of  the  Indian,  and  then  concede  his  hu- 
manity by  offering  him  the  teachings  of  the  Bible,  was  an  inconsistency  too 
absurd  for  argument.  And  so  the  moralist  and  publicists  were  forced  to  take 
grounds  with  the  defenders  of  African  slavery  and  boldly  proclaim  the  doctrine 
that  neither  the  red  man  nor  the  black  man  had  any  rights  which  the  whitr 
man  was  bound  to  respect. 

207 


208  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

Aiid  so  this  couclusion  gives  a  clear  field  to  consider  what  nation  had  the 
title  to  the  vast  region  of  old  Oregon  under  the  facts  hereinafter  stated. 

On  the  25th  of  January,  1774,  about  two  and  a  half  years  before  the 
American  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  Spanish  sloop  of  war,  Santiago, 
sailed  from  San  Bias,  Mexico,  under  command  of  Lieut.  Juan  Perez.  The 
Spanish  viceroy  in  Mexico  directed  Perez  to  sail  northward  along  the  Ore- 
gon coast  up  to  sixty  degrees  of  north  latitude;  which  would  be  a  few  miles 
above  the  extreme  southern  limit  of  the  present  United  States  territory  of 
Alaska.  And  from  that  point  Perez  was  directed  to  survey  the  coast  southward 
to  Monterey  (now  in  California),  and  landing  at  convenient  places  take  pos- 
session of  the  same  in  the  name  of  the  King  of  Spain.  Under  these  orders 
Perez  sailed  with  the  king's  ship,  and  the  king's  men  on  June  16th,  1774.  On 
the  13th  of  July,  he  made  the  land  in  fifty-four  degrees  north  (now  known  as 
Queen  Charlotte's  Island),  and  named  the  point  Cape  Santa  Margarita — the 
Cape  North  of  our  geography — then  rounded  the  north  point  of  the  island  and 
sailed  into  Dixon's  Channel.  From  this  point  Perez  turned  south,  coasting 
along  the  shore  and  trading  -with  the  natives.  On  the  9th  of  August  he  made ' 
the  land  on  the  west  coast  of  Vancouver  Island  at  the  point  known  as  Nootka 
Sound.  From  Nootka  Sound  again  coasting  southward,  the  pilot  claimed  to 
have  seen  what  is  recognized  now  as  the  opening  to  the  Straits  of  Fuea,  and 
still  further  south  made  out,  and  named  Mount  Olympus,  passed  Cape  Men- 
docino and  the  Oregon  coast  August  21st,  and  reached  Monterey  on  August 
27,  1774. 

On  the  return  of  Perez,  the  Mexican  viceroy  decided  to  send  another  expedi- 
tion to  the  north,  and  made  preparations  to  send  the  schooner  Senora  along  with 
the  Santiago,  giving  to  Captain  Bruno  Heceta  the  command  of  the  Santiago, 
and  to  Angala  the  command  of  the  little  schooner.  This  expedition  sailed  from 
San  Bias  for  the  north,  and  on  June  10,  1775,  made  a  landing  on  the  coast  in  an 
open  roadstead  at  forty-one  degrees,  ten  minutes  north,  a  little  below  the  present 
south  boundary  of  Oregon.  Here  they  spent  nine  daj's  and  claimed  the  country 
for  Spain.  Again  sailing  north,  the  expedition  made  land  the  second  time  at 
forty-eight  degrees,  twenty -six  minutes  north,  which  is  a  little  south  of  the  en- 
trance to  the  Straits  of  Fuca.  From  this  point  they  cruised  southward  looking 
for  the  straits.  On  the  14th  of  Jul,y,  in  latitude  forty-seven  degrees,  twenty  min- 
utes north,  which  is  a  little  north  of  Gray's  Harbor  in  the  state  of  Washington, 
seven  men  of  the  crew  of  the  Senora  in  their  only  boat  landed  on  the  mainland 
to  get  fresh  water  and  were  overpowered  by  the  natives  and  all  killed ;  and  the 
schooner  itself  was  surrounded  by  hundreds  of  Indians  in  canoes  who  made  un- 
successful attempts  to  board  her.  Here  Heceta  desired  to  return  to  California, 
but  was  overruled  by  Perez,  Bodega  and  Maurelle,  and  the  expedition  again 
sailed  northward,  making  their  next  landing  at  forty-nine  degrees,  and  thirty 
minutes  north,  which  is  thirty  miles  north  of  the  present  north  boundarj'  of  the 
United  States,  but  being  on  the  west  side  of  Vancouver  Island,  is  still  on  Brit- 
ish territory.  From  this  point  Heceta  turned  southward,  and  at  about  forty-six 
degrees  and  ten  minutes,  discovered  a  great  bay,  July  17,  1775.  On  account  of 
the  currents  and  eddies,  setting  out  seaward,  he  could  not  enter  it  with  his  ship, 
but  recorded  the  event  in  his  log  book  as  "The  mouth  of  some  great  river,  or  a 
passage  to  another  sea."    This  was  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river,  and  we  see 


THE  CENTENNIAL  iriSTORY  OF  OREGON  I'O'.i 

how  close  the  Spaniard  came  to  making  the  discovery  whieli  lias  made  lioliert 
Gray  famous.  The  Spaniard  kept  on  south  and  made  Monterey  on  August  :!(). 
1775,  a  few  days  after  the  never-to-be-forgotten  battle  of  Bunker  Hill. 

We  have  been  thus  ptirticular  to  set  out  the  facts  constituting  the  rights  of 
Spain  to  claim  the  Old  Oregon  country  from  the  California  line  clear  up  to 
Alaska.  According  to  the  theories  of  the  European  nations  in  vogue  one  hun- 
dred and  tifty  years  ago,  the  King  of  Spain  had  done  everything  necessary  to 
give  his  nation  a  good  title  to  the  Oregon  country;  for  according  to  this  histoi-i- 
eal  record,  the  Spanish  naval  ofBcer  and  ships  flying  the  flag  of  Spain,  in  lawful 
exploration  of  tlie  high  seas,  were  the  first  discoverers  of  the  Oregon  country. 

It  was  doubtless  the  fact  that  Captain  Francis  Drake  had  been  on  the  Oregon 
coast  befoi-e  the  Spaniard.  But  he  was  here,  as  has  been  before  stated,  as  a 
freebooter  or  pirate,  plundering  Spanish  merchant  vessels,  and  as  such  his  acts 
could  not  confer  any  title  on  the  English  government;  and  for  that  reason  his 
government  never  took  advantage  of  any  discoveries  he  made. 

And.  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  Spaniards  were  the  first  discoverers 
of  the  Oregon  coast,  for  some  reason,  never  explained,  they  did  not  make  these 
discoveries  known  to  the  world  at  that  time;  but  waited  until  after  Captain 
James  Cook,  as  the  representative  of  Great  Britain,  made  his  famous  voyage  to 
the  Oregon  coast  in  1778.  Cook  sailed  from  Plymouth,  England,  eight  days  after 
the  American  Declaration  of  Independence  had  been  signed  up  by  the  Conti- 
nental Congress,  a  fact  which  could  not  have  been  at  that  time  known  in  Eng- 
land. These  dates  are  given  to  show  that  the  new-horn  nation  of  the  United 
States  had  not,  at  the  time  the  Spanish  and  English  claims  to  Oregon  were  set 
up,  yet  achieved  a  national  organization,  existence  of  recognition  before  the 
world ;  and  was  not,  therefore,  bound  by  the  comity  laws  of  nations  which  gave 
away  great  countries  on  rights  of  discovery. 

But  Captain  Cook  saw  no  part  of  the  coast  of  America  on  this  voyage,  which 
had  not  been  previously  seen  by  the  Spanish  navigators,  Perez,  Heceta  and 
Bodega. 

The  question  was  raised  later  on  by  England  that  Spain  had  negotiated  away 
its  rights  to  Oregon  by  a  treaty  entered  into  October,  1790,  which  provides  that 
Spain  should  restore  to  Great  Britain  the  possession  of  property  and  ships  taken 
from  the  British  by  force  at  Nootka  Sound  by  the  Spanish  Captain  Martinez,  in 
May,  1779.  And  as  this  incident  has  figured  prominently  not  only  in  the  history 
of  those  times,  but  also  in  the  diplomacy  and  treaty  rights  of  the  Ignited  States 
and  England,  a  resume  of  the  facts  therewith  connected  will  now  be  given. 

From  a  trifdiug  incident  of  Captain  Cook's  voyage  to  the  west  coast  of  Ore- 
gon in  1778  the  attention  of  all  the  trading  nations  was  attracted  to  this  coun- 
try. Cook  got  from  the  Indians,  and  carried  away  to  China,  a  small  bale  of  furs, 
which,  on  being  offered  for  sale,  at  once  dazzled  the  eyes  of  all  traders  in  Chinese 
ports  for  their  superiority  to  anything  of  the  kind  ever  seen  before  and  the  vast 
fur  trade  of  Northwest  America  started  right  there. 

But  when  the  British  sea-rovers  and  independent  traders  sought  to  start  into 
the  fur  trade  they  were  handicapped  by  the  regulations  and  franchise  grants 
of  their  own  country.  In  pursuance  of  its  immemorial  policy  of  granting  special 
privileges  to  royal  favorites,  the  British  government  had  divided  up  the  earth 
between  two  chartered  cmiipanies.  and  had  granted  to  the  South  Sea  Company 


210  THE  CENTENxNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

the  sole  right  to  trade  in  all  seas  and  countries  westward  of  Cape  Horn ;  and  to 
the  British  East  India  Company  the  sole  right  to  trade  in  all  seas  and  countries 
east  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope ;  and  bj^  these  grants  all  British  subjects  not  con- 
nected with  either  one  of  these  gi-eat  monopolies,  were  prohibited  from  trading 
in  all  seas,  territories  and  islands  in  that  vast  portion  of  the  world  lying  between 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  eastward  to  a  line  drawn  north  and  south  through  Cape 
Horn,  or  vice  versa,  westward  from  the  meridian  of  Cape  Horn  to  the  meridian 
passing  through  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope ;  and  British  subjects  desiring  to  en- 
gage in  Pacific  ocean  commerce  or  Pacific  coast  fur  trade  in  America,  or  in  China 
or  East  India  trade,  were  obliged  to  obtain  permission  of  one  of  these  great 
companies  and  fly  their  flag,  or  not  trade  at  all.  If  old  England  has  not  set  the 
pace  for  monopolies,  where  did  they  begin? 

Of  course,  these  monopolies  could  not  prevent  the  Chinese,  as  an  independent 
nation,  from  trading  here,  or  from  granting  ships  rights  to  trade.  But  old  China 
was  not  slow  at  a  bargain,  and  put  up  the  price  of  grants  and  port  charges  to 
excessive  prices  on  everybody  except  the  Portuguese. 

To  evade  these  exactions  of  the  Chinese,  and  the  prohibitions  of  these  British 
charters,  several  British  merchants  residing  in  India,  desiring  to  engage  in  the 
rich  fur  trade  on  the  west  coast  of  America,  associated  themselves  together  under 
the  name  of  a  Portuguese  merchant  and  prociired  from  the  Portuguese  govern- 
ment of  Macao  a  license  for  two  ships — the  Felice  and  Iphigenia — to  sail  under 
the  Portuguese  flag  to  the  northwest  coast  of  America.  To  further  carry  out 
their  enterprise,  these  British  merchants  procured  Lieut.  John  Meares,  of  the 
British  navj^,  on  leave,  to  command  this  fur-trading  expedition.  Meares'  char- 
acter in  the  venture  was  further  complicated  by  the  fact  that  he  was  at  that  time 
in  the  British  East  India  Company  service  as  an  English  subject,  which  company 
held  the  sole  right  to  trade  in  these  parts,  and  which  company  had  given  Meares 
the  license  of  its  company  to  make  a  trade  venture  to  the  Oregon  coast  on  his 
own  account.  To  further  complicate  matters,  the  adventuring  merchants  took 
out  the  papers  of  the  two  ships  in  the  Portuguese  language,  and  in  the  name  of 
Portuguese  eajstains,  who  were  to  go  along  as  figureheads,  and  who  were  referred 
to  in  Meares'  reports  as  "second  captains." 

And  in  the  letter  of  instructions  issued  to  Lieut.  Meares  by  these  merchants, 
they  tell  him;  "That  if  any  Russian,  English  or  Spanish  vessel  attempt  to  seize 
him  or  his  ships,  or  to  carry  him  out  of  his  way,  you  must  prevent  it  by  every 
means  in  your  power  and  repel  force  by  force ;  and  should  j'ou,  in  such  conflict, 
have  the  superiorit.y,  you  will  then  take  possession  of  the  vessel  that  attacked, 
as  also  her  cargo,  and  bring  both,  with  the  officers  and  crew,  to  China,  that  they 
may  be  condemned  as  legal  prizes,  and  their  crews  punished  as  pirates." 

And  thus  officered  and  authorized,  the  two  ships — Iphigenia  and  Felice — 
sailed  for  the  Oregon  coast  and  reached  Nootka  Sound  on  the  west  coast  of  Van- 
couver Island,  ]\Iay  13,  1788.  A  few  days  after  their  arrival,  the  Indian  Chief 
Maquinna,  who  claimed  the  island  as  his  real  estate,  granted  to  Meares  "a  spot 
of  ground  in  his  territory  whereon  a  house  might  be  built  for  the  accommoda- 
tion of  the  people  intended  to  be  left  there,  and  promised  also  the  assistance  of 
his  Indians  in  building  houses,  and  the  protection  of  the  Indians  for  the  people 
who  were  to  remain  during  the  absence  of  the  ships.  In  return  for  this  permis- 
sion to  build  the  house,  Meares  presented  Maquinna  with  a  pair  of  pistols :  and 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  211 

to  secure  the  further  attachment  aud  protection  of  Maquinna,  lie  was  promised 
that  when  the  people  of  those  ships  tiually  left  the  coast,  he  should  enter  into  the 
full  possession  of  the  house  and  all  the  goods  belonging  therewith." 

This  was  the  tirst  house  built  in  all  the  vast  region  of  old  Oregon,  and  these 
were  the  circumstances  under  which  it  was  erected.  It  wfus  a  mere  temporary 
shelter  from  the  weather,  with  some  stockade  defense  against  an  attack  from 
the  Indians. 

Hearing  of  these  operations  of  the  I'ur  traders,  great  uneasiness  was  aroused 
in  Spain.  And  in  17S9  the  Spanish  vicei'oy  in  Mexico  dispatched  two  ships  to 
tile  uortli  with  instructions  to  proclaim  and  enforce  the  rights  of  Spain  to  the 
country.  These  ships — the  Princess  and  San  Carlos — commanded  by  Lieut, 
^lartinez.  reached  Nootka  Sound,  j\Iay  5th,  1789,  and  found  there  the  American 
ship  Columbia,  and  the  ships  Iphigeiiia  and  the  Felice,  with  Captain  Meares, 
arriving  a  few  days  afterward. 

The  Spaniard  promptly  announced  his  business,  and  the  Americans  as 
promptly  recognized  the  rights  of  Spain  to  the  country.  The  captain  of  the  Iphi- 
genia  gave  an  evasive  and  untruthful  reply,  saying  he  had  put  in  there  in  dis- 
tress to  await  the  arrival  of  Captain  Meares.  But  the  Spaniard  hearing  that 
the  Iphigeuia  carried  orders  to  capture  any  Russian,  Spanish  or  English  vessel, 
he  seized  the  ship,  and  subsequently  the  Northwest  America,  another  ship  in  the 
same  service  as  the  Iphigenia. 

Captain  Meares.  not  returning  on  account  of  a  reorganization  of  the  ad- 
venturing merchants,  which  has  not  replaced  Meares,  with  Captain  Colnett,  also 
holding  a  commission  in  the  British  navy,  now  off  on  leave,  events  dragged  until 
Colnett  came  into  Nootka  off  the  ship  Princess  Royal.  Colnett's  instructions  di- 
rected him  "to  establish  a  factory  to  be  called  Fort  Pitt  for  the  purpose  of 
permanent  settlement,  and  as  a  center  of  trade  around  which  other  stations  may 
be  estaldished."  And  he  informed  the  Spanish  captain.  Martinez,  that  he  should 
take  possession  of  Nootka  Sound  in  the  name  of  Great  Britain  and  hoist  the  Brit- 
ish flag.  The  Spaniard  replied  that  possession  had  already  been  taken  in  the 
name  of  Spain,  and  that  he  would  resist  any  attempts  to  take  possession  in  the 
name  of  Great  Britain.  The  Englishmen  inquired  if  the  Spaniard  would  object 
to  building  a  house;  the  Spaniard:  "Certain,  I  will  object;  you  can  erect  a 
tent  to  get  wood  and  water,  but  no  house."  The  Englishman  replied  that  he 
would  liuild  a  block  house ;  whereupon  the  Spaniard  arrested  the  British  cap- 
tain and  all  his  crew,  and  seized  the  ships — Princess  Royal  and  Argonaut — and 
sent  them  down  to  San  Bias.  Mexico,  as  prizes. 

Here,  then,  was  a  veritable  "tempest  in  a  teapot."  Consider  for  a  moment 
the  surroundings  of  these  men  and  the  future  weight  given  to  their  acts.  Here 
they  were  in  a  little  pocket  of  a  bay  on  Vancouver  island ;  the  Americans  twenty 
thousand  miles  from  their  home  port;  the  English-Portuguese  merchant  ad- 
venturers no  better  than  pirates,  as  they  were  sailing  imder  false  eoloi-s,  six 
thousand  miles  from  their  base  of  operations,  and  the  Spaniard  three  thousand 
miles  from  his  governor:  with  an  onlooking  audience  of  hundreds  of  savages 
and  not  a  single  civilized  man  within  thousands  of  miles.  The  Spaniard  bravely 
asserts  the  rights  and  authority  of  his  king,  and  the  bluffing  British  captain 
tamely  submits  to  arrest. 

It  was  ten  months  after  the  capture  of  the  British  ships  before  the  news 


212  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

reached  Europe;  whereupon  Eugiand  demanded  of  Spain  immediate  repara- 
tion for  the  insult  to  her  flag,  and  thus  assuming  responsibility  for  all  the 
crookedness  which  had  set  afloat  the  so-called  Portuguese  merchant  fur  trad- 
ing ships.  To  the  outburst  of  England  the  king  of  Spain  issued  a  proclama- 
tion to  all  other  nations  on  June  i,  1790,  temperately  reciting  the  rights  of 
Spain  to  the  continents  and  islands  of  the  South  sea,  concluding  with:  "Al- 
though Spain  may  not  have  establishments  or  colonies  planted  upon  the 
coasts  or  in  the  ports  in  dispute,  it  does  not  follow  that  such  coast  or  port  does 
not  belong  to  her.  If  this  I'ule  were  to  be  followed,  one  nation  might  estab- 
lish colonies  on  the  coast  of  another  nation — in  America,  Asia,  Africa  and 
Europe — bj'  which  means  there  would  be  no  fixed  boundaries — a  circumstance 
evidently  absurd."  Such  were  the  hard  facts  of  the  case  down  to  the  begin- 
ning of  the  dispute  between  Spain  and  England,  as  to  the  title  of  Old  Oregon. 

And  now  we  reach  the  chapter  of  diplomatic  negotiations  between  these  two 
nations  to  settle  that  dispute.  Spain  opened  the  negotiations  with  a  proposi- 
tion to  refer  the  dispute  about  the  insult  to  the  British  flag  to  the  sovereign  of 
some  European  nation,  and  England  declined  the  proposition.  Then  Spain  ap- 
pealed to  France  for  assistance  in  resisting  the  power  of  England  should  war 
ensue  out  of  these  matters.  But  France  declined  to  commit  her  government 
to  any  assistance.  Down  to  this  period,  England  had  not  set  up  any  claim  to 
or  ownership  of  Vancouver  island  covering  the  spot  where  Captain  Martinez 
seized  the  ships.  Hope  of  assistance  from  France  being  abandoned,  Spain  Avas 
forced  to  a  treaty  with  England.  October  28,  1790,  whereb.y  the  buildings  and 
tracts  of  land  on  the  northwest  coast  of  America,  of  which  British  subjects 
had  been  dispossessed  in  1789  by  Martinez,  were  to  be  restored  to  the  British 
subjects;  and  the  ships  and  other  property  of  British  subjects  were  to  be  re- 
turned with  compensation  for  any  losses  sustained  hy  reason  of  the  acts  of 
the  Spanish  officer.  In  addition  to  these  provisions,  a  right  in  common  with 
Spain  was  to  be  enjoyed  by  the  subjects  of  both  Spain  and  England  to  navi- 
gate the  Pacific  ocean  and  the  South  seas ;  and  to  land  on  places  on  the  coast 
thereof  not  already  occupied;  to  carry  on  commerce  with  the  natives,  and  to 
make  settlements  with  the  following  restrictions :  ' '  The  King  of  Great  Britain 
agreed  to  prevent  navigation  or  fishery  in  those  seas  being  made  the  pretext  for 
unlawful  trade  A\-ith  the  Spanish  settlements.  No  British  subject  was  to  navigate 
or  carry  on  a  fishery  in  said  oceans  within  ten  leagues  of  any  part  of  the  coast 
occupied  by  Spain.  "When  settlements  were  made  by  subjects  of  either  power, 
free  access  to,  and  full  privilege  to  trade,  were  confirmed  without  molestation." 

Such  was  the  treaty  between  Spain  and  England  about  Old  Oregon.  At  the 
very  most,  it  was  only  a  treaty  of  joint  occupancy  for  trade ;  no  provisions  having 
oeen  made  by  either  party  for  the  policing  or  government  of  the  country.  Spain 
did  not  renounce  the  sovereignty  of  the  country,  and  neither  of  the  parties  or 
both  combining  could  make  an  effective  treaty  to  bar  out  other  nations  ^vhile 
themselves  pretending  to  hold  the  country  in  common.  It  is  a  fundamental 
principle  of  the  law  of  nations,  that  the  territorial  boundaries  and  limits  of 
sovereignties  shall  be  definite  and  fixed,  so  that  the  nation  claiming  jurisdiction 
over  any  country  can  be  held  to  accountability  for  conduct  within  or  proceeding 
from  such  country.  Joint  occupancy  defeats  that  principle  of  law.  and  is.  tliere- 
fore,  absurd  and  nugatory. 


^  CAY^^^ 


Ji 


'^r^l'>'' 


TERmrony 


MAP   OF   ^'OLD   OUEGON" 


I  THE  N  E 


THE  CENTKNNrAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  :2ir, 

And  to  show  that  Spaiu  uever  inteuded  to  surreuder  the  sovereignty  of  the 
country,  the  reader  has  only  to  follow  the  history  of  that  treaty  and  see  how 
its  provisions  were  carried  out. 

The  British  government  appointed  Captain  George  Vancouver  commis- 
sioner to  receive  the  personal  property  seized  by  the  Spaniards,  and  carry  out 
the  provisions  of  the  treaty  on  the  part  of  England;  and  Spain  appointed  as 
Spanish  commissioner  Senor  Bodega  }'  Cuadra  and  the  two  representatives 
of  their  respective  countries  met  at  Nootka  Sound  on  August  28,  1792.  After 
haggling  and  negotiating  over  the  matter  for  two  weeks,  the  Spaniard  re- 
fused absolutely  to  deliver  possession  of  any  land  except  the.  ground  on  which 
the  British  house  had  been  erected,  probably  about  an  acre.  The  ships  and 
pei'sonal  property  had  been  returned  to  the  Englishmen  more  than  a  year  be- 
fore, and  the  Spanish  commissioner  now  refused  to  give  up  more  land  than 
what  was  used  with  the  one  temporary  house,  and  would  not  permit  the  Eng- 
lish commissioner  to  raise  the  British  flag  over  even  that.  This,  the  English 
commissioner  refused,  and  sailed  away.  The  English  were  never  put  in  posses- 
sion of  a  foot  of  the  Pacific  coast  by  Spain,  and  its  territory  was  never  sur- 
rendered to  England  in  any  manner  whatever. 

There  was.  after  the  disagreements  of  Cuadra  and  ^'ancouver  a  subsequent 
etfort  to  settle  the  matter  at  Nootka,  in  which,  according  to  the  British  ver- 
sion. General  Alva,  on  the  part  of  Spain  surrendered  the  ground  on  which 
the  British  buildings  stood  to  Lieut.  Pierce  of  the  British  navy.  But  the 
English  never  took  i^ossession  or  occupied  the  place.  And  commenting  on 
these  facts,  the  British  historian,  "William  Belsliam,  says: 

"But  though  England,  at  the  expense  of  three  millions,  extorted  from  the 
Spaniards  a  promise  of  restoration  and  reparation,  it  is  well  ascertained — 
First,  that  the  settlement  in  question  was  never  restored  by  Spain,  nor  the 
Spanish  flag  at  Nootka  ever  struck;  and,  secondly — that  no  settlement  had 
been  subsequently-  attempted  ])y  England  on  the  Oregon  coast.  The  claim 
of  right  set  up  by  the  court  of  London,  it  is  therefore  plain,  has  been  virtually 
abandoned. ' ' 

Spain's  title  to  Old  Oregon  by  the  right  of  prior  discovery,  whatever  that 
amounts  to,  and  continuous  possession  and  assertion  of  that  right,  as  against 
England,  is  therefore  found  to  be  perfect  and  indefeasible. 

But  this  was  not  all  of  Spain's  title.  In  the  year  1763,  thirteen  years  be- 
fore the  American  colonies  threw  off  their  allegiance  to  Great  Britain,  Eng- 
land entered  into  a  treaty  with  Spain,  defining  the  boundaries  of  the  respec- 
tive territorial  rights  and  possessions  in  North  America.  And  by  that  treaty, 
the  Mississippi  river,  flowing  from  north  to  south  in  a  direct  course  for  fifteen 
hundred  miles,  was  declared  to  be  the  perpetual  boundarj-  between  the  pos- 
session of  Spain,  and  the  possessions  of  Great  Britain  in  America;  and  the  en- 
tire country  west  of  that  i-iver  was  declared  to  be  the  territory  of  Spain. 

And  now  having  set  out  the  historical  facts  which  conclusively  show  that 
Spain  had,  according  to  the  law  of  nations,  a  good  and  sufficient  title  to  the 
whole  of  Oregon,  from  Mexico  clear  up  to  the  Russian  possessions  of  Alaska,  at 
fifty-four  degrees  and  forty  minutes  north  latitude,  we  will  give  the  record 
showing  Spain's  transfer  of  that  title  to  the  T^ited  States. 

On  February  22,  1819,  the  T'niled  States  made  a  treaty  of  amity,  settlement 


214  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

and  limits  with  Spain  in  which  tlie  king  of  Si^aia  ceded  to  the  United  States  all 
the  rights  of  Spain  to  all  the  territory  on  the  American  continent  east  of  the  Ar- 
kansas river,  and  all  north  of  the  forty-second  parallel  of  north  latitude ;  and  the 
United  States  ceded  to  Spain  all  claims  and  pretensions  to  territory  west  of  the 
Arkansas  river  and  south  of  said  parallel  of  north  latitude.  This  gave  to  the 
United  States  all  of  Spain 's  rights  to  old  Oregon ;  being  all  the  territory  west  of 
the  Rocky  mountains  lying  north  of  said  parallel  of  latitude  and  up  to  fifty-four 
degrees  and  forty  minutes  north. 

In  a  treaty  with  the  Russian  empire  signed  at  St.  Petersburg,  April  17,  1824, 
Russia  recognized  this  right  of  the  United  States  in  the  third  article  of  said 
treaty,  which  reads: 

"Article  3.  It  is,  moreover,  agreed  that  hereafter  there  shall  not  be  formed 
by  the  citizens  of  the  United  States,  or  under  the  authority  of  the  said  states, 
any  establishment  on  the  northwest  coast  of  America,  nor  in  any  of  the  islands 
adjacent  to  the  north  of  fifty-four  degTees  and  forty  miniites  of  north  latitude; 
and  that  in  the  same  manner,  there  shall  be  none  formed  by  Russian  subjects 
or  under  the  authority  of  Russia  south  of  the  same  parallel." 

No  nation  has  ever  been  more  careful  of  its  treaty  obligations  or  better  in- 
formed of  the  boundary  rights  of  other  nations  than  the  empire  of  Russia ;  and  it 
is  not  to  be  thought  of  for  a  moment,  that  Russia  would  in  this  manner  recognize 
the  rights  of  the  United  States  to  make  settlements  up  to  its  own  south  boundary 
on  the  Paciiic,  if  we  did  not  possess  such  right. 

In  addition  to  the  grant  from  Spain,  the  United  States  had  the  further  grant 
from  France  in  the  sale  of  Louisiana  in  1803.  By  that  purchase  from  France  the 
United  States  acquired  the  rights  founded  on  the  doctrine  of  continuity,  the 
right  arising  from  holding  contiguous  unclaimed  lands.  In  the  treaty  of  Utrecht, 
made  between  England  and  Prance  in  1713,  Prance  was  confirmed  in  all  the 
territory  from  the  Mississippi  line  westward  to  the  Pacific  ocean.  By  that  treaty 
England  received  Canada  and  Illinois,  and  renounced  to  France  all  tvest  of  the 
Mississippi  AND  FBOM  THE  HEADS  OF  ALL  STREAMS  EMPTYING 
INTO  HUDSON'S  BAY  CLEAR  OVER  TO  THE  PACIFIC  OCEAN, 
subject,  of  course,  to  any  claims  of  Spain.  For  the  integrity  of  this 
principle  of  continiiity  of  territorial  rights.  Great  Britain  waged  the  war  of 
1763  against  France,  and  by  the  treaty  which  ended  that  war.  Great  Britain 
transferred  to  France  whatever  rights  or  benefits  that  might  accrue  from 
the  recognized  doctrine  of  continuity,  and  forever  barred  England  from  assert- 
ing any  claims  to  anything  west  of  the  north  and  south  Mississippi  line.  And 
when  the  United  States  made  the  treaty  with  England,  in  1783,  at  the  close  of 
the  Revolutionary  war,  this  country  became  the  successor  of  Great  Britain  to  all 
territorial  rights  west  of  the  Mississippi  line,  and  in  purchasing  out  the  rights 
of  Prance  in  1803,  in  the  Louisiana  purchase,  this  country  fui'thermore  became 
the  sole  owner  of  all  rights  of  both  England  and  France  to  all  the  region  west 
of  the  Mississippi.  So  that  the  only  tract  of  territory  that  there  could  be  any 
possible  dispute  about  so  far  as  discovery  titles  could  settle  it,  was  that  part  of 
Old  Oregon  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains,  north  of  the  49th  parallel  of  north  lati- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  215 

tude  up  to  Alaska.  Ami  tliat,  as  we  liave  showu  clearly  belonged  to  Spain  and 
was  transferred  to  the  United  States  by  Spain  in  the  Florida  ti-eaty  of  1819. 

But  notwithstanding  this  clear  record  title,  when  our  government  came  to 
deal  with  the  actual  possession  of  the  country,  when  American  citizens  wanted 
to  come  in  for  settlement  and  trade,  it  made  a  sorry  mess  of  the  business.  When 
President  Thomas  Jeft'erson  purchased  Louisiana  of  France,  and  hastily  sent 
out  Lewis  and  Clark  to  explore  the  couuti-y,  he  unquestionably  believed  the 
United  States  had  a  right  to  colonize  the  country.  As  has  been  stated  before, 
his  mind  had  for  a  long  time  been  studying  the  future  of  the  "Far  West.""  Cap- 
tain Gray  had  discovered  the  great  "'River  of  the  West"  in  1792,  and  his  dis- 
covery had  been  hailed  by  our  people  as  settling  the  title  to  a  vast  and  important 
territory.  xVud  the  same  spirit  which  had  taken  possession  of,  and  held  the  Ohio 
and  Mississippi  valleys,  w-as  ready  to  move  on  to  the  Pacific  when  the  advance 
was  necessary.  The  report  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  Expedition  of  1S05,  had  electri- 
fied the  whole  nation  with  the  wonders  of  the  far  west  they  had  made  known  to 
the  world.  The  Napoleonic  commercial  spirit  of  John  Jacob  Astor  leaped  across 
a  continent,  and  without  national  recognition  or  protection,  founded  the  semi- 
military  post  at  the  moutii  of  the  great  river,  and  fiuug  the  Stars  and  Stripes  to 
the  world  in  claiming  for  his  adopted  country  its  most  valuable  and  grandest 
national  outpost. 

And  while  England  made  a  pretense  that  Captain  Gray  did  not  really  enter 
the  Columbia  river,  but  had  only  sailed  into  a  bay  into  which  the  river  emptied, 
and  that  an  English  ship,  had,  subsequent  to  Gray,  sailed  up  the  Columbia  a 
hundred  miles,  and  therefore  the  English  discovered  the  river,  yet  that  pretense 
had  to  be  abandoned  when  actual  sea-faring  men  proved  that  the  Columbia  was 
a  real  irresistible  river  clear  down  to  the  ocean  bar. 

And  England  never  disputed  the  right  of  Lewis  and  Clark  as  a  government 
expedition  to  explore  this  region  in  1805,  nor  did  the  British  object  to  the  found- 
ing of  Astoria  until  the  war  of  1812  gave  them  an  excuse  to  rob  American  citi- 
zens of  their  property  wherever  they  could  find  them ;  and  so  they  robbed  Astor 
of  what  his  treacherous  partnei-s  had  not  already  stolen.  But  this  gave  Eng- 
land nothing  but  a  robber's  title  to  Astoria,  which  tlu'v  surrendered  after  the 
close  of  the  war. 

President  Jefferson  attempted  to  get  the  northern  boundary  line  settled  with 
England  in  1807,  and  because  the  English  negotiators  attempted  to  insert  a 
paragraph  in  the  treaty  that  would  make  Spain  believe  that  the  United  States 
and  England  intended  to  claim  Spanish  territory  west  of  the  Rocky  ^Mountains, 
Jefferson  rejected  the  whole  business  as  an  unfriendly  intimation  to  Spain. 

In  1814,  after  the  close  of  the  war  of  1812,  President  iladison  renewed  the 
effort  to  have  the  northern  boundai-y  line  settled,  and  offered  the  proposition  of 
1807,  to-wit:  that  the  boundary  should  run  west  from  the  most  northern  point 
of  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  (at  the  head  of  the  Mississippi  river)  to  the  summit  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  but  "that  nothing  in  the  present  article  he  construed  to 
r.rfend  to  the  northicest  coast  of  Aynerica,  or  to  the  territory  claimed  by  either 
party  westward  of  the  L'ocky  Mountains." 

The  British  ministry  offered  to  accept  this  article,  provided,  England  was 
granted  the  right  of  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  river  from  British  America  to 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico.    And  this,  of  course,  was  rejected  by  the  Americans. 


216  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

In  1815  our  government  notified  the  British  that  immediate  possession  would 
be  taken  of  Astoria  and  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river,  and  ordered  the  sloop 
of  war,  Captain  James  Biddle,  to  make  ready  to  sail  for  the  Columbia.  The 
British  minister  at  Washington  objected  and  remonstrated,  but  finally  agreed 
to  the  unconditional  surrender  of  Astoria  by  the  British,  and  that  the  status  quo 
before  the  war  should  be  restored ;  and  that  in  treating  about  the  title  to  Old 
Oregon,  the  United  States  should  be  in  possession. 

And  again  for  the  third  time,  1817,  negotiations  were  renewed  to  establish 
the  boundary  line.  President  Madison  offering  to  extend  the  49th  parallel  of 
north  latitude  boundary  from  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  through  to  the  Pacific 
ocean,  but  without  prejudice  to  the  rights  or  claims  of  Spain.  But  to  this  propo- 
sition, the  British  would  not  agree  unless  they  could  have  free  navigation  of 
the  Mississippi  river.    And  this  was  again  rejected  by  the  Americans. 

And  again,  for  the  fourth  time,  1818,  negotiations  were  renewed  to  settle  the 
northern  boundary,  James  ]Monroe  having  become  President,  he  appointed  the 
two  able  statesmen,  Albert  Gallatin,  and  Richard  Rush  to  manage  the  business. 
The  whole  history  of  the  discovery  and  exploration  of  the  North  Pacific  coast 
was  again  gone  over,  and  every  argument  and  consideration  that  could  be  pro- 
duced or  invented  was  brought  forward.  Agreement  was  impossible  and  the 
negotiations  brought  to  an  end  by  the  treaty  of  October  20,  1818,  which  deter- 
mined the  boundary  line  of  the  United  States  westward  to  the  Rocky  mountains, 
but  no  further;  and  then  adopting  the  following  third  article  of  the  treaty:  "It 
is  agreed  that  any  country  that  may  be  claimed  by  either  party  on  the  north- 
west coast  of  America,  westward  of  the  Stony  (Rocky)  mountains,  shall,  to- 
gether with  its  harbors,  bays  and  creeks,  and  the  navigation  of  all  rivers  within 
the  same,  be  free  and  open  for  the  term  of  ten  years  from  the  date  of  this  treaty 
to  the  vessels,  citizens  and  subjects  of  the  two  powers.  It  being  well  understood 
that  this  agreement  is  not  to  be  construed  to  the  prejudice  of  any  claim,  which 
either  of  the  two  high  contracting  parties  may  have  to  any  part  of  said  coun- 
try."   This  is  the  treaty  of  joint  occupancy. 

Immediately  after  the  treatj^  of  joint  occupancy  with  England,  President  Mon- 
roe renewed  negotiations  with  Spain,  and  on  February  22,  1819,  concluded  the 
treaty  by  which  the  42nd  parallel  of  north  latitude  from  the  meridian  north  of 
the  head  of  the  Arkansas  river,  Avest  to  the  Pacific  ocean,  was  made  the  boundary 
line  between  Spain  and  the  United  States,  and  in  this  treaty  Spain  ceded  to  the 
United  States  "all  rights,  claims  and  pretensions  to  any  country  north  of  the 
said  forty-second  parallel."  And  this  gave  to  the  United  States  all  the  rights 
of  prior  discoverj^  to  all  the  country  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  north  of 
California,  clear  up  to  the  Arctic  ocean  AND  MADE  PERFECT  THE  TITLE 
OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  TO  THE  WHOLE  OF  OLD  OREGON. 

Thus  far  the  question  of  title  had  been  left  to  the  executive  department  of 
the  Government.  But  in  the  winter  of  1820-21  the  matter  was  called  up  in  Con- 
gress for  the  first  time  by  John  Floyd,  who  was  an  officer  in  the  army  in  the  war 
of  1812,  and  a  member  of  Congress  from  Virginia  in  1820.  Floyd  had  met  Ram- 
say Crooks  and  Russell  Parnham  of  the  Astor  Expedition  to  Astoria,  and  be- 
came imbued  with  the  great  value  of  the  Oregon  country.  He  moved  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  committee  to  repoi-t  on  the  subject.  The  committee  was  granted 
more  out  of  courtesy  to  a  patriotic  man  than  an  interest  in  the  subject.    The  com- 


MONROE,  MARBOIS  AND  LIVINGSTON  SIGNING  THE  TREATY   FOR  THE   ITRCHASE 
OF  LOUISIANA   AT   PARIS   IN    1803 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY   OF  OREGON  1'17 

luittoe  was  coinposed  of  Floyd,  TJioinas,  ^Metcall'  ol'  Kentucky  and  Thomas  V. 
Swearingeii  ol'  Virginia,  all  anli'iit  western  men.  Within  six  days  they  reported 
a  bill  to  .iiitliorize  the  innniMJiate  occupation  of  the  Columbia  River  valley,  and 
to  rci^iilatc  trade  with  the  Indians  therein.  Jkit  no  action  was  taken  on  their 
icport. 

The  ten  years  of  joint  occui)aucy  expiring  in  1S2S,  the  clit'ort  was  renewed  by 
our  govei'nnieut  to  secure  a  settlement  of  the  boundary  line  west  of  the  Rocky 
mountains.  The  Russian  government  had  by  ti'eaty,  conceded  the  rights  of  the 
United  States  up  to  fifty-four  degrees  and  forty  minutes  north.  John  Quin^iy 
Adams  had  become  president  and  made  Henry  Clay  secretary  of  state.  Clay  now 
renewed  the  negotiations  for  a  settlement  of  the  northern  boundary  line  with 
England,  being  the  fifth  attempt  by  the  United  States  to  get  the  vexed  question 
settled. 

In  an  able  letter  to  the  American  minister  at  London,  Richard  Rush,  ^Ir. 
Clay  points  out  that,  ' '  Our  title  to  the  whole  of  the  coast  up  to  the  Russian  Pos- 
sessions is  derived  from  prior  discovery  and  settlement  at  the  mouth  of  the  Col- 
umbia river,  and  from  the  treaty  which  Spain  concluded  on  the  22nd  of  Febru- 
ary, 1819.  The  argument  on  this  point  is  believed  to  have  conclusively  estab- 
lished our  title  on  both  grounds.  Nor  is  it  conceived  that  Great  Britain  has  or 
can  make  out,  even  a  colorless  title  to  any  portion  of  the  northern  coast.  By 
the  renunciation  and  transfer  contained  in  the  treaty  with  Spain  of  1819,  our 
rights  extended  to  the  sixtieth  degree  of  nortii  latitude." 

No  conclusion  having  been  reached  by  these  negotiations,  the  joint  occupancy 
treaty  was  extended  indefinitely,  with  a  proviso  that  it  might  be  terminated  by 
either  party  on  giving  twelve  months'  notice  to  the  other  party  to  the  treaty. 
On  this  indefinite,  uncertain  position  Oregon  was  left  by  our  government  from 
October  2Sth,  1828,  to  April  28th,  1846,  when  by  direction  of  Congress,  Presi- 
dent James  K.  Polk  was  instructed  to  notify  the  government  of  Great  Britain 
that  the  treaty  of  joint  occupancy  would  be  terminated  in  twelve  months  from 
that  date.  And  thus  we  see  that  for  twenty-eight  years  the  legal  position  and 
sovereignty  of  Oregon  was  up  in  the  air ;  and  the  people  did  not  know  to  whom, 
or  to  what  government  their  allegiance  was  due.  or  what  government,  if  any, 
would  protect  their  rights. 

The  vacillation  and  feeling  of  uncertainty  with  which  Congress,  presidents 
and  cabinets  had  well  nigh  smothered  and  buried  the  first  claims  of  the  United 
States  to  Old  Oregon  was  in  marked  contrast  to  the  vigorous  efforts  of  the  hand 
ful  of  brave  pioneers  who  sought  to  hold  the  country  for  their  native  land. 

It  does  not  appear  that  either  the  executive  department  of  the  government, 
or  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  ever  took  any  official  notice  of  the  great 
achievement  of  Captain  Robert  Gray  in  the  discovery  of  the  Columbia  river. 
The  action  of  President  Jefferson  in  sending  the  Lewis  and  Clark  expedition  to 
the  Pacific  coast  in  1805  was  very  largely  the  act  of  Jeffei'son  himself.  And 
while  Congress  did  make  an  appropriation  of  $2,500  for  the  expedition,  it  never 
otherwise  sought  to  secure  to  the  countrj-  any  positive  or  immediate  benefits  there- 
from. It  was  assinned  by  American  business  men — Astor,  Wyeth,  Winship  and 
Bonneville — that  because  of  Gray's  discover}-,  and  the  Lewis  and  Clark  explora- 
tion, that  Old  Oregon  must  of  right  belong  to  the  United  States,  and  therefore  it 
was  open  to  American  settlement.     And  even  after  Astor 's  unfortunate  adven- 


218  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

ture,  and  the  loss  of  liis  property  and  the  capture  of  his  fort  by  the  British,  our 
Congress  took  no  action  to  assert  its  paramovint  rights  to  this  country. 

In  the  treaty  with  Great  Britain  made  by  Secretary  of  State,  John  Quincy 
Adams,  in  1818,  in  the  third  article  of  said  treaty :  "  It  is  agreed  that  any  coun- 
try that  may  be  claimed  by  either  party  on  the  northwest  coast  of  America  west- 
ward of  the  Stony  (Rocky)  mountains,  shall  together,  with  its  harbors,  bays  and 
creeks,  and  the  navigation  of  all  rivers  within  the  same,  be  free  and  open  for  the 
term  of  ten  years  from  the  date  of  this  signature  of  the  present  convention,  to  the 
vessels,  citizens  and  subjects  of  both  powers.  It  being  well  understood  that  this 
agreement  is  not  to  be  construed  to  the  prejudice  of  any  claim  which  either  of 
the  two  liigh  contracting  parties  may  have  to  any  part  of  the  said  country;  nor 
shall  it  be  taken  to  affect  the  claim  of  any  power  or  state  to  any  part  of  said  coun- 
try ;  the  only  object  of  the  high  contracting  parties  in  that  respect  being  to  pre- 
vent disputes  and  differences." 

The  provisions  of  the  above  article  were  renewed  between  the  two  nations  in 
1827,  and  continued  in  force  down  to  the  28th  day  of  April,  1846,  three  years 
after  the  formation  of  our  Provisional  Government  at  Champoeg,  when,  in  per- 
suance  of  a  resolution  of  Congress,  President  James  K.  Polk  notified  the  Britisla 
government  that  the  period  of  joint  occupancy  of  the  Oregon  territorj'  had  been 
terminated. 

When  the  venerable  Adams,  who  had,  as  Secretarj^  of  State  under  President 
James  Monroe,  negotiated  the  treaty  of  1818,  and  afterwards  as  President  of  the 
United  States  in  1827,  renewed  that  treaty,  was  called  on  as  a  member  of  Con- 
gress in  1846  to  explain  the  treaty,  said:  (February  9,  1846)  "There  is  a  very 
great  misapprehension  of  the  real  merits  of  this  case,  founded  on  the  misnomer 
which  declared  that  treaty  to  be  a  treaty  of  joint  occupation.  It  is  not  a  con- 
vention of  joint  occupation.  It  is  a  convention  of  non-occupation — a  promise  on 
the  part  of  both  parties  that  either  of  the  parties  will  occupy  the  territory  for 
an  indefinite  period ;  first,  for  ten  j^ears ;  then  until  the  notice  should  be  given  by 
the  one  party  or  the  other  that  the  convention  shall  be  terminated,  that  is  to  say, 
that  the  restrictions,  the  fetters  upon  our  hands,  shall  be  thrown  off,  which  pre- 
vents occupation." 

Here,  then,  is  a  treaty  that  deliberately  renounced  the  right  of  the  American 
emigrants  to  come  here  and  establish  homes.  They  might  come  and  catch  fish, 
trap  wild  animals  for  furs,  and  trade  with  the  Indians,  but  "they  must  not  hoist 
the  American  flag,  they  must  not  open  farms,  they  must  not  build  homes  or  school 
houses,  or  do  anything  to  establish  a  settlement ;  Oregon  was  a  country  for  free 
trade,  but  not  for  free  settlement.  England,  Spain,  France,  Russia,  and  every- 
body else  had  the  same  rights  in  Oregon  as  the  Americans.  Oregon  is  thus  dis- 
tinguished as  the  first  and  only  free  trade  country  that  now  belongs  to  the  Union 
of  States. 

And  while  this  treaty  of  1818  tied  the  hands  of  the  respective  governments, 
it  did  not  provide  for  the  arrest  of  independent  movements  of  traders  or  settlers. 
It  left  the  question  of  occupancy  and  final  disposition  of  the  country  right  where 
Daniel  Webster,  Secretary  of  State,  under  President  Tyler,  predicted  it  would 
be  when  he  wrote  to  the  American  minister  at  London  (Edward  Everett)  in  1840, 
saying :  ' '  The  ownership  of  Oregon  is  likely  to  follow  the  greater  settlement  and 
the  larger  population." 


TlIK   CKXTKNXIAL  IITSTORV  OF  OKMOGON  219 

"We  iUT  thus  parliriihir  h.  |Hiiiil  nut  the  fac-ts  showing'  the  r\:\r\  \r'^:i\  :t\\i]  po- 
litical status  oT  the  (•(iiiiili'\.  so  tli;it  tli.e  reader  may  get  ,-i  i'li';ii'  iilc:i  of  lln'  niaji-- 
nitude  of  the  work  achieved  by  the  early  Oregon  Pio7ieers.  Oregon  was  from 
1818  down  to  1S4G   practically  and  substantially   in   tiu-  jwsition  of  Itcing  the 

first  and  only  instance  in  tlic  I'nited  Stales  of  an  alisohildy  IVec  Irad intry: 

no  custniii  houses,  no  lax  eollcrldrs.  no  offii-ials.  no  hiws  ami  a 


NO  MAN  S  LAND 

and  open  to  tlie  application  of 

"The  good  old  rule,  the  simple  plan. 

That  they  should  take  who  have  the  power, 
And  they  should  keep  who  can." 

And  now  we  reach  the  point  when  the  pioneers  coming  in  from  Iowa  and  Mis- 
souri commenced  to  drive  stakes,  and  settle  down  to  hold  fast  to  something.  A 
little  band  coming  in  the  Autumn  of  1842  found  here  Robert  Newell,  Joseph  L. 
Meek  and  a  few  other  Americans  scattered  around,  less  than  a  hundred  all  told, 
and  twenty-five  or  thirty  Missouri  people.  This  was  the  nucleus  of  the  Ameri- 
can state  to  be.  There  was  no  law  except  what  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company  chose 
to  enforce  through  the  justices  of  the  peace,  appointed  by  the  British  govern- 
ment in  Canada,  and  their  jurisdiction  extended  no  further  than  enforcing  pen- 
alties for  violation  of  criminal  laws. 

These  lonely  settlers  in  the  far  distant  wilderness  of  Oregon  were  loth  to  as- 
sume the  great  responsibility  of  establishing  a  goverinnent  to  govern  themselves ; 
especially  when  they  were  opposed  by_  an  equal  number  of  Canadians  opposed  to 
government,  which  opposition  was  backed  up  b.y  the  all-powerful  Hudson  "s  Bay 
Company  with  unlimited  resources  for  effective  opposition. 

The  Americans  in  Oregon  had  now  reached  a  point  where  they  were  com- 
pelled to  act.  To  retreat  they  could  not.  To  go  forward  and  establish  a  govern- 
ment of  their  own  for  mutual  protection  was  the  only  alternative  of  common 
sense  and  brave  men.  They  had  sent  their  petitions  to  the  American  Congress 
as  the  colonists  of  the  Atlantic  coast  had  sent  theirs  in  1775  to  "The  King's  most 
Excellent  Majesty."  And  like  the  King,  the  Congress  had  "been  deaf  to  the 
voice  of  justice  and  of  consanguinity."  And  here  we  see  the  self-reliant,  inde- 
pendent dignity  of  character,  and  the  heroic  courage  of  the  pioneer  of  1843. 
They  woidd  organize  a  government  of  their  own,  "appealing  to  the  supreme 
judge  of  the  world  for  the  rectitude  of  their  intentions."  They  did  organize  it. 
and  carried  it  on  for  five  years  and  ten  months,  protecting  the  lives  and  prop- 
erty of  all  the  people  without  distinction  of  nationality,  administering  justice, 
preserving  order,  promoting  education  and  morality,  and  attracting  and  receiv- 
ing the  good  name  it  deserved  both  in  the  United  States  and  in  foreign  lands. 
And  by  this  act  of  organizing  and  maintaining  a  government  by  American  citi- 
zens, the  pioneer  Oregonians  did  more  to  settle  the  title  to  the  country,  and  save 
Oregon  to  the  United  States  than  all  other  acts  in  the  history  of  his  region. 

The  title  to  Oregon  was  carried  into  the  political  arena  of  1844.  The  national 
Democratic  convention  meeting  at  Baltimore  on  the  27th  of  May,  1844.  adopted 
the  followino-  resolution : 


220  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

"Resolved — That  our  title  to  the  whole  territoi'y  of  Oregon  is  clear  and  un- 
questionable, that  no  portion  of  the  same  ought  to  be  ceded  to  England  or  any 
other  power;  and  that  the  re-occupation  of  Oregon  and  the  re-annexation  of 
Texas,  at  the  earliest  practicable  period,  are  great  American  measures  which  the 
convention  recommends  to  the  cordial  support  of  the  Democracy  of  the  Union. ' ' 

Upon  that  platform,  James  K.  Polk  was  nominated  for  president,  and  ac- 
cepted the  nomination,  promised  if  elected,  to  make  good  the  claim  to  Oregon  as 
set  forth  in  the  platform.  He  was  elected  over  the  "Whig  candidate,  Henry  Clay, 
by  a  majority  of  sixty-five  votes  in  the  electoral  college.  Before  Polk's  nomina- 
tion or  election,  the  Oregon  question  came  up  in  the  United  States  Senate  for  dis- 
cussion, and  on  January  4th,  1844,  James  Buchanan,  afterwards  president,  de- 
clared in  the  Senate:  "I  will  never  agree  to  relinquish  one  foot  of  Oregon.  If 
we  rested  our  claims  on  discovei'y,  it  would  not  extend  beyond  the  valley  of  the 
Oregon.  But  our  claim  is  good  as  this  book  shows  (referring  to  Greenhow's  His- 
tory) for  it  rests  on  the  old  Spanish  claim.  Here  in  this  book  are  translated 
copies  of  old  Spanish  voyages  and  documents,  proving  their  title ;  and  thus  also 
ours,  by  abundant  testimony  up  to  fifty-four  degrees  and  forty  minutes  to  a 
certainty." 

Senator  Thomas  H.  Benton  speaking  at  the  same  time  said:  "As  to  the  char- 
acter of  our  title  to  Oregon,  there  was  a  much  broader  and  clearer  claim  than 
any  mentioned  by  Senator  Buchanan.  We  settled  that  territory.  The  settlement 
of  it  was  the  basis  of  our  claim.  The  British  never  saw  or  heard  of  Oregon  till 
we  discovered  it  and  put  a  badge  of  our  sovereignty  on  it.  Then  Great  Britain 
jumped  down  on  Oregon,  and  now  she  was  going  to  fight  us  for  it.  He  would 
assure  the  gentlemen  that  we  are  not  going  to  have  another  Massachusetts  and 
Maine  boundary  question.  There  was  to  be  no  trembling  and  yielding  in  this 
case,  as  there  was  in  the  former  one.  No  trembling  hearts  were  to  be  found  in  the 
West.  This  was  a  western  question,  and  the  west  had  a  regard  for  the  National 
honor. ' ' 

Much  more  could  be  given  of  the  same  cjuality  showing  the  temper  of  the 
western  people,  and  the  right  of  the  nation  to  the  whole  of  Oregon.  The  presi- 
dential campaign  of  1844  was  fought  out  on  the  Democratic  cry  of 

."fifty-pour,  forty,  or  fight." 

The  writer  of  this  book  remembers  distinctly  seeing  those  words  emblazoned 
on  the  Democratic  banners;  and  the  hue  and  cry  of  the  campaign  orators  de- 
nouncing the  British  in  their  attempt  to  steal  a  part  of  old  Oregon,  and  appeal- 
ing to  the  voters  to  rally  to  the  support  of  Polk  and  drive  the  British  out  of  the 
Oregon  wilderness,  root  and  branch. 

And  after  Polk  was  elected,  and  in  his  inaugural  address  on  March  4th,  1845, 
he  repeated  the  declaration  of  his  party  that  nominated  him  in  the  very  words 
of  the  platform  on  which  he  was  elected.  And  then  after  being  thus  overwhelm- 
ingly elected  on  this  very  issue,  on  a  direct  referendum  to  the  people,  he  hauled 
down  the  national  colors,  and  made  the  treaty  of  June  15,  1846,  which  gave  away 
to  the  British  all  the  territory  now  included  in  British  Columbia.  And  here  is 
what  the  United  States  lost  by  Polk's  treachery. 

The  British  Columbia  Year  Book  gives  the  area  of  the  several  political  divis- 
ions of  that  Province  as  follows : 


No.  1— DANIEL  WEBSTER,  Secretary  of  State  iinilcr  I'ri'siilciit  ■I'vlcr—di.!  not  want 
any  more  territory  for  new  states — did  not  want  Oregon 

No.  2— PRESIDENT  POLK,  elected  on  the  platform  of  ■•54",  40'  nortli  or  fight"— but 
backed  down  and  wouldn't  fifflit 

No.  3— CiENERAL  JOE- LANE,  tlie  -.Marion  of  the  .Mexican  War:"  first  U.  8.  (lovcrnor 
of  Oregon;  first  U.  S.  Senator  from  Oregon;  last  candidate  of  tlic  pro-slavery  democracy  for 
Vice-President,  and   would   fight  any   time   for  what  lu'   considered   a   good  cause 


'^ 


THE  CP:NTKXNI.\I,  IIISTOHV  ok  ()I{|<:G0N  ■2-2\ 

Kdiiii'iuiy    'I'.iMM  siiuiirc  niilcs 

\i<\r    24.300  square  miles 

Lillooot 16,100  squai-e  miles 

Cariboo    150,000  square  miles 

Westmiiistei-    7,600  square   miles 

Cassiiii-    164.300  square   miles 

Comax    .■ 7.100  square  miles 

N'ancoTivcr   Island    16,400  square  miles 

'I'otal    409..300  squar.'  miles 

The  territnry  wiiieli  the  Oreuou  ])ioueers  with  (heir  I'mvisidiial  (loverument 
saved  to  the  I'liited  States  is  as  follows: 

Oregon     IKj.Oiid  s(juare   miles 

Washington    69,180  square  miles 

Idaho    84.600  square  miles 

Western  Montana    28,000  square  miles 

Northwestern  Wyoming      13.000  square  miles 

Total     290,810  square  miles 

This  tabular  statement  shows,  that  the  British  secured,  by  bluffing  President 
Polk,  119.100  square  miles  more  of  the  Old  Oregon  Territoi-y  than  did  the  United 
States,  when  in  fact  Enfrland  was  not  in  law  or  equity  entitled  to  a  single  acre 
of  it. 

The  surrender  of  the  northwest  Oregon  territory  to  the  British  was  the  most 
humiliating  piece  of  diplomacy  that  ever  disgraced  our  country.  Fortunate  that 
it  is,  it  stands  alone  in  the  history  of  the  Republic.  Cowardly,  truckling,  and 
damaging,  alike  to  national  interests  and  national  honor,  the  reason  and  excuse 
for  it  was  even  more  infamous.  The  whole  north  and  west  was  so  outraged  and 
incensed  bej'ond  any  words  to  describe  the  public  sentiment  that  Robert  J. 
Walker.  Secretary  of  the  Treasurj'  under  President  Polk,  was  compelled  to  give 
an  excuse  for  the  great  wrong ;  and  in  doing  so  admitted  that  the  southern  slave 
state  president  and  senators  (with,  of  course,  their  northern  dough-faced  sup- 
porters ^i  had  given  up  northwest  Oregon  to  England,  for  the  reason,  it  might  at 
some  future  time  come  into  the  Union  as  an  anti-slavery  state. 

We  can  have  no  conception  now  of  the  bitterness  of  the  fight  against  Oregon, 
by  the  slave  holders  on  one  hand,  and  the  British  on  the  other;  and  of  the  tre- 
mendous odds  and  forces  the  friends  of  Oregon  in  Congress  and  the  pioneers  on 
the  trail  had  to  overcome.  As  a  sample  of  the  public  sentiment  in  large  portions 
of  the  eastern  states  we  give  two  extracts  from  speeches  of  United  States  Sena- 
tors. Senator  W.  L.  Dayton,  of  New  Jersey  in  the  Senate  on  February  23rd. 
1844.  said : 

■'What  there  is  in  the  territory  of  Oregon  to  tempt  our  national  cupidity,  no 
one  can  tell.  Of  all  the  countries  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  it  is  one  of  the  least 
favored  of  heaven.  It  is  the  mere  riddling  of  creation.  It  is  almost  as  barren  as 
the  desert  of  Africa,  and  C[uite  as  unhealthy  as  the  Campania  of  Italy.  We  would 
not  be  subjected  to  all  the  innumerable  and  indescribable  tortures  of  a  journey  to 


222  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OEEGON 

Oregon  for  all  the  soil  its  savage  hunters  ever  wandered  over.  All  the  writers- 
and  travelers  agree  in  representing  Oregon  as  a  vast  extent  of  mountains  and  val- 
lej^s  of  sand  dotted  over  with  green,  and  cultivable  spots.  Russia  has  her  Siberia, 
and  England  has  her  Botauj'  Bay,  and  if  the  United  States  should  ever  need  a 
country  to  which  to  banish  its  rogues  and  scoundrels,  the  utility  of  such  a  region 
as  Oregon  will  be  demonstrated. ' ' 

And  then  the  wise  Senator  from  Jersej'  ventilates  his  wisdom  on  the  possi- 
bility of  a  railroad  to  this  ' '  riddling  of  creation, ' '  and  says : 

"The  power  of  steam  to  reach  that  country  has  been  suggested.  Talk  of 
steam  communication — a  railroad  to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia !  A  railroad 
across  twenty-five  hundred  miles  of  desert  prairie  and  mountains !  The  smoke 
of  an  engine  through  these  terrible  fissures  of  that  great  rockj-  ledge,  where  the 
smoke  of  the  volcano  has  rolled  before!  Who  is  to  make  this  vast  internal^ 
rather  external  improvement  1  All  the  mines  'of  Mexico  and  Peru,  disembowelled 
would  scarcely  pay  a  penny  of  the  cost." 

Dayton  lived  long  enough  to  become  the  candidate  for  Vice-President  on  the 
ticket  with  Fremont  in  1856,  and  died  in  Paris  in  1864,  after  the  railroad  had 
started  across  the  deserts  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  towards  Oregon ;  and  if  he 
could  arise  from  his  grave  and  see  the  two  railroads  on  the  Columbia,  river  daily 
carrjang  more  freight  than  is  produced  in  the  state  of  New  -Jersey  in  a  year, 
he  would  give  up  the  delusion  that  Oregon  was  a  desert. 

But  Dayton  was  not  alone  in  the  opposition,  from  the  northern  states  to  se- 
curing the  territory  of  Oregon.  As  great  a  man  as  Daniel  Webster  made  open  as 
well  as  secret  opposition  to  the  acciuisition  of  Oregon.  In  a  public  address  on 
November  7,  1845,  at  Faneuil  Hall,  in  Boston,  in  discussing  the  Oregon  question, 
said :  "That  the  vast  importance  of  peace  with  England,  he  took  for  granted;  but 
the  question  that  now  threatened  that  peace  and  was  causing  a  great  alarm,  was 
of  forty  years'  standing,  and  was  now  coming  to  a  crisis.  It  is  a  question  that  is  a 
fit  subject  for  a  compromise  and  amicable  adjustment,  but  one  which  in  my  opin- 
ion can  be  settled  on  an  honorable  basis  bj^  taking  the  forty-ninth  parallel  of 
north  latitude  as  the  boundary  line ;  the  two  countries  would  then  keep  abreast 
on  that  line  to  the  Pacific  Ocean." 

Later  on  Mr.  Webster  declared  that  the  title  and  government  of  Oregon  would 
go  to  the  people  which  had  the  greatest  population  in  the  territory.  And  still 
later  on,  in  the  United  States  Senate,  as  showing  his  position  generally,  he  de- 
clared in  a  speech  on  March  1st,  1847 : 

"In  the  judgment  of  the  Whig  part.y,  it  is  due  to  the  best  interests  of  the 
country,  to  declare  at  once,  and  proclaim  now,  that  we  want  no  new  states  or  ter- 
ritory to  form  new  states  out  of  us.  as  the  end  of  conquest.  For  one,  I  enter  into 
this  declaration  with  all  mj'  heart.  We  want  no  extension  of  territory,  we  want 
no  accessions  of  new  states.    The  countrj^  is  alreadj^  large  enough." 

This  shows  why  Dr.  Whitman  could  not  move  Webster,  while  Secretary  of 
State,  to  help  Oregon,  and  shows  the  under  current  of  apatlij^  not  to  say  dis- 
loyalty to  the  West,  with  which  Benton,  Linn,  Semple  and  other  western  states- 
men had  to  contend  to  save  Oregon  to  the  nation. 

And  after  all  these  declarations  of  Webster  has  become  settled  history,  Dr. 
John  Fiske,  a  historian  of  Yale  University  attends  the  Gray  Centennial  at 
Astoria  in  1892  and  puts  forward  the  following  excuse  for  Webster: 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTOKY  OF  OKEfiON  223 

In  J^tl.  Miir  foruiyn  relations  wcro  in  a  very  rritical  nindil  imi.  Daniel  Welislrr  was 
Secretary- of  State.  Wise,  practical  statesman  that  he  was,  he  saw  that  the  only  way 
to  a  peaceful  adjustment  was  by  the  balancing  of  equivalents:  that  is,  by  giving  ami  taking 
on  both  sides.  To  this  end  he  reihiced  the  related  issues  to  tlie  fewest  number,  and  these 
to  their  vital  points.  He  found  the  Oregon  boundary  anu)ng  ([uestions  at  issue.  He  saw 
that  this  was  an  issue  wholly  unrelateil  to  the  other  and  more  pressing  ones,  th.at  it 
could  afford  to  wait  until  its  consideration  could  Ije  taken  up  entirely  independent  of  other 
issues  and  settled  on  its  own  merits;  that  its  introduction  alongside  the  older  and  more 
pressing  ones  would  inevitably  lead  to  siune  unfavorable  cominoniise  on  the  Oregon  issue 
itself,  or  compel  an  unfavorable  compromise  on  the  other  issues  in  its  behalf.  He  there- 
fore rejected  it  entirely  from  consideration,  and  sul)sei|UeMt  events  fully  justified  hiis 
action  in  doing  so.  He  was  comjiletely  successful  in  adjusting  the  other  issues  in  the 
memorable  treaty  of  1842;  and  four  years  later,  wiien  the  Oregon  Treaty  came  before 
the  Senate,  amicably  proposing  the  forty-ninth  parallel  as  the  boundary  line  of  the  two 
governments  in  the  territory,  Mr.  \\ebster  was  there  as  Senator  from  Massachusetts  to 
give  the  treaty  his  hearty  sujiport.  The  history  of  the  diplomatic  negotiations  between 
England  and  the  United  States  over  the  Oregon  boundary  question  shows  that  our  govern- 
ment from  tlie  beginning  maintained  that  the  forty-ninth  parallel  w-as  the  proper  boundary 
line,  and  that  the  key-note  of  Mr.  Webster's  policy  Avas  this  line  and  nothing  else.  The 
people  of  the  region  of  the  Columbia,  therefore,  owe  a  special  debt  of  gratitude  to  Mr. 
Webster  for  his  wisdom  in  keeping  the  Oregon  question  distinct  from  the  unrelated  issues 
with  which  lie  had  to  deal   in   the  perplexing  negotiations   of   1842. 

The  plain,  iiifoutrovertible  historical  facts  were,  that  Webster  was  preferring 
to  settle  the  dispute  about  the  eodfisheries  on  the  New  Foundland  coast  before 
he  took  up  the  Oregon  question.  And  when  Fiske  says,  "that  our  government 
from  the  beginning  maintained  that  the  forty-ninth  parallel  was  the  proper 
boundary  line,"  he  ought  to  have  said  that  our  government  as  represented  by 
Daniel  AVebster  held  that  view.  For  when  the_  question  was  referred  to  the 
voters  of  the  United  States  in  the  Polk  campaign,  the  people  overwhelmingly 
decided,  that  the  position  of  Daniel  Webster  on  the  Oregon  boundary  line  was 
not  the  position  of  the  people  of  the  United  States. 

Now,  sixty  years  after  that  disgraceful  surrender  to  England,  the  commer- 
cial interests,  and  all  the  people  of  this  state,  and  the  Pacific  Coast,  can  see  the 
damage  wrought  to  national  interests  by  having  a  British  state  sandwiched  in 
between  the  state  of  Washington  and  our  territory  of  Alaska.  Here  is  our  old 
inveterate  and  historical  enemy  with  all  its  forts,  and  harbors  and  battlesliips, 
and  transcontinental  railroads,  ready  to  harbor  the  Japanese  and  combine  against 
American  interests,  and  Oregon  commerce,  and  do  us  more  damage  from  these 
advantages  cowardly  given  away  by  the  Polk  administration,  than  any  army  of 
a  hundred  thousand  men  could  do  attacking  us  from  anj'  point  east  of  the  Rocky 
mountains.  If  our  government  had  courageously  held  on  to  all  of  Oregon,  as  the 
people  told  them  to  do  in  the  presidential  election  of  1844,  and  as  Senators  Bentou 
and  Linn  vainly  besought  them  to  do,  we  would  have  had  all  of  old  Oregon  today, 
and  the  Pacific  ocean  with  all  its  vast  commercial  advantages  would  be  practically 
an  American  lake.  And  for  just  retribution  of  this  great  wrong,  some  day  the 
American  people  will  rise  up  and  place  another  Andrew  Jackson  in  the  presi- 
dential chair,  and  then  look  out,  if  the  British  flag  is  not  pulled  down  from  New- 
foundland to  Vancouver  Island,  and  the  Canadians  told  to  go  it  alone  or  come  in 
under  the  Stars  and  Stripes. 

And  now,  after  reviewing  the  history  of  the  iMiuntry  for  over  sixty  years,  and 
considering  the  desperate  and  horrible  course  of  the  slave  states  in  plunging  the 
nation  into  all  the  horrors  of  the  civil  war,  and  putting  the  life  and  existence  of 
the  nation  at  stake,  there  can  be  but  little  doubt  that  had  it  not  been  for  the 
Amei'ican  settlements  in  the  Willamette  Valley,  and  the  organization  of  the  Pro- 


224  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  0REC40N 

visional  Government,  •which  had  declared  against  slavery,  the  pro-slaverj'  Presi- 
dent and  his  supporters  would  have  given  up  the  whole  of  Oregon  to  England  to 
prevent  the  addition  of  another  free  state  to  the  Union. 

THE  MERITORIOUS  PACTS 

Putting  aside  all  quibbles  and  technicalities  in  the  international  diplomacy 
which  disposed  of  the  greatest  question  of  the  nineteenth  century,  four  real  and 
great  national  facts  tower  above  all  otliers. 

First.  The  discovery  and  entrance  of  the  Columbia  river  by  Captain  Robert 
Gray  on  tlie  11th  day  of  May,  1792.  The  great  significance  of  this  fact  consists  in 
the  importance  of  first  a  lauding  on  the  main  land  of  tlie  old  Oregon  region,  and 
secondly,  in  the  fact  that  the  river  drains  nearly  all  tlie  territorj^  in  dispute. 
Neither  the  Spanish,  English  or  French  ships  or  navigators  had  ever  landed  on 
the  main  land  of  Old  Oregon.  They  had  all  been  at  Nootka  Sound  on  Vancouver 
Island  and  upon  Queen  Cliarlotte  Island.  But  Capt.  Gray  had  been  there  as 
well.  Graj''s  discovery  makes  Oregon  the  only  territory  held  by  the  United 
Stat-es  under  the  right  bj-  discovery. 

Second.  The  exploration  of  the  Oregon  territory  by  Lewis  and  Clark  before 
any  other  nation  ever  attempted  to  explore  it.  And  both  the  discovery  of  the 
river  by  Gray  and  the  exploration  by  Lewis  and  Clark  had  been  done  under  writ- 
ten authority  of  the  presidents  of  the  United  States. 

Third.  A  boQafide  settlement  of  the  country  by  American  citizens  for  the 
purpose  of  peopling  and  occupying  the  country  for  permanent  settlements,  and 
not  for  temporary  trade  purposes  with  the  Indians.  These  three  facts  making 
plain  to  the  country  had  all  been  executed  openly  before  the  whole  civilized  and 
commercial  world,  before  Great  Britain  had  a  shadow  of  a  claim  under  the  occu- 
pation by  its  fur  companies. 

Fourth.  Lastly,  and  strongest  of  all  the  claims.  American  settlers  had,  with 
public  notice,  called  all  persons,  settlers  and  citizens  to  meet  and  organize  a  gov- 
ernment to  protect  life  and  property;  the  meeting  had  been  publicl.y  held,  and 
at  which  all  persons,  including  subjects  of  Great  Britain,  had  been  given  full  and 
free  opportunity  to  express  their  will,  and  at  which  meeting  the  subjects  of  Great 
Britain  did  take  a  part,  and  at  which  a  majoritj'  had  decided  in  favor  of,  and  had 
organized  a  government  that  had  all  the  powers  of  any  government  in  anj'  civ- 
ilized nation — officers,  courts,  legislature,  laws  and  military  authority  and  power 
to  defend  its  existence  and  protect  its  citizen  members  from  private  wrongs  and 
public  enemies — and  no  citizen,  subject  or  government  had  denied  the  authen- 
ticity, legitimacy,  legality  or  authority  of  such  government.  There  never  Avas  a 
stronger  ease  upon  which  to  base  a  right  to  jurisdiction  and  sovereignty  over 
territory.  And  yet  it  all  went  for  nothing  when  weighed  in  the  scales  of  justice 
held  and  manipulated  by  a  president  and  congress  already  tainted  and  cor- 
rupted with  the  virus  of  pro-slavery  disunionism. 

It  may  seem  to  many  that  these  are  hard  words  to  apply  to  a  president  and 
congress  of  the  United  States.  But  considering  the  character  of  England's 
claim  to  Oregon,  the  course  of  President  Polk  and  his  cabinet  can  be  explained 
only  by  his  subserviency  to  the  slaveholding  interests  of  the  South,  or  his  cow- 
ardice in  the  presence  of  British  threats.     What  shadow  of  right  had  England 


THAavERAY'S   CARTOONS    IN    LdNDOX    I'UXCH,    1845,   SHOWING: 

No.  1 — The  British  Prime  Minister  (in  the  foreground)  ready  to  fight;  and  in  the  rear 
President  Polk  as  a  southern  farmer,  saying:  'Do  you  think  he's  in  earnest?"  While  King 
Louis   Philippe  of   France  offers   Polk  a  gun  and  urges  him   to  fight   for  Oregon. 

No.  2 — President  Polk  is  represented  as  offering  Oregon,  as  an  egg,  to  England,  repre- 
sented  with  the   trident   as   Mistress   of   the   Seas. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  225 

to  the  count i-y  '.'  That  nutioii  got  absolutely  nothing  hy  the  bullying  of  its  pirat- 
ical fur  trailing  ship  at  Nootka  Sound.  The  record  shows  that  the  Spaniard  was 
the  first  discoverer  of  the  North  Pacific  Coast,  that  he  never  surrendered  his  claim 
in  the  least,  and  whatever  it  was  by  right  of  discovery  and  actual  occupation  of 
Vancouver  Island  he  held  it  intact  until  it  was  turned  over  to  the  United  States 
l>y  the  treaty  of  February  22,  1819.  Then  what  other  right  had  England? 
.Mackenzie,  a  British  subject,  with  an  exploring  party  came  over  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains in  1793,  floated  down  part  of  the  Eraser  river,  and  reached  the  Pacific 
Ocean  in  July,  1793,  more  than  one  year  after  Gray  had  sailed  into  the  mouth  of 
the  Columbia.  If  there  was  anything  in  that  sort  of  discovery  Capt.  Gray  with 
the  American  flag  was  more  than  a  year  ahead  of  the  British  claim.  What  else, 
then?  "When  Astor's  party  under  Wilson  Pi-ice  Hunt  started  for  the  Pacific 
Coast  in  1811,  the  British  Northwest  Company  started  a  rival  expedition 
across  the  continent  to  seize  and  hold  Oregon  as  ,against  the  Astor  (Pacific) 
Fur  Company.  But  before  Thompson,  the  British  agent  got  over  the  Rocky 
mountains  and  put  up  his  notice  claiming  the  country  for  England,  the  Astor 
party  had  built  a  fort  at  Astoria,  mounted  cannon,  run  up  the  American  flag,  and 
Hunt  with  the  overland  party  had  got  into  the  Snake  river  valley,  and  Levris 
and  Clark  had  been  over  here  up  and  down  the  Columbia  six  years  before  the 
Thompson  part.v  had  posted  their  notices.  So  that  England  could  claim  nothing 
on  that  acount.  How  then  did  England  get  British  Columbia,  a  part  of  Old 
Oregon,  and  as  much  the  territory  of  the  United  States  as  was  Utah  and  Kan- 
sas? How?  Simply  by  bluffing  a  weak-kneed  president,  and  pulling  the  slave- 
holding  interests  of  the  South  into  a  surrender  of  the  just  rights  of  the  United 
States  to  a  territory  as  large  as  the  three  states  of  Oregon,  Washington  and 
Idaho,  and  giving  the  traditional  enemy  of  this  country  a  foothold  on  the  Pacific 
Ocean  where  they  can  annoy  this  country  and  cripple  and  demoralize  its  com- 
merce for  all  time.  That  this  position  is  correct,  and  that  the  English  govern- 
ment well  knew  that  it  had  no  just  claims  to  Oregon,  is  manifest  from  what  came 
to  the  surface  in  1818  when  the  treaty  of  joint  occupancy  was  agreed  to.  In 
that  negotiation  Richard  Rush  and  Albert  Gallatin  represented  the  United  States 
and  John  Quincy  Adams  was  Secretary  of  State  to  President  James  Monroe. 
Neither  of  these  men  had  any  love  for  old  England.  Mr.  Adams  was  very 
careful  in  his  instructions  to  Rush  and  Gallatin ;  in  the  course  of  which  he  says : 
"From  the  earnestness  with  which  the  British  government  now  returns  to  the 
object  of  fixing  this  boundary  (The  Oregon  boundary)  there  is  reason  to  believe 
that  they  have  some  other  purpose  connected  with  it,  which  they  do  not  avow, 
hut  which  in  their  estimation  gives  it  an  importance  not  belonging  to  it,  considered 
in  itself. ' ' 

What  was  that  "other  purpose"  which  the  British  government  would  not 
avow?  What  was  it  that  our  traditional  enemy  was  concealing  from  President 
Monroe?  We  don't  have  far  to  look  to  find  it.  President  Monroe  was  the  author 
of  what  is  called  "The  ilonroe  Doctrine."  and  which  was  authoritatively  an- 
nounced to  the  world  in  1823;  Monroe  had  negotiated  the  purchase  of  Louisiana 
from  Napoleon  for  Jefferson.  His  secretary  of  state.  Adams,  had  been  the 
United  States  andiassador  to  Russia  and  had  negotiated  the  treaties  with  that 
country  which  had  secured  its  friendship  to  the  United  States  for  a  hundred 
j'ears.     These  two  men,  then  working  together,  had  learned  the  secret  aims  and 


226  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

objects  of  old  England,  and  were  prepared  to  check  thera.  And  they  clearly 
foresaw  that  England  was  scheming  to  get  Oregon,  or  all  of  it  that  they  could 
get ' '  by  hook  or  crook, ' '  not  for  the  sake  of  the  land,  or  the  furs,  or  the  timber,  or 
the  mines,  but  for  a  great  naval  position  on  the  Pacific  coast,  where,  with  its 
largest  fleet  of  war  ships  in  the  world;  it  could  dominate  the  commerce  of  the 
Pacific,  and  dictate  terms  to  Russia,  China  and  Japan,  and  to  American  interests 
on  the  west  coast  of  America.  But  when  the  British  agents  met  Rush  and  Gal- 
latin in  1818,  they  soon  discovered  that  they  had  statesmen  to  deal  -with  who  could 
not  be  deceived  or  over-reached.  Then  commenced  the  play  for  time,  and  a  more 
favorable  opportunity.  They  gave  up  Astoria,  they  kept  the  peace  at  Van- 
couver, they  let  the  pioneers  organize  at  Champoeg,  putting  in  only  a  mild  ob- 
jection. But  when  they  saw  the  North  and  South  of  the  American  States  divid- 
ing on  the  question  of  slavery  they  saw  their  long  sought  for  opportunity, 
and  encouraged  the  breach.between  the  free  and  the  slaveholding  states.  Eng- 
land had  tried  to  purchase  Texas  from  Mexico,  and  after  Texas  had  declared  its 
independence  of  Mexico,  England  had  been  the  first  nation  to  recognize  the  in- 
dependence of  Texas  and  make  a  treaty  with  that  state  before  it  had  a  settled 
government.  Texas  was  annexed  to  the  United  States  by  the  Tyler  administra- 
tion and  pro-slavery  votes  in  congress  for  the  express  purpose  of  adding  slave- 
holding  territory  to  the  Union.  Giving  voice  to  the  southern  sentiment  on  this 
subject,  Henry  A.  Wise,  a  member  of  Congress  from  Virginia,  said  in  the  House 
of  Representatives  January  26,  1842 : 

"True,  if  Iowa  be  added  on  the  one  side,  Florida  will  be  added  on  the  other. 
But  there  the  equation  must  stop.  Let  one  more  Northern  state  be  admitted,  and 
the  equilibrium  is  gone — gone  forever.  The  balance  of  interests  is  gone — the  safe- 
guard of  American  property — of  the  American  Constitution — of  the  American 
Union  vanished  into  thin  air.  This  must  be  the  inevitable  result,  unless  hy  a 
treaty  with  Mexico  the  South  can  add  more  weight  to  her  end  of  the  lever.  Let 
the  South  stop  at  the  Sabine  river  while  the  North  may  spread  unchecked  beyond 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  the  Southern  scale  must  kick  the  beam." 

JACKSON  LETTER  : 

The  opinion  of  Ex-President  Andrew  Jackson  was  called  out  on  this  subject ; 
and  his  reply  to  a  letter  of  Congressman  Aaron  V.  Brown  of  Tennessee  is  here 
published  to  show  how  the  Southern  statesmen  were  looking  far  ahead  to  protect 
the  institution  of  slavery,  and  how  clearly  they  saw  the  intrigues  of  England  to 
checkmate  the  advance  of  the  United  States  to  the  Pacific.  Here  follows  Jack- 
son 's  letter  never  before  printed  outside  of  the  Southern  Confederacy : 

"Heemitage,  February  13,  1843. 

"My  Dear  Sir — Yours  of  the  23d  ultimo  has  been  received,  and  vrith  it  the 
Madisonian,  containing  Gov.  Gilmer's  letter  on  the  subject  of  the  annexation  of 
Texas  to  the  United  States. 

"You  are  not  mistaken  in  supposing  that  I  have  formed  an  opinion  on  this 
interesting  subject.  It  occupied  much  of  mj^  time  during  my  presidenej',  and,  I 
am  sure,  has  lost  none  of  its  importance  by  what  has  since  transpired. 

"Soon  after  my  election  in  1829,  it  was  made  known  to  me  by  Mr.  Erwin, 
formerly  our  minister  to  the  Court  of  Madrid,  that,  whilst  at  that  Court,  he  had 


11 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  227 

laid  the  foundation  of  a  treaty  with  Spain  for  the  cession  of  the  Floridas  and  the 
settlement  of  the  boundary  of  Louisiana,  fixing  the  western  limit  of  the  latter  at 
Rio  Grande,  agreeably  to  the  understanding  of  France;  that  he  had  written 
home  to  our  government  for  powers  to  complete  and  sign  this  negotiation;  but 
that,  instead  of  receiving  such  authority,  the  negotiation  was  taken  out  of  his 
hands  and  transferred  to  Washington,  and  a  new  treaty  was  there  concluded  by 
which  the  Sabine,  and  not  the  Rio  Grande,  was  recognized  and  established  as 
the  boundary  of  Louisiana. 

"Finding  that  these  statements  were  true  and  that  our  Government  did  really 
give  up  that  important  territory,  when  it  was  at  its  option  to  retain  it,  I  was  filled 
with  astonishment.  The  right  of  the  territory  was  obtained  from  France;  Spain 
stood  ready  to  acknowledge  it  to  the  Rio  Grande ;  and  yet  the  authority  asked  by 
our  minister  to  insert  the  true  boundary  was  not  only  withheld,  but,  in  lieu  of  it, 
a  limit  was  adopted  which  stripped  us  of  the  whole  of  the  vast  coimtry  lying  be- 
tween the  two  rivers. 

"On  such  a  subject,  I  thouglit,  with  the  ancient  Romans,  that  it  was  right 
never  to  cede  any  laud  or  boundary  of  the  repul)lic,  but  always  to  add  to  it  by 
honorable  treaty,  thus  extending  the  area  of  freedom;  and  it  was  in  accordance 
with  this  feeling  that  I  gave  our  minister  in  Mexico  instructions  to  enter  upon  a 
negotiation  for  the  retrocession  of  Texas  to  the  United  States. 

"This  negotiation  failed;  and  I  shall  ever  regret  it  as  a  misfortune  both  to 
Mexico  and  the  United  States.  Mr.  Gilmer's  letter  presents  many  of  the  con- 
siderations which,  in  my  judgment,  rendered  the  step  necessary  to  the  peace  and 
harmony  of  the  two  countries;  but  the  point  in  it,  at  that  time,  which  most 
strongly  impelled  me  to  the  course  I  pursued,  was  the  injustice  done  to  us  by  the 
surrender  of  the  territory,  when  it  was  obvious  that  it  could  have  been  retained, 
without  increasing  the  consideration  afterward  given  for  the  Floridas.  I  could 
not  but  feel  that  the  surrender  of  so  vast  and  important  a  territory  was  attributed 
to  an  erroneous  estimate  of  the  tendency  of  our  institutions,  in  which  there  was 
mingled  somewhat  of  jealousy  as  to  the  rising  greatness  of  the  South  and  West, 

"But  I  forbear  to  dwell  on  this  part  of  the  history  of  this  question.  It  is  past, 
and  cannot  now  be  undone.  We  can  now  only  look  at  it  as  one  of  annexation,  if 
Texas  presents  it  to  us ;  and,  if  she  does,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  welfare 
and  happiness  of  our  Union  requires  that  it  should  be  accepted. 

"If.  in  a  military  point  of  view  alone,  the  question  be  examined,  it  will  be 
found  to  be  most  important  to  the  United  States  to  be  in  possession  of  the  ter- 
ritory. 

"Great  Britain  has  already  made  treaties  with  Texas;  and  we  know  that  far- 
seeing  nation  never  omits  a  circumstance,  in  her  extensive  intercourse  with  the 
world,  which  can  be  turned  to  account  in  increasing  her  military  resources.  May 
she  not  enter  into  an  alliance  with  Texas?  And,  reserving,  as  she  doubtless  ivill, 
the  noo-fhivestern  boundary  question  as  the  cause  of  -war  with  us  whenever  sJie. 
chooses  to  declare  it,  let  us  suppose  that,  as  an  ally  with  Tesas,  we  are  to  fight 
her?  Preparatory  to  such  a  movement,  she  sends  her  20,000  or  30,000  men  to 
Texas;  organizes  them  on  the  Sabine,  where  supplies  and  arms  can  be  concen- 
trated before  we  have  even  notice  of  her  intentions;  makes  a  lodgment  on  the 
Mississippi ;  excites  the  negroes  to  insurrection ;  the  lower  country  falls,  and  with 
it  New  Orleans ;  and  a  servile  war  rages  through  the  whole  South  and  West. 


228  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

"In  the  meantime,  she  is  also  moving  an  army  along  the  western  frontier 
from  Canada,  which,  in  co-operation  with  the  army  from  Texas,  spreads  ruin 
and  havoc  from  the  lakes  to  the  gulf  of  Mexico. 

"Who  can  estimate  the  national  loss  we  may  sustain,  before  such  a  movement 
could  be  repelled  with  such  forces  as  we  could  organize  on  short  notice  ? 

"I  return  you  my  thanks  for  your  kind  letter  on  this  subject,  and  subscribe 
myself,  with  great  sincerity,  your  friend  and  obedient  servant, 

Ai^DREW  Jackson. 

"Hon.  a.  V.  Brown." 

This  question  was  also  brought  before  the  legislatures  of  the  slaveholding 
states  for  expression  of  opinion.  A  committee  of  the  state  of  Mississippi  re- 
porting thereon,  said,  "Your  committee  are  fully  persuaded  that  this  protection 
to  her  (slaveholding)  interests  will  be  afforded  by  the  annexation  of  Texas;  an 
equipoise  of  influence  in  the  halls  of  congress  will  be  secured  which  will  f  uiiiisli 
us  a  permanent  guarantee  of  protection." 

And  so  by  one  subterfuge  after  another  the  settlement  of  the  Oregon  boundary 
line  was  held  back  until  after  Texas  was  admitted  to  the  Union  as  slave  ter- 
ritory, and  upon  the  express  provision  of  Congress  that  four  slave  states  might 
be  carved  out  of  Texas.  The  annexation  of  Texas  and  its  proposed  division  into 
four  slaveholding  states  was  mainly  the  work  of  John  C.  Calhoun  who  had 
served  as  secretary  of  state  in  the  Harrison-Tyler  administration  from  1841  to 
1844.  Calhoun  saw  nothing  wrong  in  the  institution  of  slavery.  In  his  eyes  it 
was  not  only  good,  but  a  positive  good  to  both  the  white  and  the  black  race.  He 
regarded  slavery  as  a  perfectly  natural  relation ;  and  that  if  the  abolition  move- 
ment then  in  1840  being  first  agitated,  should  ever  succeed,  the  fate  of  the 
southern  people  would  be  worse  than  that  of  the  native  Indians.  Calhoun  was 
an  Irish  Presbyterian  of  the  most  rigid,  arbitrary  and  unyielding  faith,  and  be 
believed  in  his  pro-slavery  sentiments  with  his  whole  soul.  He  was  a  bold, 
brave  leader  of  men  of  great  ability,  and  of  an  uncompromising  disposition. 
He  swayed  the  Harrison- Tyler  administration  to  his  purposes,  forced  the  annex- 
ation of  Texas,  brought  on  the  war  against  Mexico  to  seize  more  slave  territory 
and  xised  neglected  Old  Oregon  as  a  pawn  on  the  international  chess  board  to 
keep  the  British  from  seizing  Texas  or  California.  The  annexation  of  Texas  was 
formally  completed  on  the  1st  day  of  March,  1845,  three  days  before  James  K. 
Polk  was  inaugurated  the  eleventh  president  of  the  United  States.  The  ques- 
tion had  been  carefully  nursed  along  during  the  entire  administration  of  Tyler 
and  Calhoun.  Tyler,  a  very  common-place  man,  had  been  extremely  anxious  to 
hasten  the  annexation  of  Texas  as  a  matter  of  great  moment  to  distinguish  his 
administration;  but  Calhoim  had  been  as  equally  anxious  to  hold  the  project 
back  to  the  last  minute,  shrewdly  seeing  that  it  might  arouse  such  a  bitter  anti- 
slavery  sentiment  in  all  the  northern  states  as  to  endanger  the  election  of  a 
southern  man  to  succeed  Tyler.  And  to  forestall  any  such  a  political  revulsion, 
Calhoun  cooked  up  the  war-cry  of  ' '  Fifty-Four  Forty  or  Fight, "  as  a  platform 
for  James  K.  Polk  to  run  on  to  succeed  Tyler.  It  was  a  great  game,  shrewdly 
and  successfully  played — "A  good  enough  Morgan  until  after  the  election." 
And  in  all  this  double-dealing  and  duplicity  the  British  agents  had  played  into 
the  hands  of  the  slaveholders;  as  they  always  did,  believing  that  sooner  or  later 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  229 

the  slavery  qucstio.n  wuuld  divide  the  couiUrij  and  break  up  the  Umcni  of  the 
States.  Warre  and  Vavasour  had  been  out  here  to  Oregon  surveying  the  country, 
piekhig  out  suitable  sites  for  British  forts  and  making  recommendations  as  to  the 
number  of  soldiers  and  cannon  needed  to  seize  and  hold  the  country.  And  follow- 
ing up  this  recommendation,  Her  ]\lajesty's  government  ordered  a  regiment  of 
the  Royal  Sappers  and  Jlinei-s  to  report  from  different  parts  of  England  to  the 
"Woolwich  Arsenal  in  readiness  to  proceed  to  America  and  go  to  Oregon  territory 
for  active  service.  And  all  this  time  Calhoun,  on  the  part  of  the  Soutli,  and  the 
Northern  "doughfaces"  under  the  lead  of  Dayton,  of  New  Jersey,  was  de- 
nouncing Oregon  as  the  "riddlings  of  creation,"  and  not  worth  fighting  about. 
The  slave  states  had  now  got  Texas,  and  forced  Mexico  into  a  war  that  in 
the  end  would  add  New  Mexico  and  Arizona  and  a  large  slice  of  California 
south  of  the  Mason-Dixon  line  of  division  between  free  and  slave  territory. 
Sloat  had  seized  upper  California ;  and  there  was  no  reason  to  longer  hold  back 
the  settlement  of  the  Oregon  boundary  line  with  England.  If  there  ever  was 
a  fair  referendum  of  a  political  question  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  it 
was  the  Oregon  question.  The  people  had  passed  on  the  question,  and  elected 
James  K.  Polk  to  carry  out  their  sovereign  will.  It  was  to  be  the  whole  of  Ore- 
gon— or  fight.  But  no  sooner  is  Polk  safely  seated  in  the  presidential  chair 
than  he  presents  a  compromise  boundary  line — a  line  that  had  been  repudiated 
hy  every  president  and  every  treaty  that  had  preceded  him.  His  secretary 
of  state,  James  Buchanan,  could  ill  conceal  the  disgust  and  humiliation  he  felt 
in  making  such  an  ofifer,  and  when  England  declined  it  he  made  haste  to  with- 
draw it.  If  Buchanan  had  now  stood  firmly  by  Oregon,  he  might  have  forced 
Polk  to  keep  his  pledges  to  the  people,  for  the  secretary  of  the  treasury,  Robt. 
J.  "Walker,  a  Southern  man,  hotly  opposed  giving  up  an  inch  of  Oregon  to  Eng- 
land. But  Buchanan  was  wheedled  into  yielding  with  Polk  on  a  promise  of  the 
presidency  by  the  slave  power,  which  he  got  in  18.56,  and  thus  betrayed  Oregon, 
just  as  he  betrayed  the  Nation  of  1860.  The  offer  to  give  up  half  of  Old  Oregon, 
had  been  thus  dishonorably  made.  Polk's  administration  was  committed  to  it, 
and  England  took  time  to  see  what  was  best  to  do.  An  English  representative 
was  sent  to  Oregon  in  the  person  of  a  titled  lady  in  disguise;  and  then  it  was 
discovered  that  the  preachers,  mountaineers  and  missionaries  had  organized  a 
formidable  government  of  their  own,  and  were  holding  the  fort  under  the  Stars 
and  Stripes;  and  that  they  were  not  good  material  to  make  British  "subjects". 
And  then  it  was  that  England  accepted  the  line  offered  by  President  Polk,  know- 
ing that  Polk  was  giving  away  one-half  the  territoi-y  the  United  States  was 
justly  entitled  to.  That  the  United  States  lost  one-half  of  the  Oregon  territory, 
and  gave  our  traditional  and  historical  enemy  a  foothold  to  annoy  us  for  all  time 
on  the  Pacific  is  to  be  charged  up  to  John  C.  Calhoun,  President  Polk  and  the 
slaveholders  of  the  South.  And  that  this  History  is  fully  justified  in  making 
this  statement  the  reader  is  asked  to  consider  the  following  letter  written  by 
Robert  J.  "Walker,  who  was  socrelary  of  tlie  treasury  in  President  Polk's  cab- 
inet. "When  the  purchase  of  Alaska  was  before  Congress  after  the  Civil  war 
was  over  and  twenty -three  years  after  the  settlement  of  the  Oregon  boundary, 
and  after  Polk  was  dead  and  buried  and  the  institution  of  slavery  abolished, 
Mr.  "Walker,  in  his  old  age,  wrote  a  letter  to  the  "Washington  City  Daily  Chronicle, 
published  January  28,  1868,  in  which  he  says : 


230  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

"We  own  now  the  whole  western  Pacific  Coast  from  lower  California  to 
the  Arctic  Sea,  except  British  Columbia,  which  (against  my  earnest  protest  in 
the  cabinet)  was  ceded  to  England  in  1846.  I  say  ceded,  for  our  title  to  the 
whole  of  Oregon  from  the  forty-second  parallel  northward  to  Russian  America 
was  in  truth  clear  and  unquestionable.  British  Columbia  was  lost  to  us  by  the 
most  unfortunate  diplomacy  extending  through  a  long  period  of  time.  *  *  * 
The  opposition  to  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  was  geographical  and  anti-slavery. 
In  1821,  Texas  was  relinquished  partly  from  geographical,  but  mainly  from 
anti-slavery  opposition.  In  1845  the  opposition  to  the  annexation  of  Texas  was 
based  mainly  on  anti-slavery  grounds.  In  1846,  in  connection  with  the  unfor- 
tunate action  of  preceding  administrations,  Oregon,  north  of  the  forty-ninth 
parallel,  was  lost  to  the  Union.  While  the  history  of  annexation  in  the  United 
States  shows  various  obstacles  by  which  it  h^s  been  retarded,  yet  the  chief  among 
these  was  the  discordant  element  of  slavery.  Thus  it  was  that,  while  the  free 
states  to  a  great  extent  opposed  the  acquisition  of  slave  territory,  the  slave- 
states  opposed  the  acquisition  of  free  territory.  But  for  these  opposing  prin- 
ciples, our  area  would  be  far  greater  than  it  is  now.  On  extinguishing  slavery, 
we  have  removed  the  principal  cause  which  retarded  annexation.  We  see  already 
the  good  effects  of  the  disappearance  of  this  institution  in  the  almost  unanimous 
vote  of  the  senate  by  which  the  Alaska  treaty  was  ratified.  Before  the  extinc- 
tion of  slavery,  that  treaty  luould  have  been  defeated,  upon  the  same  pnnciple 
that  Oregon  north  of  the  forty-ninth  parallel  was  ceded  to  England."  That  is 
the  testimony  of  a  statesman,  and  a  southern  man,  too,  who  was  on  the  ground 
in  the  cabinet,  and  knew  all  about  the  whole  base  betrayal  of  the  rights  of  the 
United  States  to  the  whole  coast  up  to  Alaska; — and  that  settles  the  question. 
That  the  United  States  saved  anything  of  the  Old  Oregon,  and  gave  the  nation 
a  foothold  on  the  Pacific  ocean,  and  an  open  roadway  on  American  territory 
across  the  continent  is  to  be  credited  to  the  Oregon  Pioneers  and  their  provi- 
sional government.  The  Oregon  that  was  saved  to  the  Nation,  is  the  Oregon 
that  was  organized  and  claimed  by  the  provisional  government  that  was  organ- 
ized by  the  fifty-two  heroes  at  old  Champoeg  on  May  2nd,  1843.  And  no 
words,  or  monuments  can  ever  express  or  manifest  the  honor  and  respect  due 
to  those  men  from  the  people  of  Oregon. 


CHAPTER  X 

1834—1844. 

OREGON   IGNORED   BY    U.    S.    GOVERNMENT TREATY    OF    NON-OCCUPATION — NO    MAN'S 

LAND THE   OREGON   TRAIL — OREGON   IN    CONGRESS   FOR  THE   FIRST   TIME ROUTE 

OP   TRAIL   LOCATED   BY   HUNT   AND   STUART WHITMAN   WITH    THE   FIRST    WAGON 

ON    THE    TRAIL IMMIGRATION    OF    1843 — PREPARATION    FOR    STARTING ON    THE 

TRAIL CHARACTER    OF    THE    IMMIGRANTS — BENEFITS    OF    THE    PROVISIONAL    GOV- 
ERNMENT  THE  RESULTS  OF  THE  MISSIONS. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  preceding  Chapter  that  there  was  nobody  in  the  Ore- 
gon country  inviting  settlement;  no  real  estate  agents;  no  boom  towns;  no  get- 
rieh-quick  schemes ;  no  colonization  schemes,  and  no  government  agents  of  any 
kind.  The  country  was  two  thousand  miles  from  the  nearest  American  settlement 
on  the  ]\Iissouri  river;  and  separated  from  it  by  thousands  of  miles  of  trackless 
plains,  rugged  mountains,  inhospitable  deserts,  and  savage  tribes  of  Indians. 
Why  should  any  American  citizen  with  a  family  go  to  such  a  country  as  that? 
About  all  that  anybody  knew  about  Oregon  that  could  be  relied  on  before  the 
emigration  started,  was  to  be  found  in  the  following  brief  notice  of  the  country, 
in  ilitchell  's  Common  School  Geography,  of  1842,  as  follows : 

' '  Oregon  Territory  is  the  most  western  part  of  the  United  States.  It  extends 
from  the  Rocky  Jlountains  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  contains  an  area  greater 
than  that  of  the  whole  southern  states.  Though  claimed  by  the  United  States, 
the  territory  is  at  present  actually  in  possession  of  Great  Britain.  The  Hudson 's 
Bay  Company  have  established  forts  at  various  points  and  exercise  an  unlimited 
control  over  the  native  Indians  reckoned  to  amount  to  a  population  of  eighty 
thousand. ' ' 

Woodbridge's  Geography,  published  by  Oliver  Cook  and  Co.  of  Hartford, 
Conn.,  in  1829,  has  no  mention  of  Oregon ;  but  classes  the  territory  of  Old  Ore- 
gon in  with  and  as  a  part  of  ' '  Missouri  Territory. ' ' 

The  emigration  to  Oregon  actually  commencing  in  the  year  1843,  was  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  movements  in  all  history.  Neither  the  pioneers  who 
wrought  the  great  work,  or  their  descendants  who  have  lived  to  see  its  great  re- 
sults, have  ever  comprehended  the  full  force  of  the  great  achievement.  Moved 
by  an  impulse  which  they  did  not  detect  the  origin  of,  and  over  which  they 
seemed  to  have  had  no  control  or  ability  to  foresee  its  possible  failure 
or  success,  the  pioneers  of  1843  accomplished  a  result  equal  to  the  found- 
ing of  ancient  Rome  or  the  colonization  of  the  Atlantic  coast  by  the  Puri- 
tans of  the  North  and  the  Cavaliers  of  the  South.  The  goal  to  be  olitjiined 
was  neither  wealth,  power,  selfish  isolation,  a  new  faith,  cult,  government,  or 
.destruction  of  enemies.  And  neither  time,  toils,  distance,  hardships,  savage 
tribes  and  enemies,  or  deadly  pestilence  could  stay  or  defeat  it.    The  poet  Whit- 

281 


232  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

tier  has  immortalized  tlie  pioneers  from  the  Ohio  valley  states  who  rushed  to 
Kansas  to  make  that  free  territory ;  but  they  suffered  no  hardships  to  be  com- 
pared with  those  who  came  to  Oregon  fifteen  years  before  the  battles  in  Kansas. 
The  immigrants  to  Kansas  traveled  through  a  settled  country,  and  could  sleep 
in  a  comfortable  fai-m  house  every  night  if  they  chose.  B^^t  the  Oregon  pioneers 
trudged  alongside  their  oxen  for  two  thousand  miles  through  trackless  plains, 
burning  deserts  and  frowning  mountains  without  a  single  friendly  roof  to  pro- 
tect them  or  their  wives  and  little  children.  The  colonizers  of  Kansas  are  not  to 
be  mentioned  in  the  same  generation  with  the  pioneers  of  Oregon ;  and  the  glow- 
ing lines  of  Whittier  belong  to  the  Oregonians,  for  they,  indeed,  and  in  truth 

' '  Crossed  the  desert  as  of  old, 
Their  fathers  crossed  the  sea; 
To  make  the  "West,  as  they  the  East, 
The  homestead  of  the  free." 

WHAT    STARTED    THE    IMMIGRATION    TO    OREGON? 

The  first  known  and  recorded  tangible  effort  to  induce  immigration  to  Ore- 
gon started  in  the  year  1817 ;  and  the  author  of  it  was  Hall  Jackson  Kelley  of 
Boston,  Mass.,  a  digger  into  unusual  and  out-of-the-Avay  places  for  knowledge 
and  information  on  many  subjects.  Kelley  will  appear  in  several  places  in  this 
History  as  he  well  deserves  to  appear.  At  that  date  (1817)  Wilson  Price  Hunt, 
Ramsay  Crooks  and  Russell  Parnham,  of  Astor's  unfortunate  venture  to  As- 
toria, had  all  got  safely  back  to  the  States  and  given  their  experiences  to  the 
public.  To  Kelley 's  fruitful  imagination  their  accounts  of  Oregon  was  like  the 
discovery  of  a  new  world;  and  he  at  once  plunged  into  the  "Oregon  Question" 
with  his  whole  soul.  He-  read  everything  on  the  subject ;  and  then  organized  a 
society  in  1829,  and  had  it  incorporated  by  the  legislature  of  the  state  of  ilas- 
sachusetts  as  "The  American  Society  for  the  settlement  of  the  Oregon  Terri- 
tory." And  through  this  organization,  and  as  Secretary  and  manager  of  it, 
Kelley  carried  on  his  work  of  promoting  the  interests  of  Oregon.  He  was  in 
truth  and  fact  the  first  great  Oregon  promoter.  Kelley  was  indefatigable  in 
promoting  his  grand  scheme;  and  in  1831,  after  gathering  all  the  information 
obtainable,  he  drafted  and  presented  to  Congress  in  the  name  of  his  society, 
a  memorial  reciting  that  the  society  was  "engaged  in  the  work  of  opening  to  a 
civilized  and  virtuous  population  that  part  of  Western  America  called  Oregon." 
And  among  other  statements  in  the  memorial  is,  that  they,  the  memorialists,  ' '  are 
convinced  that  if  the  country  should  be  settled  under  the  auspices  of  the  United 
States  from  such  of  her  worthy  sons  who  have  drunk  the  spirit  of  those  civil 
and  religious  institutions  which  constitute  the  living  fountain  and  the  very 
perennial  source  of  her  national  prosperity,  great  benefits  must  result  to  man- 
kind. They  believe  that  there,  the  skillful  and  persevering  hand  of  industry 
might  be  employed  with  unparalleled  advantage ;  that  there  science  and  the  arts, 
the  invaluable  privilege  of  a  free  and  liberal  government,  and  the  refinement  and 
ordinances  of  Christianity,  diffusing  each  its  blessing,  would  harmoniously  unite 
in  ameliorating  the  moral  condition  of  the  Indians,  in  promoting  the  comfort 
and  happiness  of  the  settlers,  and  in  augmenting  the  wealth  and  power  of  the 
Republic.     *     *     *     The  country  in  question  is  the  most  valuable  of  all  the 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  233 

unoccupied  portioas  of  the  earth,  and  designed  by  I'rovidenee  to  be  the  resi- 
lience of  a  people  whose  singular  advantages  will  give  them  unexampled  power 
and  prosperity.  *  «  *  That  these  things  have  settled  in  the  policy  of  the 
British  nation  the  determined  purpose  of  possessing  and  enjoying  the  country 
as  their  own,  and  which  has  induced  their  parliament  to  confer  on  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company  authority  to  settle  and  occupy  the  fertile  banks  of  the  Colum- 
bia." 

Hero  was  an  appeal  for  settlers  a  long  ways  ahead  of  the  lioom  literature  to 
sell  sage  brush  and  town  lots  in  Oregon,  Washington  or  Idaho  in  the  year  1912 ; 
— ahead,  because  the  promoters  are  not  planning  to  make  money  for  themselves, 
but  to  save  Oregon  to  the  United  States. 

Kelley  followed  up  this  appeal  to  Congress  with  circulars  and  pamphlets- 
circulated  all  over  the  New  England  states  to  create  a  public  sentiment  that 
might  influence  the  action  of  Congress.  But  nothing  was  effected  in  that  direc- 
tion beyond  filling  senators  and  congressmen  up  with  material  to  make  bun- 
combe speeches  on  the  Oregon  question.  One  of  Kelley 's  circulars  was  entitled 
"A  general  circular  to  all  persons  of  good  character  who  wish  to  emigi-ate  to 
the  Oregon  Territoi-y,  enbracing  some  account  of  the  character  and  advantages 
of  the  country;  the  right  and  the  means  and  operations  by  which  it  is  to  be  set- 
tled, and  all  necessary  directions  for  becoming  an  emigrant.  Hall  J.  Kelley, 
general  agent."  That  this  work  did  start  the  first  commercial  expedition  to 
Oregon,  after  the  disastrous  failures  of  Winship  and  Astor,  there  can  be  no 
doubt.  Nathaniel  J.  AVyeth's  expedition  overland  to  Oregon  in  1832,  was,  as 
"Wyeth  says  in  his  account  of  it,  ' '  roused  to  it  by  the  writings  of  Hall  J.  Kelley. ' ' 
In  addition  to  this,  the  information  that  Kelley  had  gathered  up  was  the  basis 
on  which  ilethodist  and  American  Board  churches  acted  when  they  decided  to 
send  missionaries  to  Oregon  to  convert  the  heathen.  Kelley 's  information  about 
Oregon,  and  his  appeal  for  settlei'S  to  come  here  had  been  before  the  churches,  and 
before  everybody  in  the  New  England  states  for  ten  years  before  the  churches 
took  steps  to  send  missionaries  to  Oregon.  But  when  the  four  Indian  chiefs  went 
from  Oregon  to  St.  Louis  to  find  the  "White  Man's  Book  of  Heaven"  in  1831, 
it  was  such  a  pathetic  appeal  and  dramatic  incident  that  it  caught  the  attention 
and  inspired  the  action  of  the  churches  immediately.  And  although  Kelley  was 
then  on  his  way  to  Oregon  across  Mexico,  his  old  pamphlets  and  circulars  were 
liunted  up  for  information  about  Oregon  and  as  a  result  the  first  missionary 
party  to  Oregon  (The  iletliodist)  composed  of  Jason  Lee,  his  cousin,  Daniel 
Lee,  Cyrus  Shepard  and  P.  L.  Edwards  came  out  with  Wyeth  on  his  second 
expedition  in  1834.  he  (Wyeth)  having  been  made  a  convert  to  Oregon  coloniza- 
tion by  Hall  J.  Kelley.  Along  with  Wyeth  came  a  large  party  of  employees,  and 
some  of  them  settled  in  the  countrj'.  Hall  J.  Kelley  came  himself  in  1834.  com- 
ing through  IMexico  and  California.  The  Rev.  Samuel  Parker  as  advance  agent 
of  the  American  Board  missions  came  out  in  1835.  Dr.  Marcus  AATiitman  and  wife, 
Rev.  H.  H.  Spalding  and  wife,  and  W.  H.  Gray  came  out  as  American  Board  mis- 
sionaries in  1836.  Stragglers  came  in  after  this  from  time  to  time.  The  Catholic 
missionaries  Blanchet  and  Demers  came  in  1838.  Employees  of  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Co.,  and  independent  trappers  came  in  annually,  but  none  of  these  could  be 
considered  a  part  of  the  emigration  to  Oregon  that  settled  the  status  of  the 
country. 


234  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

At  the  close  of  1837,  the  independent  population  of  Oregon  consisted  of  forty- 
nine  souls,  about  equally  divided  between  missionary  attaches  and  settlers.  With 
but  few  exceptions  the  arrivals  during  the  next  two  years  were  solely  of  persons 
connected  with  the  various  missions,  whose  advent  has  already  been  noted. 
Those  coming  in  1839  were.  Rev.  J.  S.  Griffin  and  wife,  and  Mr.  Asahel  Munger 
and  wife,  who  made  an  unsuccessful  effort  to  found  an  independent  mission  on 
Snake  river,  and  Rev.  Ben.  Wright,  Robert  Shortess,  Sidnej^  Smith,  Lawson, 
Keizer,  Geiger,  and  John  Edmunds  Pickernell.  By  adding  the  following  list  oC 
arrivals  in  1840,  to  those  previously  mentioned,  the  population  of  Oregon  at  that 
time  will  be  quite  accurately  listed.  Mr.  Gray  thus  summarizes  the  arrivals  of 
that  season : — 

"In  1840 — Methodist  Episcopal  Protestant  Mission — Mrs.  Lee,  second  wife 
of  Rev.  Jason  Lee ;  Rev.  J.  H.  Frost  and  wife ;  Rev.  A.  F.  Waller,  wife  and  two 
children  ;  Rev.  W.  W.  Kone  and  wife ;  Rev.  Gustavus  Hines,  wife  and  sister ;  Rev. 
L.  H.  Judson,  wife  and  two  children ;  Rev.  J.  L.  Parrish,  wife  and  three  children ; 
Rev.  J.  P.  Richmond,  wife  and  three  children ;  Rev.  A.  P.  Olley  and  wife.  Lay 
men — Mr.  Geo.  Abernethy,  wife  and  two  children ;  Mr.  Hamilton  Campbell,  wife 
and  one  child ;  Mr.  W.  W.  Raymond  and  wife ;  Mr.  H.  B.  Brewer  and  wife ;  Dr. 
Ira  L.  Babcock,  wife  and  one  child ;  Miss  Maria  T.  Ware,  jMiss  Orpha  Lankton, 
Miss  Almira  Phelps,  and  Miss  E.  Phillips.  Independent  Protestant  Missions — 
Rev.  Harvey  Clark  and  wife ;  Rev.  P.  B.  Littlejohn  and  wife  ;  Robert  Moore,  James 
Cook,  and  James  (Travers  according  to  Judge  Deady)  Fletcher,  settlers.  Jesuit 
Priests — P.  J.  De  Smet,  Flathead  Mission.  Rocky  mountain  men  with  native 
wives — ^William  Craig,  Doctor  Robert  Newell,  Joseph  L.  Meek,  George  W.  Eb- 
berts,  William  M.  Doughty,  John  Larison,  George  Wilkinson,  a  Mr.  Nicholson,  and 
Mr.  Algear,  and  William  Johnson,  author  of  the  novel,  "Leni  Leoti,  or  The  Prairie 
Flower."  The  subject  was  first  written  and  read  before  the  Lyceum  at  Oregon 
City,  in  1843. 

Gray  classifies  the  population  as  follows :  American  settlers,  twenty-five  of 
them  with  Indian  wives,  36 ;  American  women,  33 ;  children,  32 ;  lay  members, 
Protestant  Missions,  13 ;  Methodist  Ministers,  13 ;  Congregational,  6 ;  American 
Physicians,  3 ;  English  Physicians,  1 ;  Jesuit  priests,  including  De  Smet,  3 ; 
Canadian  French,  60.  Total  Americ<ins,  137 ;  total  Canadians,  including  priests, 
63 ;  total  population,  not  including  Hudson 's  Bay  Company  operatives,  within 
what  is  now  all  of  Idaho,  Washington,  Oregon,  and  a  part  of  Montana,  was  200. 

In  1842  an  addition  of  about  fifty  Americans  over  the  age  of  eighteen  came  in 
of  which  a  complete  list  will  be  given  hereafter  in  this  chapter. 

The  condition  of  the  valley  and  the  settlers,  when  these  emigrants  arrived,  is 
thus  described  by  Medorem  Crawford : — 

' '  On  the  fifth  day  of  October  our  little  party,  tired,  ragged  and  hungry,  ar- 
rived at  the  Palls,  now  Oregon  City,  where  we  found  the  first  habitations  west  of 
the  Cascade  mountains.  Here  several  members  of  the  Methodist  Mission  were 
located,  and  a  saw  mill  was  being  erected  on  the  island.  Our  gratification  on  ar- 
riving safely  after  so  long  and  perilous  a  journey  ,  was  shared  by  these  hospitable 
people,  each  of  whom  seemed  anxious  to  give  us  a  hearty  welcome  and  render  us 
every  assistance  in  their  power.  From  the  Falls  to  Vancouver  was  a  trackless 
wilderness,  communication  being  only  by  the  river  in  small  boats  and  canoes. 
Toward  Salem  no  sign  of  civilization  existed  until  we  reached  the  French  prairie, 


MiMK    .M|.:\    wild    liAIKKl)   Till-;    KM  U  ;i;  AN  I'S    Id   OKKlJdX    IX    lsi:; 

No.  1 — ^Abraham  Lincoln  as  lie  looked  in   1843 

No.  2 — Thomas   H.   Benton,   who   fought   for   Oregon,   first,  last    and   all    tlie   tinii' 

No.  3 — The  "Little  Giant,"  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who  stood  sliouKler  to  shoulder  with 
Benton,  and  prepared  the  law  to  give  Oregon  a  territorial  government 

No.  4 — Peter  Cartwright,  the  great  Methodist  Evangelist  of  Kentucky,  and  the  West,  who 
fought  for  the  Oregon  pioneers  before  the  common  people  of  the  West 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  235 

where  a  few  farms  near  the  river  were  cultivated  by  former  employees  of  the 
JIikIsou's  Bay  Company.  West  of  the  Falls  some  fifteen  miles  was  Tualatin 
I)iaius,  where  a  few  settlors,  mostly  from  Red  River,  had  loeated.  Within  the 
present  limits  of- Yamhill  County,  the  only  settlers  I  can  remember  were  Sidney 
Smith,  Amos  Cook.  Francis  Fletfher,  James  O'Neil,  Joseph  .Mi'Lougiilin, — 
Williams,  Louis  La  Bonte,  and  George  Gay. 

The  emigration  to  Oregon  had  not  yet  started.  These  few  men  could  only  be 
considered  the  "scouts"  looking  out  a  country  in  the  hands  of  their  enemies. 
And  according  to  the  well  settled  English  belief  at  that  time  the  country  never 
could  be  settled  by  the  ox  team  fellows.  John  Dunn,  a  clerk  in  the  employ  of 
the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  wrote  a  book  about  Oregon  at  that  time  in  which  he 
says :  ' '  None  but  the  wild  and  fearless  tree-trapers  can  clamber  over  those  moun- 
tain  precipices  and  tread  these  deserts  with  security.  It  is  true  that  there  have 
liceii  published  more  favorable  accounts  within  the  last  year  or  two  by  parties  who 
have  made  the  joiirney  safely,  and  who  encourage  others  to  make  a  similar  ex- 
periment, but  these  accounts  are  mere  bravado."  In  1843,  the  Edinburgh  Re- 
view (British)  said:  "However  the  political  question  between  England  and  the 
United  States,  as  to  the  owaiership  of  Oregon  may  be  decided,  Oregon  will  never  be 
colonized  overland  from  the  United  States.  The  world  must  assume  a  new  phase 
before  the  American  wagons  will  make  plain  the  road  to  Columbia,  as  they  have 
done  to  the  Ohio."  And  at  the  same  time  the  British  were  ridiculing  the  efforts 
to  get  American  settlers  into  Oregon,  a  precious  little  squad  of  United  States 
senators  were  burning  up  the  country  in  the  halls  of  Congress.  Says  Senator 
Dayton,  of  New  Jersey : 

"I  trust  I  may  be  pardoned  here  for  reading  an  extract  from  a  western  paper 
of  recent  date — Louisville  Journal — republished  in  the  National  Intelligencer, 
of  this  city.  Here  it  is :  "What  there  is  in  the  territory  of  Oregon  to  tempt  our 
national  cupidity,  no  one  can  tell.  Of  all  the  countries  on  the  face  of  the  earth, 
it  is  one  of  the  least  favored  of  heaven.  It  is  the  mere  riddling  of  creation. 
It  is  almost  as  barren  as  the  desert  of  Africa,  and  quite  as  unhealthy  as  the  Cam- 
pania of  Italy.  To  leave  the  fertile  and  salubrious  lands  on  this  side  of  the 
Rocky  mountains  and  to  go  beyond  their  snowy  summits  a  thousand  miles,  to  be 
exiled  from  law  and  society,  and  to  endeavor  to  extort  food  from  the  unwilling 
sand  heaps  which  are  there  called  earth,  is  the  maddest  enterprise  that  has  ever 
deluded  foolish  men.  We  would  not  be  subjcted  to  the  innumei-able  and  indescrib- 
able torture  of  a  journey  to  Oi-egon  for  all  the  soil  its  savage  hunters  ever  wan- 
dered over.  The  journey  thither,  from  all  accounts,  is  horrible  enough,  but  it  is 
paradise  when  contrasted  with  the  wasting  miseries  which  beset  the  wretched 
emigrant  when  he  has  reached  a  point  where  he  fancied  his  unutterable  woes  were 
to  cease,  but  where  he  finds  they  are  to  be  increased  beyond  all  endurance.  Of 
the  last  party  of  emigrants  that  left  Missouri  for  Oregon,  eight  died  of  star- 
vation before  reaching  Fort  Hall,  which  is  half-way  to  the  country  that  is 
reckoned  inhabitable  by  those  who  are  af39icted  with  the  Oregon  mania. 

"All  the  writers  and  travelers  agree  in  representing  Oregon  as  a  vast  extent 
of  mountains  and  valleys  of  sand  dotted  over  with  green  and  cultivable  spots. 
This  is  the  representation  given  by  Cox,  Bonneville,  Farnham  and  Hinds.  Now 
that  such  a  wretched  territory  should  excite  the  hopes  and  the  cupidity  of  citizens 
of  the  United  States,  inducing  them  to  leave  comfortable  homes  for  the  heaps  of 


236  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

sand  is,  indeed,  passing  strange.  Russia  has  her  Siberia,  and  England  has  her 
Botany  Bay,  and  if  the  United  States  should  ever  use  a  country  to  which  to  banish 
its  rogues  and  scoundrels,  the  utility  of  such  a  region  as  Oregon  will  be  demon- 
strated. ' '  Mr.  Dayton  said :  "  I  read  the  extract  without  adopting  the  sentiments 
as  to  the  character  of  the  country  in  the  full  extent;  but  this  description  in  a 
paper  of  the  west  so  widely  circulated  as  the  Louisville  Journal,  is  evident  to  my 
mind  that  public  sentiment  there  in  behalf  of  the  settlement  of  Oregon  is  not  so 
universal  as  some  gentlemen  have  presented  it. " 

In  the  face  of  all  this  the  emigration  did  start  for  Oregon.  And  it  will  be  a 
most  interesting  question  to  find  out  if  we  can  what  it  was  that  induced  the 
pioneers  to  undertake  so  long,  so  toilsome,  and  so  dangerous  a  pilgrimage. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  conclude  that  the  people  of  the  western  states  in  the 
years  of  1842,  3  and  4  did  not  know  anything  about  Oregon  because  there  was  no 
mail  route  to  Oregon  in  those  days,  and  no  telegraph  lines  anywhere,  and  no  boom 
land  companies  or  daily  papers  to  scatter  the  news.  What  little  news  that  did 
get  back  to  the  States  from  the  missionaries  and  straggling  adventurers  once  in 
a  year,  came  as  if  from  ' '  wonderland ' '  and  was  read  and  passed  from  house  to 
house  and  printed  in  all  the  western  pioneer  papers.  The  writer  of  this  book 
remembers  reading  in  the  county  paper  in  1844  a  letter  from  Oregon,  that  every- 
body else  read  and  talked  about,  because  there  was  a  statement  by  the  writer  of 
the  letter  that  the  air  in  the  Willamette  valley  was  so  pure  and  clear  that  he  had 
seen  distinctly  a  tree  at  a  distance  of  twenty-five  miles.  Few,  if  any,  believed  the 
tree  story ;  but  that  same  reader  of  that  letter  after  coming  to  Oregon  fifty  years 
ago  verified  the  truth  of  that  letter  by  seeing  himself  that  same  tree  distinctly 
at  a  distance  of  twenty-five  miles — the  tree  being  on  the  top  of  the  ridge  east  of 
the  town  of  Amity  and  the  observer  (along  with  Ben.  Branson)  being  on  the  high 
bare  hill  in  the  Grand  Ronde  Indian  Reservation.  This  is  mentioned  to  show 
how  facts  about  Oregon  took  hold  of  the  imagination  of  the  people  of  the  western 
states  and  fixed  their  attention  upon  this  country. 

The  effort  of  Congressman  John  Floyd,  of  Virginia,  to  secure  action  of  our 
government  in  Oregon  has  already  been  referred  to  on  the  subject  of  the  Title. 
But  there  is  another  aspect  to  Floyd 's  work.  To  move  the  government  to  act  on 
the  title  to  the  country,  Floyd  must  show  Congress  that  Oregon  was  worth  fight- 
ing for.  The  history  of  Floyd's  labors  for  this  country  shows  that  he  was  a  far- 
seeing  statesman.  He  originated  problems  then  that  have  been  verified  by  time. 
Floyd  argued  that  the  country  was  worth  saving  to  the  nation  because  of  the  rich 
trade  that  could  be  developed  out  of  the  furs  and  fisheries ;  and  out  of  the  wealth 
of  timber,  citing  the  fact  that  at  that  early  day  a  cargo  of  spars  had  been  shipped 
from  the  Columbia  river  to  Valparaiso.  That  was  probably  the  first  shipment 
of  timber  or  lumber  from  Oregon.  Floyd  went  on  in  his  report  to  show  that  by 
settling  this  country  we  could  control  the  trade  to  China,  Japan  and  the  Orient; 
and  that  a  whaling  fishery  station  at  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river  would  con- 
trol the  whale  fisheries  off  the  Pacific  which  would  increase  the  trade  of  the 
country  a  million  dollars  a  year.  Floyd's  bill  to  carry  out  his  patriotic  efforts 
for  Oregon  finally  came  to  a  vote  in  1829,  and  was  defeated  in  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives— yeas  seventy-five,  nays,  ninety-nine.  But  Floyd's  agitation  brought 
to  the  surface  several  private  schemes.  Three  thousand  persons  in  Massachu- 
setts, members  of  Hall  J.  Kelley's  Company,  had  petitioned  Congress  for  grants 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  237 

of  land ;  Albert  Town  and  others  in  the  State  of  Ohio  had  asked  for  a  large  tract 
to  settle  upon;  and  John  M.  Bradford  and  others  of  Louisiana  had  asked  for  a 
grant  of  one  million  and  twenty-four  thousand  acres  of  Oregon  land  in  which  to 
found  a  colony.  These  propositions  were  all  voted  down  by  Congress  as  being 
incompatible  ■with  Republican  principles  to  make  special  grants  to  anybody. 
Floyd's  term  expired  in  1829,  and  thus  ended  the  efforts  of  Oregon's  first  friend 
in  Congress  to  help  this  country. 

Nothing  more  is  heard  in  Congress  about  the  settlement  of  Oregon  until  Sen- 
ator Lewis  F.  Linn,  introduces  his  first  bill  in  1838 ;  which  proposed  to  organize 
"The  Oregon  Territory;"  occupy  the  Columbia  Valley;  erect  a  fort  on  the  Co- 
lumbia river  with  a  military  force ;  establish  a  port  of  entry ;  and  hold  the  coun- 
try for  the  United  States. 

In  his  report  to  support  his  proposition  Linn  advanced  all  the  arguments  put 
forth  by  Floyd  ten  years  before,  and  then  added  another  which  shows  he  was 
just  about  seventy-five  years  ahead  of  the  statesmen  of  our  day.  lie  dwelt  on 
the  importance  of  a  harbor  on  the  northwest  coast  of  America  where  the  whaling 
fleet  of  the  Pacific  might  refit,  .iust  as  Floyd  had,  and  then  prophesied  "That 
direct  communication  between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific  would  soon  be  opened 
by  a  canal  across  the  isthmus  of  Darien,  by  which  the  whole  trade  of  the  Eastern 
Hemisphere  would  be  changed  in  its  course,  which  would  be  then  toward  the 
shores  of  North  America."  But  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  was  not  yet 
awake  and  Linn's  bill  was  defeated  in  the  Senate.  But  Linn's  work  had  brought 
before  the  country  a  mass  of  information  about  Oregon,  which  was  readily  picked 
up  by  ambitious  and  adventurous  men  throughout  the  west  who  saw  visions  and 
dreamed  dreams  of  founding  an  empire  on  the  Pacific  as  their  forefathei's  had 
on  the  Atlantic.  And  about  this  same  time  Caleb  Cushing,  a  very  able  and  dis- 
tinguished man  in  his  time  and  a  member  of  Congress  from  Massachusetts,  as  the 
chairman  of  the  committee  on  foreign  affairs,  to  which  had  been  referred  the 
Jason  Lee  Memorial  of  1839,  and  other  documents  about  Oregon,  made  a  lengthy 
and  exhaustive  report  on  the  Oregon  question,  of  which  report  ten  thousand 
copies  were  printed  in  addition  to  five  thousand  copies  of  Senator  Linn's  speech, 
and  all  scattered  over  the  country.  It  is  said  that  this  report  educated  the 
people  to  an  exalted  idea  of  the  value  of  Oregon,  and  at  the  same  time  incited  a 
hatred  of  the  British  traders  who  had  kept  the  Americans  out  of  the  fur  trade  in 
that  country.  Here  then  is  found  the  foundation  of  the  wide  spread  interest  in 
Old  Oregon  which  prevailed  throughtout  the  Eastern  States,  and  specially  in 
the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  valleys.  Only  one  thing  more  was  necessai-y  to  fire  the 
train,  and  set  it  in  mo'tion  towards  Oregon.     And  we  soon  find  that. 

On  the  31st  of  March,  1840,  Senator  Linn  reported  back  to  the  Senate  a  sub- 
stitute for  his  former  proposition,  asserting  the  title  of  the  United  States  to 
Oregon,  authorizing  the  President  to  take  such  measures  as  was  necessary  to  pro- 
tect the  persons  and  property  of  Am'erican  citizens  in  Oregon,  to  erect  a  line  of 
military  posts  from  the  Missouri  river  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  granting  to 
each  white  male  inhabitant  over  eighteen  years  of  age  one  thousand  acres  of  land. 
This  proposition  was  followed  up  by  a  petition  from  Elizabethtown,  Kentucky, 
a.«king  Congress  to  plant  a  colony  in  Oregon  and  give  the  colonists  lands ;  and  by 
another  petition  from  forty-four  citizens  from  Indiana  asking  for  a  grant  of  lands 
within  a  strip  of  ten  miles  on  each  side  of  the  Willamette  River,  so  the  settlers 


238  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

could  have  the  benefit  of  free  transportation  on  the  river,  and  in  the  same  peti- 
tion they  protested  against  cutting  the  Isthmus  canal,  evidently  thinking  it  a 
short  job  that  might  be  slipped  through  before  they  could  stop  it.  And  while 
they  opposed  the  canal,  they  wanted  Congress  to  build  "a  great  national  road  to 
the  Pacific."  Another  memorial  came  from  the  Missouri  asking  for  a  grant  of 
lands  to  settlers  in  Oregon.  But  one  thing  more  was  necessary,  and  Senator  Linn 
soon  supplied  that  in  a  new  bill  he  introduced  into  the  Senate  on  December  16, 
1841,  in  which  it  was  declared  most  emphatically  that  the  United  States  would 
never  give  up  Oregon  to  the  British,  that  Joint  Occupancy  must  be  terminated  at 
once,  and  measures  taken  to  occupy  and  settle  the  country  under  the  laws  of  the 
United  States — and  that  six  hundred  and  forty  acres  of,  land  must  be  given  to 
every  white  American  settler  over  eighteen  years  of  age  who  would  go  to  Oregon 
and  settle  and  stay  on  the  land  for  five  years. 

WHY  DID  THE  MISSOURIANS  COME  TO  OREGON  ? 

Here,  then,  is  found  in  the  reports  of  Cushing  and  Linn,  the  three  motives 
that  put  the  Missourians  and  other  westerners  on  the  Trail  to  Oregon :  First,  That 
Oregon  was  the  best  country  in  the  world ;  second,  that  the  British  were  trying  to 
steal  it  from  the  lawful  owners — The  Americans;  and  third,  a  gift  of  a  square 
mile  of  land  to  each  settler.  The  Oregonians  of  1912  cannot  comprehend  the  in- 
fluences that  so  powerfully  aifected  their  forefathers.  There  were  yet  in  1840 
throughout  the  west,  old  Revolutionary  soldiers,  bent  with  age,  but  full  of  the 
fire  that  carried  them  through  the  seven  years  war  to  achieve  American  Inde- 
pendence. There  were  also  the  heroes,  all  through  the  west,  who  had  fought 
with  Jackson,  at  New  Orleans  and  hurled  back  the  British  red  coats  in  the  most 
decisive  battle  ever  fought  on  the  American  continent.  The  sons  and  daughters 
of  these  old  soldiers  had  inherited  their  courage  and  their  ambition  to  strike  a 
blow  at  "Old  England"  whenever  the  excuse  could  be  found.  The  gift  of  640 
acres  of  rich  land — that  was  the  wonder.  Up  to  that  time  every  settler  in  the 
west  had  bought  his  land  from  the  Government  and  paid  for  it  in  hard  cash ;  the 
only  exception  being  the  lands  given  to  the  revolutionary  soldiers  for  military 
services,  and  the  land  warrants  to  the  soldiers  in  the  war  of  1812.  The  home- 
stead law  giving  160  acres  to  actual  settlers  for  five  years  settlement  and  cultiva- 
tion was  not  passed  by  Congress  until  twenty  years  after  the  great  rush  to  Oregon. 
The  free  land  and  the  chance  to  drive  the  British  out  of  Oregon  were  the  moving 
causes  that  settled  Oregon  before  the  title  to  it  was  settled..  It  is  said  that  Jesse 
Applegate  declared  in  starting  to  Oregon  in  1843,  "That  he  was  going  to  Oregon 
to  drive  out  the  British. ' '  It  may  be  that  ' '  Uncle  Jesse ' '  never  said  that.  But 
if  he  did  say  it,  he  knew  he  was  only  voicing  the  wishes  of  all  the  people  in  the 
Ohio  and  Mississippi  valleys.  It  has  been  suggested  by  some  historians,  that  the 
great  financial  panic  of  1837  which  broke  all  the  banks  in  the  west  and  financially 
ruined  many  thousands  of  men,  was  the  cause  of  many  persons  coming  to  Oregon. 
This  supposition  is  not  entitled  to  any  credit.  For  while  that  financial  trouble 
compelled  thoiisands  of  good  men  to  make  a  new  start  in  life,  and  gave  them  the 
opportunity  to  go  anywhere  to  do  so,  it  could  hardly  have  sent  many  to  Oregon. 
There  were  plenty  of  opportunities  in  the  new  territories  of  Iowa,  Wisconsin, 
Minnesota,  and  Kansas  next  door  to  Missouri,  with  land  just  as  good  as  any  in 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  239 

Oregon.  The  Oregon  field  offered  adventure,  the  gratifieation  of  a  national  i)re- 
.liuiice.  and  free  land,  and  set  on  foot  one  of  the  most  unique  and  t'ar-reaeliing 
in  inflnencc  iiiovomcnts  of  popidation  the  world  has  seen  since  the  discovery  of 
America. 

AVJIAT  SORT  OK  PEOPLE  STARTED  FOR  OREGON  ? 

What  were  the  (lualifieations  of  person  or  property  which  selected  or  limited 
the  emigrants  to  Oregon  ?  The  movement  was  not  a  land  speculation,  although 
every  family  expected  to  get  free  land  as  a  homestead.  There  was  no  corpora- 
tion, capital  or  investment  at  the  bottom  of  or  back  of  the  movement.  There  were 
no  rich  men  in  the  caravan,  and  no  helpless  poor.  In  those  days  on  the  pioneer 
border  the  distinctions  of  wealth  or  social  position  had  no  place.  Some  men  had 
more  personal  gear  in  horses  and  oxen  than  others,  but  very  few  had  any  money. 
There  might  have  been  a  few,  yet  there  is  no  evidence  that  there  was,  men  wiio 
were  burdened  with  debts  they  could  not  pay.  One  of  the  most  honored  of  the 
pioneers,  and  who.  after  serving  Oregon  most  acceptably  in  its  pioneer  govern- 
ment, became  govei-nor  of  California,  frankly  stated  that  he  went  to  the  California 
gold  mines  to  get  the  means  to  pay  his  debts,  and  which  he  did  pay  to  the  utmost 
farthing.  He  had  left  Missouri  with  the  consent  and  approval  of  creditors  who 
wished  him  well  in  his  venture  to  Oregon.  So  far  as  wealth  was  concerned,  the 
pioneers  were  practically  all  on  the  same  level.  Some  of  them  had  to  sell  every- 
thing to  s(iuare  with  the  world  before  they  could  make  the  move.  Mr.  G.  C.  Rob- 
bins,  for  a  long  time,  a  prominent  citizen  in  Oregon  and  Idaho  gives  the  case  of 
his  father  and  the  pathetic  parting  with  faithful  servants  as  follows : 

"The  Black  Hawk  Indian  war  ruined  my  father's  trade,  a  merchant,  which 
was  mostly  with  the  Indians.  My  father  was  in  debt  and  was  compelled  to  sell 
his  property  to  pay  his  debts.  Most  of  his  property  consisted  of  his  negro 
slaves.  Aunt  Morning,  her  husband.  Uncle  Dave,  and  their  daughter.  Charity, 
who  were  our  house  servants,  were  taken  with  our  field  hands  and  placed  on  the 
block  in  front  of  the  court  house  in  St.  Louis,  and  auctioned  off  to  the  highest 
bidder.  This  was  my  first  knowledge  of  the  darker  side  of  slavery,  and  when  I 
saw  Aunt  Morning,  whom  I  loved  as  much  as  I  did  my  mother,  sold  under  the 
hammer,  and  then  taken  to  the  slave  pen,  I  was  inconsolable.  I  hung  around  the 
slave  pen  all  day  peeking  through  the  palings  to  get  a  glimpse  of  Aunt  Morning 
and  Uncle  Dave.  Finally  the  pen-keeper  warned  me  to  stay  away,  and  when  I 
returned,  he  struck  at  me  with  his  long  black-snake,  and  Aunt  Morning  begged 
me  not  to  come  back.  When  I  saw  her  vdth  the  rest  of  our  servants  and  about 
fifty  other  slaves,  handcuffed  to  a  chain  and  marched,  in  charge  of  a  guard 
armed  with  guns  and  whips,  aboard  a  steamer  bound  for  New  Orleans  and  con- 
signed to  a  speculator  to  be  sold  to  the  sugar  planters,  my  cup  of  woe  was  full 
and  I  took  a  dislike  for  slavery  which  I  never  was  able  to  overcome. 

Inasmuch  as  there  has  been  a  great  deal  of  discussion  in  time  past  about 
where  the  early  settlers  of  Oregon  were  born  the  following  statement  is  made 
by  George  H.  Himes,  secretary  of  the  Oregon  Pioneer  Association  for  twenty- 
eight  years,  and  assistant  secretary  of  the  Oregon  Historical  Society  since  its 
organization  in  December,  1898:  From  infonnation  secured  in  person  from 
pioneers  of  Oregon  during  the  past  twenty-eight  yeai-s.  and  now  checked  up  for 
the  first   time.   I  find  that   out   of  7.444  pioneers   who   came   to   Oregon  before 


240  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

1859,  ninety-five  per  cent  of  whom  came  before  185-4,  fifty-six  i^er  cent  were 
born  in  tlie  northern  states,  thirty-three  per  cent  in  the  southern  states,  and 
eleven  per  cent  in  twenty-one  foreign  countries.  It  is  my  belief  that  the  above 
ratio  will  hold  good,  substantially,  in  respect  to  the  population  of  52,465  which 
Oregon  is  credited  with  by  the  U.  S.  census  of  1860.  It  is  true  that  more 
persons  came  from  Missouri  to  Oregon  than  .from  any  other  one  state,  but  a 
large  proportion  of  them  were  born  in  other  states,  and  began  moving  west- 
ward by  easy  stages,  until  at  length  Missouri  was  reached,  and  then  final  prepara- 
tions were  made  to  cover  the  last  stretch  of  territory  that  must  be  crossed  before 
reaching  the  Pacific  ocean. 

The  emigrants  were  nearly  all  from  pioneer  farms ;  they  knew  how  to  ' '  rough 
it,"  knew  how  to  make  the  best  and  the  most  of  what  little  of  this  world's  goods 
they  possessed.  And  they  were  not  miserable  and  unhappy  because  they  were 
not  rich.  They  were  hopeful,  cheerful,  and  happy  in  the  prospect  of  better  things, 
and  full  of  courage  to  make  the  herculean  effort  to  get  to  Oregon.  They  were 
also  a  hardy,  vigorous  lot  of  men  and  women,  with  children  that  could  ride  horses, 
run  races,  and  take  a  part  in  the  strenuous  life  of  a  pioneer  settlement.  The 
great  labor,  trial  and  long  continued  exertion  for  a  two  thousand  mile  trip  which 
must  face  exhausting  toil  day  after  day  for  six  months,  that  must  submit  to  thirst, 
heat,  dust,  sleep  in  the  open  and  push  ahead  every  day  and  all  day  rain  or  shine, 
naturally  and  efl:ectually  debarred  the  weak,  infirm  or  diseased  from  attempt- 
ing the  trip.  They  all  had  more  or  less  of  the  three  R's  of  a  log  school  house  edu- 
cation— "Reading,  'Riting  and  'Rithmetic." 

What  they  lacked  in  book  learning  was  made  up  in  strong  common  sense  and 
practical  experience  in  life.  The  first  big  train  of  emigrants  contained  one 
lawyer,  one  surveyor,  and  one  doctor,  and  half  a  dozen  country  exhorterS  and 
preachers.  The  schoolmaster  was  conspicuous  by  his  absence.  It  was  now  force, 
power,  push,  courage,  endurance  to  the  last — or  wretched  failure.  The  pioneers 
on  the  Oregon  trail  risked  everything — and  won.  One  of  them,  only  a  boy  that 
witnessed  the  motley  throng,  later  in  life  sketched  those  heroic  figures  in  forceful 
lines : 

"What  strong,  uncommon  men  were  these — 

These  settlers  hewing  to  the  seas ! 

Great  hornj'-handed  men,  and  tan — 

Their  wretchedness  held  in  the  van. 

Yet  every  man  among  them  stood 

Alone,  along  that  sounding  wood. 

And  every  man — somehow  a  Man, 

They  pushed  the  matted  wood  aside, 

They  tossed  the  forest  like  a  toy ; 

That  grand,  forgotten  race  of  men — 

The  boldest  band  that  yet  has  been 

Together,  since  the  siege  of  Troy ! 

WHAT  WAS  THE  OUTFIT? 

The  following  were  the  requirements  of  emigrants  who  came  to  Oregon  in 
1843,  driving  ox  teams,  as  specified  by  Peter  H.  Burnett,  one  of  the  men  who 
made  the  trip,  writing  back  to  a  friend,  says : 


x^xx  OrcuowTraLV 


ooo/^outle.  <A  "Lie vvLs  enact  CIcltV;  "'  i^LS  n-,  "i.    ,-' 

.\IAI'  OK  rXITED  STATES  IX  1^.4:; 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  241 

"The  wagons  for  this  trip  should  be  two-horse  wagons,  j)hun  yanl^ee  beds, 
the  running  gear  made  of  good  materials,  and  fine  workmanship,  with  falling 
tongues ;  and  all  in  a  state  of  good  repair.  A  few  extra  iron  bolts,  linch  pins, 
skeins,  paint  l)ands,  for  the  axle,  one  cold  chisel,  a  .few  pounds  of  wrought  nails, 
assorted,  several  papers  of  cut  tacks,  and  some  hoop  iron,  and  a  punch  for  mak- 
ing holes  in  the  hoop  iron,  a  few  chisels,  handsaw,  drawing  knife,  axes,  and  tools 
genei-ally;  it  would  be  well  to  bring,  especially,  augers,  as  they  may  be  needed  on 
the  way  for  repairing.  All  light  tools  that  a  man  has,  that  do  not  weigh  too  much, 
he  ought  to  bring.  Palling  tongues  are  greatly  superior  to  others,  though  both 
will  do.  You  frequently  pass  across  hollows  that  have  very  steep,  but  short  banks, 
where  falling  tongues  are  preferable,  and  there  are  no  trees  on  the  way  to  break 
them.  The  wagon  sheets  should  be  double  and  not  painted,  as  that  makes  them 
break.  The  wagon  bows  should  be  well  made  and  strong,  and  it  is  best  to  have 
sideboards,  and  liave  the  upper  edge  of  the  wagon  body  beveled  outward,  so  that 
the  water  running  down  the  wagon  sheet,  when  it  strikes  the  body,  may  run  down 
on  the  outside ;  and  it  is  well  to  have  the  bottom  of  the  bed  beveled  in  the  same 
way,  that  the  water  may  not  run  inside  the  wagon.  Having  your  wagons  well 
prepared,  they  are  as  secure,  almost,  as  a  house.  Tents  and  wagon  sheets  are  best 
made  of  heavy  brown  cotton  drilling,  and  will  last  well  all  the  way. 

' '  Beware  of  heavy  wagons,  as  they  break  down  your  teams  for  no  purpose,  and 
you  will  not  need  them.  Light  wagons  will  carry  all  you  want,  as  there  is  nothing 
to  break  them  down,  no  logs,  no  stumps,  no  rock,  until  you  get  more  than  half 
way,  when  your  load  is  so  much  reduced,  that  there  is  then  no  danger.  You  see  no 
stumps  on  the  road  until  you  get  to  Burnt  River,  and  very  few  there,  no  rock 
until  you  get  into  the  Black  Hills,  and  only  there  for  a  short  distance,  and  not 
bad,  and  then  you  see  none  until  you  reach  the  Great  Soda  Spring,  on  Bear  River 
— at  least  none  of  any  consequence.  If  an  individual  should  have  several  wagons, 
some  good  and  some  ordinary,  he  might  start  with  all  of  them ;  and  his  ordinary 
wagons  will  go  to  the  mountains,  where  his  load  will  be  so  reduced  that  his  other 
wagons  will  do.  It  is  not  necessary  to  bring  along  an  extra  axletree,  as  you  will 
rarely  break  one.  A  few  pieces  of  well  seasoned  hickory,  for  the  wedges  and  the 
like,  you  ought  to  bring. 

"Teams: — The  best  teams  for  this  trip  are  ox  teams.  Let  the  oxen  be  from 
three  to  five  years  old,  well  set  and  compactly  built;  just  such  oxen  as  are  best 
for  uses  at  home.  They  should  not  be  too  heavy ;  as  their  feet  will  not  bear  the 
trip  so  well;  but  oxen  six,  seven  and  eight  years  old,  some  of  them  very  large, 
stood  the  trip  last  year  very  well,  but  not  so  well  in  general  as  the  younger  and 
lighter  ones.  Young  cows  make  just  as  good  a  team  as  an,y.  It  is  the  travel  and 
not  the  pulling  that  tires  your  team,  until  after  you  reach  Fort  Hall.  If  you  have 
cows  for  a  team,  it  requires  more  of  them  in  bad  roads,  but  they  stand  the  trip 
equally  as  well,  if  not  better,  than  oxen.  We  fully  tested  the  ox  and  mule  teams, 
and  we  found  the  ox  teams  greatly  superior.  One  ox  will  pull  as  much  as  two 
mules,  and,  in  mud,  as  much  as  four.  They  are  more  easily  managed,  are  not  so 
subject  to  be  lost  or  broken  down  on  the  way,  cost  less  at  the  start;  and  are  worth 
about  four  times  as  much  here.  The  ox  is  a  most  noble  animal,  patient,  thrifty, 
durable,  gentle,  and  easily  driven,  and  does  not  run  off.  Those  who  come  to  this 
country  will  be  in  love  with  their  oxen  by  the  time  they  reach  here.    The  ox  will 

Vol.  I— 16 


242  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

plunge  through  the  mud,  swim  over  streams,  dive  into  thickets,  and  climb  moun- 
tains to  get  at  the  grass,  and  he  will  eat  almost  anything. 

"Milch  cows  on  the  road  are  exceedingly  useful,  as  they  give  an  abundance  of 
milk  all  the  way,  though  less  toward  the  close  of  it.  By  making  what  is  called 
thickened  milk  on  the  way,  a  great  saving  of  flour  is  effected,  and  it  is  a  most 
rich  and  delicious  food,  especially  for  the  children. 

"Provisions: — One  hundred  and  forty  pounds  of  flour,  forty  pounds  of  bacon 
to  each  person.  Besides  this,  as  much  dried  fruit,  rice,  corn  meal,  parched  corn, 
meal,  and  raw  corn,  peas,  sugar,  tea,  eofi'ee,  and  such  like  articles  as  you  can  well 
bring.  Flour  will  keep  sweet  the  whole  trip,  corn  meal  to  the  mountains,  and 
parched  corn  meal  all  the  way.  The  flour  and  meal  ought  to  be  put  in  sacks  or 
light  barrels;  and  what  they  call  shorts  are  just  as  good  as  the  finest  flour,  and 
will  perhaps  keep  better ;  but  I  do  not  remember  of  any  flour  being  spoiled  on  the 
way.  The  parched  corn  meal  is  excellent  to  make  soup.  Dried  fruit  is  excellent. 
A  few  beef  cattle  to  kill  on  the  way,  or  fat  calves,  are  very  useful,  as  you  need 
fresh  meat. 

"The  loading  should  consist  mostly  of  provisions.  Emigrants  should  not 
burden  themselves  with  furniture,  or  many  beds ;  and  a  few  light  trunks,  or  very 
light  boxes,  might  be  brought  to  pack  clothes  in.  Trunks  are  best,  but  they  should 
be  light.  All  heavy  articles  should  be  left,  except  a  few  cooking  vessels,  one 
shovel,  and  a  pair  of  pot  hooks.  Clothes  enough  to  last  a  year,  and  several  pair  of 
strong,  heavy  shoes  to  each  person,  it  will  be  well  to  bring.  If  you  are  heavily 
loaded  let  the  quantity  of  sugar  and  coffee  be  small,  as  milk  is  preferable  and  does 
not  have  to  be  hauled.  You  should  have  a  water  keg,  and  a  tin  canister  made  like 
a  powder  canister  to  hold  your  milk  in ;  a  few  tin  cups,  tin  plates,  tin  saucers,  and 
butcher  knives ;  and  there  should  be  a  small  grindstone  in  company,  as  the  tools 
become  dull  on  the  way.  Many  other  articles  may  be  useful.  Rifles  and  shot- 
guns, pistols,  powder,  lead  and  shot,  I  need  hardly  say  are  useful,  and  some  of 
them  necessary  on  the  road,  and  sell  well  here.  A  rifle  that  would  cost  $20.00  in 
the  States  is  worth  $50.00  here,  and  shotguns  in  proportion. 

"Companies  of  from  forty  to  fifty  wagons  are  large  enough.  Americans  are 
prone  to  differ  in  opinion,  and  large  companies  become  unwieldy,  and  the  stock 
become  more  troublesome.  In  driving  stock  to  this  country,  about  one  in  ten  is 
lost,  not  more.  Having  started,  the  best  way  to  save  the  teams  is  to  drive  a  rea- 
sonable distance  every  day,  and  stop  about  an  hour  befoi-e  sundown.  This  gives 
time  for  arranging  the  camp,  and  for  the  teams  to  rest  and  eat  before  it  is  dark. 
About  eight  hours'  drive  is  long  days — resting  one  hour  at  noon — I  think  is 
enough.  Never  drive  irregularly,  if  you  can  avoid  it.  On  Platte  River,  Bear 
River,  and  Boise  River,  and  in  many  other  places,  you  can  camp  at  any  point  you 
please ;  but  at  other  places  on  the  way  you  will  be  compelled  to  drive  hard  some 
days  to  get  water  and  range.  Wlien  you  reach  the  buffalo  country  never  stop  your 
wagons  to  hunt,  as  you  will  eat  up  more  provisions  than  you  wall  save.  It  is 
true,  you  can  kill  buffalo,  but  they  are  always  far  from  camp,  and  the  weather 
is  too  warm  to  save  much  of  it.  When  you  reach  the  country  of  game,  those  who 
have  good  horses  can  keep  the  company  in  fresh  meat.  If  an  individual  wishes  to 
have  great  amusement  hunting  the  buffalo,  he  had  better  have  an  extra  horse,  and 
not  use  him  until  he  reaches  the  buffalo  region.  Buffalo  hunting  is  very  hard 
upon  horses,  and  emigrants  had  better  be  cautious  how  they  unnecessarily  break 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  ()V  OKKUON  24:j 

down  tliuir  horses.  A  prudent  t'iirc  should  be  taUeii  oL'  horses,  teams  and  pro- 
visions, from  the  start.  Nothing  should  be  wasted  or  thrown  away  that  ean  be 
eaten.  li"  a  prudent  course  is  taken,  the  trip  can  be  made,  in  ordinary  seasons, 
in  four  months.  It  took  ns  longer;  but  we  lost  a  great  deal  of  lime  on  llie  road, 
and  had  the  way  to  break. ' ' 

A  mountain  man  known  to  travelers  as  Major  Harris,  and  to  the  plainsmen  as 
"Black  Harris"  in  company  with  another  :Missouri  warrior  known  to  fame  as 
Major  Adams,  gives  the  following  list  for  an  outfit  to  Oregon : 

"Every  man  should  be  provided  at  least  with  a  good  rifle,  six  pounds  of 
I)owder  and  twelve  pounds  of  lead.  The  best  size  bore  for  a  rifle  is  forty  to  the 
pound.  This  size  will  easily  kill  buffalo,  but  a  smaller  calibre  will  be  better  suited 
for  the  game  west  of  the  mountains.  Each  person  should  have  at  least  one  hun- 
dred and  forty  pounds  of  bacon,  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  of  flour,  ten  pounds 
of  salt,  twenty  pounds  coil'ee,  twenty  pounds  sugar.  It  would  do  well  for  several 
persons  to  constitute  a  mess,  each  mess  to  be  provided  with  a  small  tent  and  cook- 
ing utensils.  Mules  are  much  better  to  endure  this  trip  than  horses,  though  a 
horse  is  very  useful  in  running  buffalo.  A  horse,  to  be  of  use  in  hunting,  might 
be  kept  for  that  express  purpose." 

Medorem  Crawford  who  came  aci-oss  the  plains  in  1842,  and  was  one  of  the 
men  who  formed  the  Provisional  Government,  gives  a  list  of  goods  and  trinkets 
he  brought  along  to  trade  with  the  Indians  as  follows : 

P.\CK   NO.   1 

Pr.  Blankets,  Tobacco,  1  Bunch  Glass  Beads,  1  Bunch  Fancy  White,  1 
Bunch  Garnishing  White,  2  Doz.  Butcher  Knives,  1  Bunch  Blue  Agate  lieads,  1 
Bunch  Garnishing  Blue,  1  Bunch  Fish  Hooks,  1  Piece  Blue  Cloth,  Tobacco, 
Powder,  Glass  Beads.  Fancy  White  B.  Garnishing,  B.  White,  Butcher  Knives, 
Blue  Agate  Beads,  1  Blue  Garnishing  Beads,  Fish  Hooks,  Blue  Cloth,  Crawford's 
Clothes,  2  Bunch  Bells,  Rice,  Flints,  2  Gross  Rings,  2  Doz.  Looking  Glasses,  1 
Blue  Garnishing  Beads,  Crocker's  Clothes,  Red  Cloth,  Lead. 

PACK   NO.   2 

Crawford's  Clothes,  Crocker's  Clothes,  1  Blanket,  2  Bunches  Bells,  Rice  and 
Flints,  2  Gross  Rings,  2  Doz.  Looking  Glasses,  1  Doz.  Garnishing  Beads,  1  Piece 
Red  Cloth,  Bar  Lead. 

S.  M.  Gilmore,  who  came  across  in  1843,  and  after  the  experience  of  that  trip 
wrote  back  to  friends  in  Missouri  from  Vancouver  under  date  of  November  11th, 
1843,  his  advice  to  those  planning  to  move  to  Oregon,  as  follows: 

"Your  wagons  should  be  light,  yet  substantial  and  strong,  and  a  plenty  of  good 
oxen.  Though  I  wrote  while  on  the  Sweetwater  that  mules  were  preferable,  but 
after  seeing  them  thoroughly  tried  I  have  become  convinced  that  oxen  are  more 
preferable— they  are  the  least  trouble  and  stand  traveling  much  the  best — are 
worth  a  great  deal  more  when  here.  Load  your  wagons  light  and  put  one-third 
more  team  to  them  than  is  necessary  to  pull  the  load.  Bring  nothing  with  you  ex- 
cept provisions  and  a  plenty  of  clothes  to  do  you  for  one  year  from  the  time  you 
leave.    They  can   all  be   had  on   as  good  terms  as  in  Missouri,  and  even  better; 


244  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

bring  but  few  bedclothes,  for  they  will  be  worn  out  when  they  arrive  here — they 
can  be  had  here  on  good  terms.  Your  oxen  will  not  require  shoeing.  Bring  a 
plenty  of  loose  cattle,  cows,  and  heifers,  particularly,  as  they  are  but  little  trouble, 
and  are  worth  a  great  deal.  Bring  mules  to  drive  your  loose  stock.  Bring  a  few 
good  American  mares,  but  use  them  very  tenderly,  or  you  will  not  get  them  here. 
American  horses  are  worth  considerable  in  this  country.  Horses  can  not  get  here 
except  they  are  well  used,  and  you  should  have  two  or  three  pairs  of  shoes  and 
nails  for  them  and  your  mules.  You  should  bring  200  pounds  of  flour,  100  pounds 
of  bacon,  for  every  member  of  the  family  that  can  eat,  besides  other  provisions. 
Make  no  calculntion  on  getting  buffalo  or  other  wild  meat,  for  you  are  only  wast- 
ing time  and  killing  horses  and  mules  to  get  it.  Have  your  wagon  beds  made  in 
such  a  manner  that  they  can  be  used  for  boats ;  you  will  find  them  of  great  service 
in  crossing  streams — have  your  wagons  well  covered,  so  that  they  will  not  leak, 
or  your  provisions  and  clothes  will  spoil.  Have  your  tents  made  water  tight ;  start 
as  early  as  possible ;  let  your  teams  and  stock  all  be  in  good  order.  Start  as  soon 
as  your  stock  can  get  grass  enough  to  travel  on,  for  the  grass  will  be  getting  better 
every  day  until  you  arrive  at  Port  Hall ;  after  that  you  will  find  the  grass  bad  in 
places  until  you  get  to  the  Blue  Mountains.  You  will  find  plenty  of  grass  from 
there  to  the  Willamette  Valley.  Our  cattle  are  in  better  order  than  they  were 
one  month  ago.  Large  flintlock  guns  are  good  to  traffic  with  the  Snake  Indians. 
Bring  a  plenty  of  cheap  cotton  shirts  to  trade  to  the  Indians  on  this  side  of  the 
mountains.  You  might  start  with  calves  and  kill  them  on  the  way,  before  they  get 
poor  for  fresh  eating.  You  will  find  some  beans,  rice,  and  dried  fruit  of  great  use 
on  the  road.  You  should  travel  in  companies  of  forty  wagons,  and  continue  to- 
gether the  whole  route.  You  will  find  some  ship  biscuit  to  be  of  great  use  at  times 
when  you  can  not  find  fuel  sufficient  to  cook  with. 

' '  Be  sure  and  bring  nothing  except  what  will  be  of  material  use  to  you  on  your 
journey,  for,  depend  upon  it,  if  you  overload  you  will  lose  your  team,  wagon  and 
goods.  You  will  find  good,  stout,  young  cows  to  answer  in  place  of  oxen,  in  case 
you  should  not  have  sufficient ;  let  them  be  about  middle  size ;  let  them  be  good, 
sound  oxen,  that  have  never  been  injured.  I  am  satisfied  from  the  products  of  the 
country  that  a  man  can  live  easier  here  than  he  can  in  any  part  of  the  United 
States.  If  he  raises  any  produce  he  is  sure  of  getting  a  good  price  for  it  in  any- 
thing he  may  call  for,  money  excepted.  There  is  very  little  money  in  this  country, 
though  it  is  very  little  use  when  a  man  can  get  anything  he  wants  without  it.  The 
merchants  here  will  sell  their  goods  cheaper  for  produce  or  labor  than  they  will 
sell  for  cash,  because  they  make  a  profit  on  the  commodities  they  purchase,  while 
there  is  no  profit  on  cash.  In  fact,  business  is  done  here  altogether  by  exchanging 
commodities.  We  can  purchase  anything  of  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company  cheaper 
by  promising  wheat  next  year  than  we  can  for  cash  in  hand.  Cows  are  worth 
(that  is,  American),  from  $30.00  to  $50.00;  American  horses  from  $60.00  to 
$100.00;  oxen  $60.00  to  $80.00;  wheat,  $1.00  per  bushel;  oats,  40  cents;  potatoes, 
40  cents ;  peas  the  same ;  beef,  6  cents ;  pork,  10  cents ;  butter,  20  cents ;  common 
labor,  $1.50;  mechanics,  $2.00  to  $3.00. 

' '  The  next  emigration  will  get  their  cattle  and  wagons  through  quite  easy,  if 
they  will  start  early  and  travel  constantly,  though  slow;  they  must  not  push." 


I 


KANSAS    CITY    IN    1843,   AS    THE    OREGON    EMIGRANTS    LEFT    IT 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  245 

"all  aboard  FOU  OREGON" 

The  followiug  notice  was  printed  in  the  Western  (Missouri)  Journal,  iMareh 
15,  1845 : 

"Mr.  Editor:  I  wish  to  give  notice,  through  your  paper,  to  all  those  parties 
who  intend  to  emigrate  to  Oregon,  that  ai-rangements  have  been  made  to  cross 
the  Missouri  river  at  two  diti'erent  points,  the  one  in  Andrew,  the  other  in  Bu- 
chanan county.  Some  of  the  citizens  of  Andrew  have  made  arrangements  with 
the  Sac  Indians  for  the  privilege  of  range,  wood  and  water,  opposite  Elizabeth- 
town. 

' '  They  liave  promised  the  Indians  six  two-year-old  beeves,  to  be  jiaid  by  that 
portion  of  the  Oregon  company  which  may  cross  at  Elizabethtown.  This  point 
is  very  suitable  for  ci-ossing  the  Missouri  river.  The  rates  are  only  about  half 
what  is  usual  at  the  common  ferries  on  the  Missouri. 

"The  company  expect  to  rendezvous  in  the  Indian  country  opposite  Eliza- 
bethtovFn,  between  the  first  and  tenth  of  April.  A  number  of  excellent  citizens 
expect  to  cross  at  this  place.  This  is  the  point  from  which  a  portion  of  the  Ore- 
gon company  started  last  spring.  Taking  all  things  into  consideration,  this  is 
probably  the  best  route  to  cross  the  Missouri  at  Elizabethtown  (where  there  is 
an  excellent  large  ferry-boat)  and  fall  on  the  Platte,  opposite  the  Pawnee 
village,  and  thence  pass  along  up  the  south  side  of  the  Platte  river. 

' '  A  Member  of  the  Oregon  Company  ' ' 

THE  rendezvous 

Col.  James  W.  Nesmith  has  given  an  account  of  the  gathering  of  the  clans  at 
Fitzhugh's  mill  near  Independence,  Missouri,  and  this  is  copied  as  the  best  des- 
cription possible. 

"Without  orders  from  any  quarter,  and  without  preconcert,  promptly  as  the 
grass  began  to  start,  the  emigrants  began  to  assemble  near  Independence,  at  a 
place  called  Fitzhugh's  Mill.  On  the  seventeenth  day  of  May,  1843,  notices  were 
circulated  through  the  ditt'erent  encampments  that  on  the  succeeding  day,  those 
who  contemplated  emigrating  to  Oregon,  would  meet  at  a  designated  point  to 
organize.  Promptly  at  the  appointed  hour  the  motley  groups  assembled.  They 
consisted  of  people  from  all  the  States  and  Tei'ritories,  and  nearly  all  nation- 
alities; the  most,  however,  from  Arkansas,  Illinois,  Missouri,  and  Iowa,  and  all 
strangers  to  one  another,  but  impressed  with  some  crude  idea  that  there  existed 
an  imperative  necessity  for  some  kind  of  an  organization  for  mutual  protection 
against  the  hostile  Indians  inhabiting  the  great  unknown  wilderness  stretching 
away  to  the  shores  of  the  Pacific,  and  which  they  were  about  to  traverse,  with 
their  wives  and  children,  household  goods,  and  all  their  earthly  possessions. 

]Many  of  the  emigrants  were  from  the  western  tier  of  counties  of  .Missouri, 
known  as  the  Platte  Purchase,  and  among  them  was  Peter  II.  Purnett,  a  former 
merchant  wdio  had  abandoned  the  yard-stick  and  become  a  lawyer  of  some  celeb- 
rity for  his  ability  as  a  smooth-tongued  advocate.  He  subsequently  emigrated 
to  California,  and  was  elected  the  first  governor  of  the  Golden  State,  was  after- 
ward chief  justice  and  still  an  honored  resident  of  that  State.  ^\v.  Burnett,  or 
as  he  was  familiarly  designated  "Pete,"  w-as  called  upon  for  a  speech.    Mount- 


246  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

ing  a  log,  the  glib-tongued  orator  delivered  a  glowing,  florid  address.  He  com- 
meuced  bj'  showing  his  audience  that  the  then  western  tier  of  states  and  terri- 
tories was  over-crowded  with  a  redundant  population,  who  had  not  sufficient 
elbow  room  for  the  expansion  of  their  enterprise  and  genius,  and  it  was  a  duty 
they  owed  to  themselves  and  posterity  to  strike  out  in  search  of  a  more  expanded 
field  and  more  genial  climate,  where  the  soil  yielded  the  richest  return  for  the 
slightest  amount  of  cultivation,  where  the  trees  were  loaded  with  perennial  fruit, 
and  where  a  good  substitute  for  bread,  called  lacamas,  grew  in  the  ground, 
salmon  and  other  fish  crowded  the  streams,  and  where  the  principal  labor  of 
the  settler  would  be  confined  to  keeping  their  gardens  free  from  the  inroads  of 
buffalo,  elk,  deer,  and  wild  turkeys.  He  appealed  to  our  patriotism  by  pictur- 
ing forth  the  glorious  empire  we  would  establish  on  the  shores  of  the  Paciiic. 
How,  with  our  trusty  rifles,  we  would  drive  out  the  British  usurpers  who  claimed 
the  soil,  and  defend  the  country  from  the  avarice  and  pretensions  of  the  British 
lion,  and  how  posterity  would  honor  us  for  placing  the  fairest  portion  of  our 
land  under  the  dominion  of  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  He  concluded  with  a  slight 
allusion  to  the  trials  and  hardships  incident  to  the  trip,  and  dangers  to  be  en- 
countered from  hostile  Indians,  on  the  route,  and  those  inhabiting  the  country 
whither  we  were  bound.  He  furthermore  intimated  a  desire  to  look  upon  the 
tribe  of  noble  "red  men"  that  the  valiant  and  well-armed  crowd  around  could 
not  vanquish  in  a  single  encounter. 

Other  speeches  were  made,  full  of  glowing  descriptions  of  the  fair  land  of 
promise,  the  far-away-Oregon,  which  no  one  in  the  assemblage  had  even  seen, 
and  of  which  not  more  than  half  a  dozen  had  ever  read  any  account.  After  the 
election  of  Mr.  Burnett  as  captain,  and  other  necessary  officers,  the  meeting,  as 
motley  and  primitive  as  one  ever  assembled,  adjourned,  with  "three  cheers"  for 
Captain  Burnett  and  Oregon.  On  the  20th  day  of  May,  1843,  after  a  pretty  thor- 
ough military  organization,  we  took  up  our  line  of  march;  with  Captain  John 
Gantt,  an  old  arm.y  officer,  who  combined  the '  character  of  trapper  and  moun- 
taineer, as  our  guide.  Gantt  had  in  his  wanderings  been  as  far  as  Green  River, 
and  assured  us  of  the  practicability  of  a  wagon  road  thus  far.  Green  River,  the 
extent  of  our  guide's  knowledge  in  that  direction,  was  not  half-way  to  the  Wil- 
lamette valley,  the  then  only  inhabited  portion  of  Oregon.  Beyond  that  we  had 
not  the  slightest  conjecture  of  the  condition  of  the  country.  We  went  forth 
trusting  to  the  future,  and  would  doubtless  have  encountered  more  difficulties 
than  we  experienced  had  not  Dr.  Whitman  overtaken  us  before  we  reached  the 
terminus  of  our  guide's  knowledge.  He  was  familiar  with  the  whole  route  and 
was  confident  that  wagons  could  pass  through  the  canyons  and  gorges  of  Snake 
River  and  over  the  Blue  Mountains,  which  the  mountaineers  in  the  vicinity  of 
Fort  Hall  declared  to  be  a  physical  impossibility. 

"Captain  Grant,  then  in  charge  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  at  Fort  Hall, 
endeavored  to  dissuade  us  from  proceeding  further  with  our  wagons,  and  showed 
us  the  wagons  that  the  emigrants  of  the  preceding  year  had  abandoned  as  an 
evidence  of  the  impracticability  of  our  determination.  Dr.  Whitman  was  per- 
sistent in  his  assertions  that  wagons  could  proceed  as  far  as  the  Grand  Dalles 
of  the  Columbia  River,  from  which  point  he  asserted  they  could  be  taken  down 
by  rafts  or  batteaux  to  the  Willamette  Valley,  while  our  stock  could  be  driven 
by  an  Indian  trail  over  the  Cascade  Mountains,  near  Mount  Hood.     Happily 


'rB'^ 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  247 

Whitman's  advice  prevailed,  and  a  large  number  of  the  wagons  with  a  portion 
of  the  stock,  did  reach  Walhi  Walla  and  The  Dalles,  from  which  points  tliey 
were  taken  to  the  Willamette  the  following  year.  Had  we  followed  Grant's  ad- 
vice and  abandoned  the  cattle  and  wagons  at  Fort  Hall,  much  suffering  must 
have  ensued,  as  a  sufficient  number  of  horses  to  carry  the  women  and  children 
of  the  party  could  not  have  been  obtained,  besides  wagons,  and  cattle  were  in- 
dispensable to  men  expecting  to  live  by  farming  in  a  country  destitute  of  such 
articles. 

"At  Fort  Hall  we  fell  in  with  some  Cayuse  and  Nez  Perce  Indians  re- 
turning from  the  buffalo  country,  and  as  it  was  necessary  for  Dr.  Whitman  to 
precede  us  to  Walla  Walla,  he  recommended  to  us  a  guide  in  the  person  of  an 
old  Cayuse  Indian  called  "Sticcus. "  He  was  a  faithful  old  fellow,  perfectly 
familiar  with  all  the  trails  and  topography  of  the  country  from  Fort  Hall  to  The 
Dalles,  and  although  not  speaking  a  word  of  English,  and  no  one  in  our  party 
a  word  of  Cayuse,  he  succeeded  by  pantomime  in  taking  us  over  the  roughest 
wagon  route  I  ever  saw. ' ' 

THE    CARAVAN    STARTS 

There  is  no  account  of  the  work  of  the  Pioneers  so  satisfactory  as  that  of 
those  who  took  part  in  it,  the  actual  witnesses  of  the  movement.  Jesse  Apple- 
gate,  affectionately  styled  "Uncle  Jesse,"  has  written  an  account  of  the  Immi- 
grant Train  of  1843,  of  which  he  was  a  member,  that  is  remarkable  for  its  force 
and  brevity.    And  from  that  account  is  taken  the  following  extract : 

"The  migrating  body  numbered  over  one  thousimd  souls,  witli  about  V20 
wagons,  drawn  by  six  ox  teams  averaging  about  six  yokes  (12  oxen)  to  the  team, 
and  sevei'al  thousand  loose  horses  and  cattle.  The  emigrants  first  organized  and 
attempted  to  travel  in  one  body,  but  it  was  soon  found  that  no  progress  could  be 
made  with  a  body  so  cumbrous,  and  as  yet  so  avei"se  to  all  discipline.  At  the 
crossing  of  the  Big  Blue  River  (in  Kansas)  the  train  divided  into  two  columns, 
traveling  within  supporting  distance  of  each  other,  in  case  of  an  attack  by  In- 
dians.    *     *     * 

"It  is  four  o'clock  A.  M.,  the  sentinels  on  duty  have  discharged  their  rifles — 
the  signal  that  the  houi-s  of  sleep  are  over — and  every  wagon  and  tent  is  pour- 
ing forth  its  night  tenants,  and  slow-kindling  smokes  begin  largely  to  rise  and 
float  away  in  the  morning  air.  Sixty  men  start  from  the  corral,  spreading  as 
the.y  make  through  the  vast  herd  of  cattle  antl  horses,  that  form  a  semicircle 
around  the  encampment,  the  most  distant  perhaps  two  miles  away. 

"The  herdei's  pass  to  the  extreme  verge  and  carefully  examine  for  trails  be- 
yond, to  see  that  none  of  the  animals  have  strayed  or  been  stolen  during  the 
night.  This  morning  no  trails  led  beyond  the  outside  animals  in  sight,  and  by 
5  o'clock  the  herders  begin  to  contract  the  great  moving  circle,  and  the  well- 
trained  animals  move  slowly  towards  camp,  clipping  here  and  there  a  thistle 
or  a  tempting  bunch  of  grass  on  the  way.  In  about  an  hour  five  thousand  ani- 
mals are  close  up  to  the  encampment,  and  the  teamsters  are  busy  selecting  their 
teams  and  driving  them  inside  the  corral  to  be  yoked.  The  corral  is  a  circle  one 
hundred  yards  deep,  formed  with  wagons  connected  strongly  with  each  other; 
the  wagon  in  the  rear  being  connected  with  the  wagon  in  front  by  its  tongue  and 


248  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

ox  chains.  It  is  a  strong  barrier  that  the  most  vicious  ox  cannot  break,  and  in 
case  of  an  attack  of  the  Sioux  would  be  no  contemptible  entrenchment. 

' '  From  6  to  7  0  'clock  is  a  busy  time ;  breakfast  is  to  be  eaten,  the  tents  stnick, 
the  wagons  loaded  and  the  teams  yoked  and  brought  up  in  readiness  to  be  at- 
tached to  their  respective  wagons.  All  know  when,  at  7  o'clock,  the  signal  to 
march  sounds,  that  those  not  ready  to  take  their  proper  places  in  the  line  of 
march,  must  fall  into  the  dusty  rear  for  the  day. 

"There  are  sixty  wagons.  They  have  been  divided  into  fifteen  divisions  or 
platoons  of  four  wagons  each,  and  each  platoon  is  entitled  to  lead  in  its  turn. 
The  leading  platoon  today  will  be  the  rear  one  tomorrow,  and  will  bring  up  the 
rear  unless  some  teamster,  through  indolence  or  negligence,  has  lost  his  place 
in  the  line,  and  is  condemned  to  that  uncomfortable  post.  It  is  within  ten  min- 
utes of  seven,  the  corral  but  now  a  strong  barricade  is  everywhere  broken,  the 
teams  being  attached  to  the  wagons.  The  women  and  children  have  taken  their 
places  in  them.  The  pilot  (a  borderer  who  has  passed  his  life  on  the  verge  of 
civilization  and  has  been  chosen  to  the  post  of  leader  from  his  knowledge  of  the 
savage  and  his  experience  in  travel  through  roadless  wastes),  stands  ready  in 
the  midst  of  his  pioneers  and  aids,  to  mount  and  lead  the  way.  Ten  or  fifteen 
young  men,  not  today  on  duty,  form  another  cluster.  They  are  ready  to  start  on 
a  buffalo  hunt,  are  well  mounted  and  well  armed,  as  they  need  be,  for  the  un- 
friendly Sioux  have  driven  the  buffalo  out  of  the  Platte,  and  the  hunters  must 
ride  fifteen  or  twenty  miles  to  reach  them.  The  cow  drivers  are  hastening,  as 
they  get  ready,  to  the  rear  of  their  charges,  to  collect  and  prepare  them  for  the 
day's  march. 

"It  is  on  the  stroke  of  seven ;  the  rush  to  and  fro,  the  cracking  of  whips,  the 
loud  command  to  oxen,  and  what  seemed  to  be  the  inextricable  confusion  of  the 
last  ten  minutes,  has  ceased.  Fortunately  every  one  has  been  found  and  every 
teamster  is  at  his  post.  The  clear  notes  of  a  trumpet  sound  in  the  front ;  the 
pilot  and  his  guards  mount  their  horses ;  the  leading  division  of  the  wagons  move 
out  of  the  encampment,  and  take  up  the  line  of  march ;  the  rest  fall  into  their 
places  with  the  precision  of  clock  work,  until  the  spot  so  lately  full  of  life  sinks 
back  into  that  solitude  that  seems  to  reign  over  the  broad  plain  and  rushing 
river  as  the  caravan  draws  its  lazy  length  towards  the  distant  El  Dorado.    *    *    * 

"They  (the  wagons)  form  a  line  three-quarters  of  a  mile  in  length;  some 
of  the  teamsters  ride  upon  the  front  of  their  wagons ;  some  march  beside  their 
teams ;  scattered  along  the  line  companies  of  women  and  children  are  taking  exer- 
cise on  foot ;  they  gather  bouquets  of  rare  and  beautiful  flowers  that  line  the  way ; 
near  them  stalks  a  stately  greyhound,  or  an  Irish  wolf  dog,  apparently  proud  of 
keeping  watch  and  ward  over  his  master's  wife  and  children.  Next  comes  a  band 
of  horses ;  two  or  three  men  or  boys  follow  them,  the  docile  and  sagacious  animals 
scarce  needing  this  attention,  for  they  have  learned  to  follow  in  the  rear  of  the 
the  wagons,  and  know  that  at  noon  they  will  be  allowed  to  graze  and  rest.  Their 
knowledge  of  time  seems  as  accurate  as  of  the  place  they  are  to  occupy  in  the 
line,  and  even  a  full-blown  thistle  will  scarce  tempt  to  straggle  or  halt  until 
the  dinner  hour  has  arrived.  Not  so  with  the  large  herd  of  horned  beasts  that 
bring  up  the  rear;  lazy,  selfish  and  unsocial,  it  has  been  a  task  to  get  them  in 
motion,  the  strong  always  ready  to  domineer  over  the  weak,  halt  in  the  front 
and  forbid  the  weak  to  pass  them.    They  seem  to  move  onlj'  in  the  fear  of  the 


THE  (CENTENNIAL  IllSTOKY  OF  OKECiON  249 

Jrivor's  wliiji;  lliougli  in  tlu'  iiKiniing'.  lull  to  repletion,  they  have  not  been 
driven  an  hour  before  their  hunger  and  thirst  seem  to  indicate  a  fast  of  days' 
duration.  Thi-ough  all  the  long  day  their  greed  is  never  sated,  nor  their 
thirst  quenched;  nor  is  there  a  inomeuf  of  relaxation  of  the  tedious  and  vexa- 
tious labors  of  their  drivers,  although  to  all  others  the  uaareh  furnishes  some 
season  of  relaxation  or  enjoyment.     For  the  cow-drivers  there  is  none.    «    *    * 

"But  the  picture  in  its  granduer,  its  wonderful  mingling  colors  and  dis- 
tinctness of  detail,  is  forgotten  in  contemplation  of  the  singular  people  who 
give  it  life  aiul  animation.  No  other  race  of  men  with  the  means  at  their  com- 
mand would  undertake  so  great  a  journey,  none  save  these  could  successfully 
perform  it,  with  no  previous  preparation,  relying  only  on  the  fertility  of  their 
invention  to  devise  the  means  to  overcome  each  danger  and  difficulty  as 
it  arose.  They  had  undertaken  to  perform  with  slow-moving  oxen  a  journey 
two  thousand  miles.  The  way  lies  over  trackless  wastes,  wide  and  deep  rivers, 
rugged  and  lofty  mountains,  and  is  beset  with  hostile  savages.  Yet,  whether 
it  were  a  deep  river  with  no  tree  upon  its  banks,  a  rugged  defile  where  even  a 
loose  horse  could  not  pass,  a  hill  too  steep  for  him  to  climb,  or  a  threatened 
attack  of  an  enemy,  they  are  always  found  ready  and  equal  to  the  occasion,  and 
always  conquerors.  May  we  not  call  them  men  of  destiny?  They  are  people 
changed  in  no  essential  particulars  from  their  ancestors,  who  have  followed 
closelj'  on  the  footsteps  of  the  receding  savage,  from  the  Atlantic  seaboard  to 
the  great  valley  of  the  Mississippi." 

Of  the  Emigration  in  1852,  Ezra  Meeker  (The  Trail  Marker)  who,  with  his 
family  was  a  part  of  that  long  train,  gives  the  following  account: 

"There  were  hundreds  of  noble  men  trudging  up  the  Platte  valley  at  that 
time  in  an  army  Over  Five  Hundred  Miles  Long,  many  of  whom  'laid  down'  a 
sacrifice  to  duty,  or  maybe  to  inherent  weakness  of  body.  While  it  is  true 
that  such  an  experience  brings  out  the  worst  features  of  individual  characters, 
yet  it  is  also  true  that  the  shining  virtues  come  to  the  front  likewise. ' ' 

This  great  movement  which  was  to  save  Oregon  to  the  Nation,  and  which 
was  started  primarily  by  a  few  religious  enthusiasts  to  convert  the  Indians  to 
Christianity,  was  regarded  by  the  educated  and  well  to  do  classes  of  the  eastern 
states  as  the  height  of  folly.  Horace  Greeley  was  the  personification  of  the 
Western  states  "booster,"  continually  urging  young  men  to  "Go  west  and 
grow  up  with  the  country."  But  of  the  movement  to  Oregon,  this  modern  Ben. 
Franklin,  and  in  the  New  York  Tribune  of  July  22,  1843,  gives  the  Emigrants 
the  following  notice : 

"For  what  do  they  brave  the  desert,  the  wilderness,  the  savages,  the  snowy 
precipices  of  the  Kocky  Mountains,  the  weary  summer  march,  the  storm-drenched 
bivouac,  and  the  gnawing  of  famine?  This  emigration  of  more  than  one  thou- 
sand persons  in  one  body  to  Orei^on  wears  an  aspect  of  insanity." 

And  that  is  what  it  did  look  like  to  the  great  mass  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States. 

THE    HEROIC    PIONEER    WOMAN 

"Of  the  fortitude  of  the  women  one  can  not  say  too  much.  Embarrassed  at 
the  start  by  the  follies  of  fashion  (and  long  dresses  which  were  quickly  discarded 
and  the  bloomer  donned),  they  .soon  rose  to  the  occasion  and  cast  false  modesty 


250  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

aside.  Could  we  but  have  had  the  camera  (of  coui-se  not  then  in  existence)  on 
one  of  those  typical  camps,  what  a  picture  there  would  be.  Elderly  matrons 
dressed  almost  as  like  the  little  sprite  miss  of  tender  years  of  today.  The  younger 
women  more  shy  of  accepting  the  inevitable,  but  finally  fell  into  the  procession, 
and  we  had  a  community  of  women  wearing  bloomers  without  invidious  comment, 
or  in  fact  of  any  comment  at  all.  Some  of  them  soon  went  barefoot,  partly  from 
choice  and  in  other  cases  from  necessity.  The  same  could  be  said  of  the  men, 
as  shoe  leather  began  to  grind  out  from  the  sand  and  dry  heat.  Of  all  the  fan- 
tastic costumes  it  is  safe  to  say  the  like  before  was  never  seen  nor  equaled.  The 
scene  beggars  description.  Patches  became  visible  upon  the  clothing  of  preachers 
as  well  as  laymen;  the  situation  brooked  no  respect  of  persons.  The  grand- 
mother's cap  was  soon  displaced  by  a  handkerchief  or  perhaps  a  bit  of  cloth. 
Grandfather's  high  crowned  hat  disappeared  as  if  by  magic.  Hatless  and  boot- 
less men  became  a  common  sight.  Bonnetless  women  were  to  be  seen  on  all  sides 
They  wore  what  they  had  left  or  could  get  without  question  of  the  fitness  of  things. 
Rich  dresses  were  worn  by  some  ladies  because  they  had  no  others  left ;  the  gentle- 
men drew  on  their  wardrobes  till  scarcely  a  fine  unsoiled  suit  was  left. 

HARDSHIPS 

' '  The  dust  has  been  spoken  of  as  intolerable.  The  word  hardly  expresses  the 
situation;  in  fact,  I  can  not  say  the  English  language  contains  the  word  to  de- 
fine it.  Here  was  a  moving  mass  of  humanity  and  dumb  brutes  at  times  mixed  in 
inextricable  confusion  a  hundred  feet  wide  or  more.  At  times  two  columns  of 
wagons  traveling  on  parallel  lines  and  near  each  other  served  as  a  barrier  to 
prevent  loose  stock  from  crossing,  but  usually  there  would  be  an  almost  inex- 
tricable mass  of  cows,  young  cattle,  horses,  and  footmen  moving  along  the  out- 
skirts. Here  and  there  would  be  drivers  of  loose  stock,  some  on  foot  and  some 
on  horseback;  a  young  girl  may  be  riding  astride  with  a  younger  child,  going 
here  and  there  after  an  intractable  cow,  while  the  mother  could  be  seen  in 
confusion  lending  a  helping  hand.  As  in  a  thronged  city  street,  no  one  seemed 
to  look  to  the  right  or  to  the  left,  or  pay  much  if  any  attention  to  others,  bent 
alone  on  accomplishment  of  their  task  in  hand.  Over  all,  in  calm  weather  at 
times,  the  dust  would  settle  so  thick  that  the  lead  team  of  oxen  could  not  be  seen 
from  the  wagon ;  like  a  London  fog,  so  thick  one  might  almost  cut  it.  Then  again, 
that  steady  flow  of  wind  up  to  and  through  the  South  Pass  would  hurl  the  dust 
and  sand  in  one's  face  sometimes  with  force  enough  to  sting  from  the  impact 
upon  the  face  and  hands. 

THE   GREAT    CHOLERA   PANIC 

' '  The  scourge  of  cholera  on  the  Platte  in  1852  is  far  beyond  my  power  of  de- 
scription. In  later  years  I  have  witnessed  panics  on  shipboard ;  have  experienced 
the  horrors  of  the  flight  of  a  whole  population  from  the  gi-asp  of  the  Indians, 
but  never  before  nor  since  such  scenes  as  those  in  the  thickest  of  the  ravages 
of  cholera.  It  did  seem  that  people  lost  all  control  of  themselves  and  of  others. 
Whole  trains  could  be  seen  contending  for  the  mastery  of  the  road  by  day,  and 
the  power   of  endurance  tested  to  the  utmost  both  men  and  beast  at  night.     The 


I'KKPAUIXC  FUK  AX  INDIAN  AT'J'ACK 

OLDS'  FERRY  ON  SNAKE  RIVER 

THE  DEVIL'S  GATE— ROCKY   :MorNTAINS 


TIIK  CKNTEN'NIAL  HISTORY  OF  OKKOON  2;")] 

scourge  came  from  the  south,  as  we  met  the  trains  that  crossed  the  Platte  and  con- 
gested the  trail,  one  might  almost  say,  both  day  and  night.  And  small  wonder 
vvTien  such  scenes  occurred  as  is  related.  Mrs.  M.  E.  Jones  now  of  North  Yakima, 
relates  that  forty  people  of  their  train  died  in  one  day  and  two  nights  before 
reaching  the  crossing  of  the  Platte.  Martin  Cook,  of  Newberg,  Oregon,  is  my  au- 
thority for  the  following:  A  family  of  seven  persons,  the  father  known  as  "Dad 
Friels,"  from  Hartford,  Warren  county,  Iowa,  all  died  of  cholera  and  were  buried 
in  one  grave.  He  could  not  tell  me  the  locality  nor  the  exact  date,  but  it  would  be 
useless  to  search  for  the  graves,  as  all  such  have  long  ago  been  leveled  by  the 
passing  of  the  hoofs  of  the  buffalo  or  domestic  stock,  or  met  the  fate  of  hun- 
dreds of  shallow  graves,"  desecrated  by  the  hungry  wolves.  While  camped  with 
a  sick  brother  four  days  a  short  distance  above  Grand  island,  by  actual  count  of 
one  day  and  estimate  for  thi-ee,  sixteen  hundred  wagons  passed  by,  and  a  neigh- 
boring burial  place  grew  from  five  to  fifty-two  fresh  graves.  With  unusual 
ojjportunities  for  gathering  information  upon  this  subject,  through  personal 
acquaintance  with  pioneers  throughout  the  Pacific  northwest,  all  of  whom  came 
to  that  region  prior  to  1860,  it  is  his  judgment  that  from  twenty-five  to  thirty 
thousand  men,  women  and  children  were  buried  in  nameless  graves  between  the 
^Missouri  river  and  the  Columbia  river,  as  a  part  of  the  price  paid  for  the  early 
settlement  of  Oregon. 

All  sorts  of  incidents  of  human  life  break  the  monotony  of  the  march.  Sud- 
denly a  wagon  is  seen  to  pull  out  of  the  train  and  off  to  the  wayside.  The  only 
doctor  in  the  train  (Marcus  Whitman)  goes  off  with  it.  Many  are  the 
inquiries  of  the  unusual  event ;  and  grave  fears  expressed  of  the  danger  of  leaving 
a  lone  wagon  behind  in  an  Indian  country.  The  lumbering  caravan  moves  slowly 
on,  passes  behind  the  bluffs  and  out  of  sight,  and  the  anxiety  and  fears  for  the 
lone  wagon  left  behind  increase.  The  train  halts  for  the  night,  forms  its  defensive 
circle,  fires  are  lighted  for  the  evening  meal  and  the  shadows  of  the  night  are 
creeping  down  upon  the  camp — when,  behold,  the  lone  wagon  rolls  into  camp, 
the  doctor  smiling  and  happy — it  was  a  newborn  boy — mother  and  child  all 
right  and  ready  for  the  continued  journey." 

Applegate,  in  the  article  mentioned,  speaking  of  Dr.  Whitman,  who  had 
been  over  the  trail  once  before,  says  his  constant  advice  was  "travel,  travel, 
travel;  nothing  else  will  take  you  to  the  end  of  your  journey;  nothing  is  wise 
that  does  not  help  you  along;  nothing  is  good  for  you  that  causes  a  moment's 
delay."  And  Applegate  adds  his  testimonial  as  follows:  "It  is  no  disparage- 
ment to  others  to  say  that  to  no  other  individual  are  the  emigrants  of  1843  so 
much  indebted  for  the  successful  conclusion  of  their  journey  as  to  Dr.  Whit- 
man." 

The  watch  for  the  night  is  set;  the  flute  and  violin  have  ceased  their  sooth- 
ing notes,  the  enamored  swain  has  whispered  his  last  good  night,  or  stolen  the 
last  kiss  from  his  blushing  sweetheart,  and  all  is  hushed  in  the  slumber  of  the 
camp  of  one  thousand  persons  in  the  heart  of  the  great  mountains  a  thousand 
miles  from  any  white  man's  habitation,  with  savage  Indians  in  all  directions. 
What  a  picture  of  American  ideas,  push,  enterprise,  coui'age  and  empire  build- 
ing. Risking  everything,  braving  every  danger,  and  conquering  every  diffi- 
culty and  obstruction.  We  are  a  vain,  conceited,  bumptious  people,  boasting 
of  our  good  deeds  and  utterly  ignoring  our  bad  ones.     But  where  is  the  people 


252  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

that  have  accomplished  such  work  as  these  Missourians  and  their  neighbors 
from  Iowa,  did  in  literally  picking  up  a  commonwealth  in  pieces,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  continent  and  transporting  it  two  thousand  miles  to  the  Pacific  coast 
and  setting  it  down  here  around  and  about  this  "Willamette  valley,  and  starting 
it  off  in  good  working  order  at  Champoeg,  with  all  the  state  machinery  to  pro- 
tect life  and  property  and  promote  the  peace  and  happiness  of  all  concerned, 
and  all  others  who  might  join  in  the  society.    It  is  something  to  be  proud  of. 

Mrs.  Victor,  in  her  work  on  the  Indian  Wars  of  Oregon,  sums  up  the  trials 
and  sufferings  of  the  emigrants  of  1844-45. 

"The  immigration  of  1845  numbered  about  three  thousand  persons  and  al- 
most doubled  the  white  population  of  Oregon;  that  of  1844  having  been  about, 
seven  hundred  and  fifty.  But  if  their  numbers  were  small,  their  patriotism 
was  large,  and  they  made  no  secret  of  the  fact  that  some  of  them  had  come  all 
the  way  from  Missouri  to  burn  Fort  Vancouver.  So  many  threats  of  a  similar 
nature  had  found  utterance  ever  since  the  first  large  party  of  1843,  that  the 
officers  of  the  British  company  had  thought  it  only  prudent  to  strengthen  their 
defenses  and  keep  a  sloop  of  war  lying  in  the  'Columbia.  What  the  company 
simply  did  for  defense  the  settlers  constructed  into  offense,  and  both  parties 
were  on  the  alert  for  the  first  overt  act. ' ' 

The  passage  down  the  Columbia  was  one  of  excessive  hardship  and  danger, 
each  immigration  having  endured  incredible  suffering,  and  also  loss,  in  coming 
from  The  Dalles  to  the  Willamette  valley;  families  and  wagons  being  shipped 
on  rafts  to  the  Cascades,  where  a  portage  had  to  be  made  of  several  miles,  and 
whence  another  voyage  had  to  be  undertaken  in  such  poor  craft  as  could  be 
constructed  or  hired,  taking  weeks  to  complete  this  portion  of  the  long  journey 
from  the  states,  in  the  late  and  rainy  months  of  the  year;  the  oxen  and  herds 
being  driven  do'mi  to  Vancouver  on  the  north  side  of  the  river,  or  being  left 
in  the  upper  country  to  be  herded  by  the  Indians.  The  rear  of  the  immigra- 
tion of  1844,  remained  at  Whitman's  mission  over  the  winter,  and  several  fam- 
ilies at  The  Dalles.  The  larger  body  of  1845  divided,  some  coming  down  the 
river  and  others  crossing  the  Cascade  mountains  by  two  routes,  but  each  en- 
during the  extreme  of  misery.  John  Minto,  then  a  young  man,  says  of  1844: 
"I  found  men  in  the  prime  of  life  lying  among  the  rocks  (at  the  Cascades) 
seeming  ready  to  die.  I  found  there  mothers  with  their  families,  whose  hus- 
bands were  snowbound  in  the  Cascade  mountains  without  provisions,  and  obliged 
to  kill  and  eat  their  game  dogs.  *  *  *  There  was  scarcely  a  dry  day, 
and  the  snow  line  was  nearly  down  to  the  river."  The  scenes  were  repeated  in 
1845  with  a  greater  number  of  sufferers,  one  wing  of  the  long  column  taking 
a  cut-off  by  following  which  they  became  lost,  and  had  all  but  perished  in  a 
desert  countrj'.  "Despair  settled  upon  the  people;  old  men  and  children  wept 
together,  and  the  strongest  could  not  speak  hopefully."  "Only  the  women," 
says  one  narrator,  "continued  to  show  firmness  and  courage." 

The  perils  and  pains  of  the  Plymouth  Rock  pilgrims  were  not  greater  than 
Uiose  of  the  pioneers  of  Oregon,  and  there  are  few  incidents  in  history  more  pro- 
foundly sad  than  the  narratives  of  hardships  undergone  in  the  settlement  of 
this  country.  The  names  of  the  men  who  pioneered  the  wagon  road  around  the 
base  of  Mount  Hood  are  worthy  of  all  remembrance.  They  were  Joel  Palmer, 
Henry  M.  Knighton,  W.  H.  Rector  and  Samuel  K.  Barlow,  in  particular;  but 


JAilES   BRIDGER 
Explorer  and   Frit-iul   of  Oregon   Pioneers 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  253 

tliere  were  many  otlicrs,  even  women,  who  crossed  the  mountains  late  in  the  year 
of  1845  on  pack  horses,  barely  escaping  starvation  through  the  exertions  of 
I^arlow  and  Hector  in  getting  through  to  Oregon  City  and  forwarding  to  them 
a  pack-train  with  provisions.  The  wagons,  which  it  was  impossible  to  move  be- 
yond Rock  creek,  were  abandoned,  the  goods  cached,  except  such  necessaries 
as  could  be  packed  on  half  starved  oxen,  the  men  walking  in  the  snow  and  all 
often  soaked  with  rain.  Children  with  feet  almost  bare  endured  this  terrible 
journey,  the  like  of  which  can  never  again  occur  on  this  continent. 

Some  of  the  more  thoughful  men  of  the  colony,  taking  into  consideration 
tlie  peculiar  inaceessibilty  of  western  Oregon  from  the  east  and  the  possibility 
of  war  with  England,  asked  themselves  how  United  States  troops  were  to  come 
to  their  assistance  in  such  a  ease.  The  natural  obstacles  of  the  Columbia  river 
pass  were  so  great  as  to  be  almost  positively  exclusive  in  the  absence  of  the 
usual  means  of  transportation,  and  the  stationing  of  but  a  small  force  of  a  single 
battery,  at  the  Cascades,  would  effectually  exclude  an  army. 

The  colonists  were  still  expecting  the  passage  of  Linn's  bill,  and  with  it  the 
long  promised  military  protection ;  but  there  was  the  possibility  that  the  very 
moment  of  greatest  need,  they  might  be  left  at  the  mercy  of  an  invading  foe,  and 
its  savage  allies,  while  the  troops  sent  to  their  relief  were  fenced  out  and  left  to 
starve  east  of  the  mountains,  or  to  die  exhausted  with  their  long  march  and  the 
effort  to  force  the  passage  of.  the  Cascades. 

And  such  were  the  hardships  of  the  brave  men  and  women  who  came  to 
Oregon  with  ox  teams;  who  blazed  the  way  for  civilization  and  everything 
that  goes  with  it ;  who  made  it  possible  for  their  descendants,  and  1912  immi- 
grants, to  ride  to  Oregon  in  palace  cars,  with  dining  cars,  comfortable  couches, 
and  colored  servants;  and  greater  than  all  other  things — saved  Oregon  to  the 
United  States. 

HOW  MANY  CAME  BY  THE  OX  TEAM  TRAIN? 

Professor  P.  G.  Young,  secretary  of  the  Oregon  Historical  Society,  and  ]\Ir. 
Elwood  Evans,  author  of  the  "History  of  the  Northwest,"  substantially  agree 
on  the  following  estimates : 

The  estimate  given  below  for  1842  and  1843,  are  well  founded,  but  the 
others,  especially  from  1847  on,  are  from  no  very  tangible  basis. 

At  the  close  of  1841,  the  Americans  in  Oregon  numbered  possibly  four  hun- 
dred. 

The  Immigration  of  1842  estimated  from    105  to     137 

The  Immigration  of  1843  estimated  from    875  to  1000 

The  Immigration  of  1844  estimated  about    700 

The  Immigration  of  1845  estimated  about    3000 

The  Immigration  of  1846  estimated  about    1350 

The  above  figures  are  taken  quite  closely  from  those  given  by  Elwood  Evans 
in  his  address  before  the  Pioneer  Association  in  1877.  I  (Young)  make  the  Im- 
migration of  1844,  however,  seven  hundred,  instead  of  four  hundred  and  sev- 
enty-five as  he  gives  it. 

The  Immigration  of  1 847  between   4000  and  5000 

The  Immigration  of  1848  about    700 


254  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

The  Immigration  of  1849  about   400 

The  Immigration  of  1850  about   2000 

The  Immigration  of  1851  about   1500 

The    Immigration   of   1852    about    2500 

Making  a  total  of  about  twenty  thousand  persons  in  ten  years." 


THE    GREAT    TRAIL 

The  Oregon  trail,  or  as  the  Indians  termed  it — -"The  Big  Medicine  Road" — 
is  entitled  to  consideration  in  this  connection.  The  great  mass  of  people  not 
familiar  with  Oregon  history  have  the  idea  that  the  Lewis  and  Clark  Expedi- 
tion of  1805  opened  the  trail  to  Oregon.  As  a  matter  of  fact  and  history,  that 
expedition  did  not  locate  any  part  of  the  Oregon  trail.  Lewis  and  Clark  pro- 
ceeded west  on  the  proposition  of  ascending  the  Missouri  river  as  far  as  possi- 
ble with  boats  and  canoes,  and  then  crossing  over  the  Rocky  mountains  to  the 
nearest  branch  of  the  Columbia  river,  and  then  descending  that  branch  in 
canoes  to  the  ocean.  That  plan  carried  them  to  a  crossing  of  the  mountains 
three  hundred  miles  north  of  the  route  pursued  by  the  Hunt  party  six  years 
later.  The  Hunt  party  went  as  far  north  as  they  dared  to  for  fear  of  trouble 
with  the  Blaekfeet  Indians;  and  did  not  commence  to  locate  any  part  of  the 
Oregon  trail  until  they  reached  "Fort  Henry"  on  the  south  branch  or  Henry 
branch  of  Snake  river.  But  from  that  point  on  to  the  Columbia  river  the  route 
of  the  Trail  was  located  by  Hunt  and  members  of  his  party.  The  reader  wiU 
remember  that  in  describing  Hunt's  troubles  in  the  Snake  river  valley  that  after 
he  found  the  Snake  river  was  not  navigable  he  sent  out  three  parties — MeKenzie 
to  go  north  and  find  another  branch  of  the  Columbia  river;  Crooks  to  go  down 
the  west  side  of  the  Snake  river,  and  Hunt,  himself,  with  the  balance  of  the 
party,  to  go  down  the  east  side  of  the  Snake  river.  These  parties  determined 
the  fact  that  the  Snake  river  could  not  be  navigated  through  its  great  canyon, 
nor  traveled  on  land  through  that  canyon.  This  discovery  forced  Hunt  and 
Crooks  to  return  to  the  route  which  nature  had  made  through  the  Blue  moun- 
tains, where  Baker  and  La  Grande  are  now  located,  and  where  the  Indian  guide 
piloted  them  through  to  the  LTmatilla  river.  That  experience  selected  the  route 
of  the  Trail  that  far.  Then,  in  five  months  after  Hunt  reached  Astoria  in 
January,  1812,  he  dispatched  a  party  under  the  lead  of  Robert  Stuart  to  carry 
a  report  back  to  Astor  as  to  the  condition  of  affairs  at  Astoria.  Stuart  had 
six  men  and  on  this  return  trip  had  the  benefit  of  the  experience  and  observa- 
tions of  Hunt  on  his  trip  form  the  Missouri  to  the  Columbia. 

And  profiting  by  such  experience  and  advice  crossed  the  Rocky  mountains 
going  eastward  through  the  celebrated  "South  Pass."  From  that  point  to  the 
Missouri  river,  down  the  Platte  valley,  it  was  plain  sailing,  for  that  part  of  the 
route  had  been  traveled  by  trappers  for  years.  It  is  historicaaly  correct  to 
say  that  the  route  of  the  Oregon  Trail  was  located  by  Wilson  Price  Hunt  and 
Robert  Stuart.  But  they  traveled  with  Indian  ponies  and  left  few  marks  or 
traces  of  their  route  except  at  camping  places. 

They  found  and  followed  the  route  marked  out  by  the  maker  of  rivers,  plains 
and  mountains. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  255 

TTIK  FIKST   WACON   ON   T 1 1  K  TUML 

Fiudiug  a  prac)  iraMc  route  I'or  a  wayoii  way  is  one  tliiiif;,  but,  {j;i'ttiiig  the 
first  wagon  over  thai  route  is  another  matter,  and  making  a  higliway  for  thou- 
sands oi"  wagons  a  still  greater.  To  Marcus  Whitman  lielongs  the  honor  of  at- 
tempting the  first  wagon  haul  from  Missouri  to  Oregon.  If  one  could  transfer 
their  personality  back  seventy-six  years  to  the  ^lay  morning  in  1836,  when  Dr. 
Whitman  and  his  young  l)ride,  Rev.  Spalding  and  his  bride,  the  invincible  W.  H. 
Gray  and  the  two  Nez  Perce  Indian  boys,  all  and  each  with  light  hearts  and 
high  hopes,  seated  themselves  in  that  tlrst  wagon  to  test  all  the  unknown  and 
unforseeable  toils  and  dangers  of  a  two-thousand-mile  ride  over  plains,  deserts, 
mountains  and  unbroken  forests,  they  might  get  some  idea  of  the  courage,  hero- 
ism and  self-sacrifice  which  animated  that  first  wagon  party  on  its  holy  mission 
to  Oregon.  These  two  cultured  women  were  the  first  white  women  to  attempt 
that  uncqualed  exploit  in  the  history  of  mankind.  And  these  two  women  have 
been  well  named  "The  Real  Pioneers  of  Civilization  in  the  Oregon  Territory." 
The  American  Board  of  Jlissions  provided  for  Whitman  a  generous  outfit — 
blacksmith  tools,  plows,  seed  grain,  clothing  for  two  years  and  other  necessaries, 
pack  animals,  riding  horses,  sixteen  cows  and  two  wagons,  making  in  itself  quite 
a  train,  and  which  was  driven  and  managed  by  W.  H.  Gray  and  the  two  Indian 
boys.  Soon  after  starting,  the  Whitman  party  overtook  the  Fitzpatrick  fur 
traders  with  their  carts,  and  then  making  up  altogether  a  caravan  of  nineteen 
carts,  one  light  wagon  and  two  heavy  wagons.  On  reaching  Fort  Laramie,  at 
the  junction  of  the  North  Platte  and  Laramie  rivers,  in  what  is  now  Laramie 
county,  Wyoming,  the  fur  traders'  carts  stopped,  that  being  as  far  as  it  was 
then  deemed  practicable  for  wheeled  vehicles,  but  on  account  of  the  enfeebled 
condition  of  Mrs.  Spalding,  Whitman  decided  to  retain  the  lighter  of  his  two  wag- 
ons and  leave  the  others  behind.  In  this  way  Mrs.  Spalding  was  carried  on  safely 
and  comfortably  through  the  South  Pass  of  the  Rocky  mountains,  following  a 
natural  highway.  At  Green  river.  Whitman  met  the  annual  rendezvous  of  the  fur 
traders,  and  also  Captain  Wyeth,  returinig  from  his  second  expedition  to  Oregon. 
Here  both  the  fur  traders  and  Wyeth  united  in  advising  Whitman  not  to  attempt 
to  go  on  with  his  wagon,  which  they  assured  him  would  not  only  give  him  great 
trouble,  but  dangerously  delay  his  trip.  Nevertheless,  the  courageous  Whitman 
resolved  to  take  his  wagon  along,  and  did  so  successfully,  reaching  Fort  Hall 
in  what  is  now  Bingham  county,  Idaho,  July  24,  1836.  Here  Whitman  and  his 
party  had  to  stop  for  rest  and  repairs,  and  here  he  was  again  warned  that  he 
could  not  travel  through  that  country  with  his  wagon.  Loth  to  give  up  the 
w-agon  entei*prise,  the  Doctor  resolved  on  a  compromise — he  would  convert  the 
wagon  into  a  cart,  proceeding  with  the  front  axle,  fore  wheels  and  tongue,  and 
put  the  hind  axle  and  wheels  on  top  as  cargo ;  and  in  that  shape  the  wagon  was 
drawn  down  through  the  Snake  river  valley,  over  lava  rocks,  sand  plains  and 
sage  brush  a  distance  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  to  old  Fort  Boise.  And 
there  the  old  historical  wagon — the  first  to  pass  the  Rocky  mountains — was  left 
because  the  horses  and  the  whole  party  had  become  so  tired  out  with  the  labor  of 
the  long  journey,  it  was  not  safe  to  try  to  drag  it  through  to  the  Columbia  river. 
But  Whitman's  wagon  did  not  make  a  wagon  road.  It  had  followed  the 
route  found  by  Hunt  and  Stuart,  and  had  blazed  the  way,  and  that  was  honor 


256  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

enough.  Three  years  later,  Dr.  Robert  Newell  and  others  concluding  to  leave 
the  Rocky  mountain  region  and  come  to  Oregon,  came  through  by  Fort  Boise, 
and  picked  up  the  remains  of  Whitman's  wagon,  and  brought  it  safely  through 
with  their  wagons,  and  delivered  it  up  to  the  Doctor  at  "Wailatpu  Mission. 

The  experience  of  Dr.  Whitman  showed  that  it  was  not  an  impossible  under- 
taking to  bring  wagons  from  the  Missouri  river  through  the  South  Pass  of  the 
Eocky  mountains  to  Fort  Hall.  And  six  years  later,  that  party  of  emigrants 
coming  into  Oregon  with  Dr.  White,  United  States  Indian  agent,  brought  nine- 
teen wagons  as  far  as  Fort  Hall  and  then  traded  or  sold  them  to  the  agent  of  The 
Hudson's  Bay  Company,  and  came  on  to  Oregon  with  horses.  That  was  a  very 
valuable  addition  to  the  population  of  Oregon,  bringing  in  some  very  good  men 
who  were  active  in  organizing  the  provisional  government. 

Their  names  are  as  follows :  Thos.  Boggs,  Gabriel  Brown,  Wm.  Brown,  James 
Brown,  Hugh  Burns,  G.  W.  Bellamy,  Barnum,  Winston,  Bennett,  Vandeman 
Bennett,  Bailey,  Bridges,  Nathaniel  Crocker,  Nathan  Coombs,  Patrick  Clark,  Alex- 
ander Copeland,  Medorem  Crawford,  A.  N.  Coats,  Jas.  Coats,  John  Dearum, 
John  Daubenbiss,  Samuel  Davis,  Allen  Davie,  John  Force,  Jas.  Force,  Foster, 
Jos.  Gibbs,  Girtman,  Lansford  W.  Hastings,  John  Hofstetter,  J.  M.  Hudspeth, 
Hardin  Jones,  Columbia  Lancaster,  Reuben  Allen,  A.  L.  Lovejoy,  S.  W.  Moss, 
J.  L.  Morrison,  John  McKay,  Alexander  McKay,  Dutch  Paul,  Walter  Pomeroy, 
J.  H.  Perry,  Dwight  Pomeroy,  J.  R.  Robb,  T.  J.  Shadden,  Owen  Sumner,  An- 
drew Smith,  A.  D.  Smith,  Darling  Smith,  A.  Towner,  Joel  Turnham,  David  Wes- 
ton, Elijah  White.  Of  these,  ten  had  families,  as  follows :  Gabriel  Brown,  Mr. 
Bennett.  Jas.  Force,  Mr.  Girtman,  Columbia  Lancaster,  Walter  Pomeroy,  J.  W. 
Perry,  T.  J.  Shadden,  Owen  Sumner  and  Andrew  Smith.  But  Hastings  gives 
the  force  of  armed  men  as  eighty,  and  Fremont  as  sixty-four.  Crawford  says 
the  whole  number  of  emigrants  was  one  hundred  and  five.  The  largest  number 
given  by  any  authority  is  one  hundred  and  sixty.  Lovejoy  says  about  seventy 
were  able  to  stand  guard.  White's  statement  that  there  were  one  hundred  and 
twelve  persons  in  the  company  when  it  organized,  and  that  this  number  was 
augmented  on  the  road  until  it  reached  one  hundred  and  twenty-five,  is  probably 
the  most  reliable,  and  agreed  with  the  account  given  in  Lee  and  Frost's  Oregon. 

Now  the  "Trail  is  made,  and  Whitman  made  the  Trail;"  but  there  is  yet  no 
wagon  road.  The  emigration  of  1843  made  the  wagon  road,  now  immortalized 
by  the  travelers  thereon,  and  by  its  great  results  as  ' '  The  Oregon  Trail. ' '  When 
the  wagon  train  of  1843  pulled  out  from  Fitzhugh's  Mill,  near  Independence, 
Missouri,  the  members  of  that  train  soon  found  that  there  must  be  an  advance 
guard  to  clear  the  way.  Then  at  the  next  camp  they  organized  a  party  of  fifteen 
or  twenty  men  varying  from  day  to  day  as  needed,  who  were  placed  under  the 
lead  and  command  of  a  captain.  These  men  rode  horseback  ahead  of  the  train, 
each  armed  with  a  rifle  and  carrying  axes,  picks  and  shovels,  to  fight  Indians  if 
necessary,  but  to  be  sure  to  make  a  road  the  ox  teams  could  draw  the  wagons 
over.  This  party  of  men  made  the  road — The  Oregon  Trail — from  day  to  day; 
and  they  were  "The  Royal  Sappers  and  Miners"  that  made  the  way  across  the 
two  thousand  miles  of  plains,  deserts,  sage,  brush  and  mountains  from  the  Mis- 
souri to  the  Columbia.  And  when  the  grand  caravan  of  ox  teams,  loose  cattle, 
horses  and  wagons  passed  over  it,  they  left  behind  them  a  great  wide  road  that 
all  subsequent  travelers  and  emigrations  followed  for  more  than  twenty  years 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OHKdOX 


and  until  the  Union  Paeifie  Railroad  was  opened.  And  that  gi-aud  highway 
of  enterprise,  heroism  and  civilization  left  its  impress  wide  and  deep,  not  only  on 
tlie  soil,  the  rocks  and  the  mountains,  but  on  all  the  institutions  of  men  to  make 
mankind  better,  and  extend  and  exalt  the  principles  and  glory  of  the  great  Re- 
public. 

The  following  list  contains  the  names  of  evei'y  male  member  of  that  great 
train  over  the  age  of  sixteen  years.  It  was  prepared  by  J.  W.  Nesmith  when  the 
train  was  organized,  and  was  preserved  among  his  papers  for  a  third  century 
before  given  for  publication.  All  reached  the  Willamette  valley  except  a  few, 
the  exceptions  being  designated  by  marks  and  foot  notes : 


Applegate,  Clias. 
Applegate,  Jesse. 
Applegate,  Lindsey. 
Athey,  James. 
Athey,  William. 
Atkinson,  John. 
Arthur,  David. 
Arthur,  Robert. 
Arthur,  William. 
Baker,  Andrew. 
Baker,  John  G. 
Baker,  William. 
Baldridge,  Wm. 
Bane,  Layton. 
Beadle,  George. 
Beagle,  William. 
Beale,  George. 
Biddle,  Nicholas. 
Bird,  David. 
Black,  J.  P. 
Blcvins,  Alexander. 
Boardmau,  — . 
Boyd,  Levi. 
Braidy,  James. 
Brooke,  George. 
Brooks,  John  P. 
Brown,  Martin. 
Brown,  Orus. 
Brown,  Thos.  A. 
Burnett,  Peter  H. 
Butler,  Amon. 
Campbell,  John  G. 
Cary,  Miles. 
Cason,  F.  C. 
Cason,  James. 
Caton,  J.  H. 
Champ,  Jacob. 


Chapman,  — . 
Chapman,  William. 
Chappel,  Alfred. 
Chase,  James. 
Childers,  Moses. 
Childs,  Joseph. 
Clymour,  L. 
Coch)-an,  Thomas. 
Cone,  James. 
Constable,  Benedict. 
Cooper,  L.  C. 
Copenhaver,  John. 
Cox,  John. 
Cozine,  Samuel. 
Cronin,  Daniel. 
Dailey,  George. 
Davis,  Burrell. 
Davis,  J.  H. 
Davis,  Thomas. 
Dawson,  — . 
Day,  William. 
Delany,  Daniel. 
Dclany,  Daniel,  Jr. 
Delany,  Wm. 
Dement,  Wm.  C. 
Dohert.y,  John. 
Dodd,  Solomon. 
Doke,  Wm. 
Dorin,  Jacob. 
Dougherty,  W.  P. 
Duncan,  James. 
Eaker,  John  W. 
East,  John  W. 
Eaton,  Chas. 
Eaton,  Nathan. 
Edson,  E.  G. 
Emerick,  Solomon. 


Etchell,  Jas. 
Everman,  Ninian. 
Eyres,  Miles. 
Fairly,  Stephen. 
Fendall,  Charles. 
Ford,  Ephraim. 
Ford,  John. 
Ford,  Nimrod. 
Ford,  Nineveh. 
Fowler,  Henry. 
Fowler,  Wm. 
Fowler,  Wm.  J. 
Francis,  Alexander. 
Frazier,  Abner. 
Frazier,  Wm. 
Gantt,  John. 
Gardner,  Samuel. 
Gardner,  Wm. 
Garrison,  Enoch. 
Garrison,  J.  W. 
Garrison,  W.  J. 
Gilmore,  Matthew  C. 
Gilpin,  Major. 
Goodman,  Richard. 
Gray,  Chiley  B. 
Gray,  — . 
Haggard,  B. 
Hall,  Samuel  B. 
Hargrove,  Wm. 
Harrigas,  B. 
Haun,  Jacob. 
Hays,  James. 
Hembree,  Andrew. 
Hembree,  A.  J. 
Hembree,  James. 
Hembree,  J.  J. 
Hendricks,  Abijah. 


258 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 


Hensley,  Tlios.  J. 
Hess,  Joseph. 
Hewett,  Henry. 
Hide,  H.  H. 
Hill,  Almoran. 
Hill,  Henry. 
Hill,  William. 
Hobson,  Wm. 
Hobson,  John. 
Holderuess,  S.  M. 
Hoiley,  B. 
Holman,  Daniel. 
Holman,  John. 
Holmes,  Riley  A. 
Holmes,  Wm. 
Houk,  James. 
Howell,  G.  W. 
Howell,  John. 
Howell.  Thos.  E. 
Howell,  Wesley. 
Howell,  Wm. 
Hoyt,  A. 
Hughes,  Wm.  P. 
Hunt,  Henry. 
Husted,  A. 
Hutchins,  Isaac. 
Jackson,  John  B. 
James,  Calvin. 
Johnson,  Overton. 
Jones,  John. 
Keizur,  J.  B. 
Keizur,  Pleasant. 
Keizur,  Thomas  D. 
Kelley,  — . 
Kelsey,  — . 
Laswell,  Isaac. 
Lauderdale,  John. 
Layson,  Aaron. 
Lee,  H.  A.  6. 
Lenox,  David. 
Lenox,  E. 
Linebarger,  John. 
Linebarger,  Lew. 
Little,  Milton. 
Long,  John  E. 
Looney,  Jesse. 
Loughborough,  J. 
Lovejoy,  A.  L. 


Lugur,  F. 
Luther,  — . 
Malone,  Madison. 
Manning,  James. 
Manning,  John. 
Martin,  James. 
Martin,  Julius. 
Martin,  Wm.  J. 
Mastire,  A.  J. 
Matheny,  Adam. 
Matheny,  Daniel. 
Matheny,  Henry. 
Matheny,  Josiah. 
Matheny,  J.  N. 
Matney,  W.  J. 
Mauzee,  William. 
Mays,  William. 
McCarver,  M.  M. 
McClelland,  F. 
McClelland,  — . 
McCorkle,  George. 
McDaniel,  William. 
McGarey,  G.  W. 
McGee,  — . 
McHaley,  John. 
Mclntire,  John. 
McKissic,  D. 
Millican,  Elijah. 
Mills,  Isaac. 
Mills,  John  D. 
Mills,  Owen. 
Mills,  Wm.  A. 
]\Iondon,  Gilbert. 
Moore,  Jackson. 
Myers,  Jacob. 
Naylor,  Thomas. 
Nesmith,  J.  W. 
Newby,  W.  T. 
Newman,  Noah. 
O'Brien,  Thomas  A. 
0 'Bryant,  Hugh  D. 
dinger,  A. 
O'Neill,  dinger. 
Osborn,  Neil. 
Otie,  E.  W. 
Otie,  M.  B. 
Owen,  Thomas. 
Paine,  Clayborn. 


Parker,  Jesse. 
Parker,  William. 
Patterson,  J.  R. 
Paynter,  Samuel. 
Pennington,  J.  B. 
Pickett,  Chas.  E. 
Poe,  R.  H. 
Prigg,  Frederick. 
Reading,  P.  B. 
Reid,  Jacob. 
Rice,  G.  W. 
Richardson,  Daniel. 
Richardson,  John. 
Ricord,  John. 
Rivers,  Thomas. 
Roberts,  Emseley. 
Roberts,  James. 
Roberts,  Solomon. 
Rodgers,  G.  W. 
Rodgers,  S.  P. 
Roe,  John. 
Rossin,  Joseph. 
Ruby,  Philip. 
Russell,  William. 
Sewell,  Henry. 
Sharp,  C. 
Sheldon,  William. 
Shirley,  Samuel. 
Shively,  John  M. 
Smith,  Ahi. 
Smith,  Anderson. 
Smith,  Eli. 
Smith,  Isaac  W. 
Smith,  Robert. 
Smith,  Thomas. 
Smith,  Thomas  H. 
Spencer,  Chauncey. 
Sterling,  George. 
Stevenson,  — . 
Stewart,  P.  G. 
Stimmerman,  C. 
Story,  James. 
Stoughton,  Alexander. 
Stout,  Henry. 
Stout,  — . 
Straight,  Hiram. 
Stringer,  Cornelius. 
Stringer,  C.  W. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 


259 


Summers,  George. 
Summers,  W.  C. 
Sutton,  Nathaniel. 
Swift,  — . 
Tarbox,  Stephen. 
Teller,  Jeremiah. 
Tharp,  Lindsey. 
Thompson,  John. 
Trainor,  D. 
Umnicker,  John. 
Vance,  Samuel. 
Vauglian,  William. 
Vernon,  George. 


Wagoner,  John. 
Wair,  J.  W. 
Waldo,  Daniel. 
Waldo,  David. 
Waldo,  William. 
Ward,  T.  B. 
Waters,  James. 
Watson,  Jno.  (Betty) 
Wheeler,  II. 
White,  James. 
Williams,  Benjamin. 
Williams,  David. 
Williams,  Edward. 


Williams,  Isaac. 
Williams,  James. 
Williams,  John. 
Williams,  Squire. 
Wilmont,  James. 
Wilson,  Wm. 
Wilson,  W^m.  H. 
Winkle,  Archibald. 
Winter,  Wm. 
Zaehary,  Alexander. 
Zachary,  John. 


There  were  in  Oregon  at  the  time  the  train  arrived,  the  following  individuals, 
few  names,  possibly,  having  been  omitted  from  the  list : 


Armstrong,  Pleasant. 
Bailey,  Dr.  William  J. 
Baldra,  — . 
Balis,  James. 
Black,  J.  M. 
Brainard,  — . 
Brown,  — . 
Brown,  — . 
Brown,  William. 
Burns,  Hugli. 
Campbell,  Jack. 
Campbell,  Samuel. 
Cannon,  William. 
Carter,  David. 
Connor,  — . 
Cook,  Aaron. 
Cook,  Amos. 
Craig,  Wm. 
Crawford,  ]Medoi'em. 
Davy,  Allen. 
Doughty,  William. 
Eakin,  Richard. 
Ebbetts,  George  W. 
Edwards,  John. 
Fletcher,  Francis. 
Force,  James. 
Force,  John. 
Foster,  Philip. 
Gale,  Joseph. 
Gay,  George. 


Girtman,  — . 
Hall,  David. 
Hatch,  Peter  H. 
Hathaw-ay,  Felix. 
Hauxhurst,  Webly. 
Hewitt,  Adam. 
Holman,  Joseph. 
Horegon,  Jeremiah. 
Hubbard,  Thomas  J. 
Hutchinson,  — . 
Johnson,  William. 
Kelsey,  — . 
King,  — . 
Larrison,  Jack. 
Le  Breton,  G.  W. 
Lewis,  Reuben. 
Mack,  J.  W. 
Matthieu,  P.  X. 
McCarthy,  William. 
ilcClure,  John. 
McFadden,  — . 
McKay,  Charles. 
McKay,  Thomas. 
McKay,  William  C. 
Meek,  Joseph  L. 
Moore,  Robert. 
Morrison,  J.  L. 
Moss,  S.  W. 
Newbanks,  — . 
Newell.  Robert. 


O'Neill,  James  A. 
Perry,  — . 
Pettygrove,  F.  W. 
Pomeroy,  Dwight. 
Pomeroy,  Walter. 
Rimmick,  — . 
Robb,  J.  R. 
Russell,  Osborn. 
Sailor,  Jack. 
Shortess,  Robert. 
Smith,  Alvin  T. 
Smith,  Andrew. 
Smith,  Andrew,  Jr. 
Smith,  Dai-ling. 
Smith,  Sidney. 
Spence,  — . 
Taylor,  Hiram. 
Tibbetts,  Calvin. 
Trask,  — . 
Turner,  John. 
Turnham,  Joel. 
Walker,  C.  M. 
Warner,  Jack. 
Wilkins,  Caleb. 
Williains,  B. 
Wilson,  A.  E. 
Winslow,  David. 
Wood,  Henry. 


260  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

In  addition  to  the  above  were  the  following  gentlemen  connected  with  the 
various  Protestant  Missions : 

Abernethy,  George.  Gray,  W.  H.  Raymond,  W.  W. 

Babcock,  Dr.  Ira  L.  Hines,  Gustavus.  Spalding,  H.  H. 

Beers,  Alanson.  Judson,  L.  H.  Walker,  E. 

Brewer,  H.  B.  Lee,  Jason.  Waller,  A.  P. 

Campbell,  Hamilton.  Leslie,  ^David.  White,  Dr.  Elijah. 

Clarke,  Harvey.  Parrish,  J.  L.  Whitman,  Dr.  M. 

Eells,  Gushing.  Perkins,  H.  K.  W.  Willson,  Wm.  H. 

In  addition  to  these  were  some  fifty  former  employees  of  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company,  nearly  all  of  whom  had  settled  on  French  Prairie,  and  a  number  of 
priests,  connected  with  the  Catholic  mission,  making  a  total  male  population 
at  the  close  of  the  year  1843  of  about  four  hundred  and  thirty,  exclusive  of 
the  officers  and  actual  servants  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company. 

THE    VALUE    OF    THE    PROVISIONAL    GOVEENMENT 

And  now  is  seen  the  great  value  of  the  Provisional  Government.  The  great 
body  of  the  emigration  of  1843  reached  the  Oregon  City  terminus  about  the 
last  days  of  October  of  that  year.  Suppose,  then,  that  there  had  been  no  govern- 
ment, no  person  or  authority  to  give  direction  to  affairs,  to  give  information, 
or  maintain  the  orderly  progress  of  society  or  the  public  peace  ?  They  all  came 
for  land ;  and  suddenly  without  notice,  320  families  are  dropped  down  at  Oregon 
City.  They  know  nothing  of  the  country,  nothing  of  what  land  has  been  claimed, 
or  where  they  can  go  to  get  a  homestead,  without  trespassing  on'  the  rights  of  a 
prior  locator.  In  such  a  case  if  there  had  not  been  anarchy,  confusion,  and  vio- 
lence, it  would  have  been  a  wonder.  If  anarchy  and  violence  had  resulted  from 
indiscriminate  land  grabbing,  or  land  claim  jumping,  where  there  could  be  no 
United  States  or  English  title  promised,  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  by  its  Cana- 
dian officials,  would  have  been  compelled  to  interpose  to  maintain  peace  and 
order;  and  thai  interposition  ivould  have  set  up  and  put  in  operation  a  British, 
instead  of  an  American  Government,  in  Oregon.  That  would  have  made  the 
country  British  in  fact  and  deed;  and  there  would  not  have  been  one  chance  in 
a  hundred  for  the  United  States  to  have  ever  recovered  any  part  of  Oregon. 
But  the  heroes  of  Champoeg  had  wisely  forestalled  such  a  calamity  by  the  or- 
ganization of  May  2,  1843.  And  when  the  great  caravan  reached  Oregon  City 
six  months  afterwards,  it  found  an  American  Government  in  operation,  with 
officials  to  give  directions,  with  records  of  lands  already  taken  up,  and  with 
laws  authorizing  the  new-comers  to  go  out  and  select  their  homesites  and  have 
them  duly  recorded  and  protected.  The  infant  Provisional  Government  was 
literally  a  god-send  to  the  settlers,  the  incoming  immigrants,  and  to  the  Cana- 
dians as  well;  and  too  much  honor  can  never  be  given  the  men  who  organized 
that  government. 

And  what  was  the  position  of  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company  all  this  time  ?  All 
of  its  interests  lay  in  the  direction  of  an  unsettled  country.  It  was  here  to  trap 
fur-bearing  animals,  and  to  trade  with  the  Indians  for  furs.     It  did  not  want 


over  old  Trail  with  an  ox-team  the  second  time  in   IIIOG,  setting 
up  marl<er9  along  the  Trail 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP'  OREGON  261 

the  country  settled  by  either  Americans  or  any  other  people.  As  long  as  there 
were  no  settlers,  the  Indians  would  obey  their  orders  and  would  be  happy  and 
content  in  the  forests  with  their  ways  of  living.  To  bring  settlers  that  wouW 
convert  the  country  into  farms,  build  towns,  start  saw  mills  and  establish  herds 
of  domestic  animals,  would  desti-oy  the  business  of  the  fur  company  and  drive 
it  out.  It  was  but  natural  that  the  company  should  oppose  emigration  and 
settlements.  And  in  doing  so,  it  became  the  ally  of  the  first  American  settlers. 
"Whether  consciously  or  unconsciously,  cannot  now  be  determined.  With  its 
power  and  influence  with  the  Indians,  its  wealth  and  organization,  and  its 
knowledge  of  the  country  and  means  for  bringing  colonists  from  either  Canada 
or  the  home  country,  it  could  have  quickly  and  easily  throttled  all  attempts  to 
establish  American  settlements  by  an  organization  devoted  to  the  support  of 
the  British  claim  to  the  country.  But  to  do  so  would  have  put  in  jeopardy  the 
profits  and  future  existence  of  the  company  as  a  business  paying  institution. 
The  managers  of  the  company  in  England  undoubtedly  expected  and  relied 
upon  Chief  Factor,  John  McLoughlin  and  others  to  discourage  settlements  in 
Oregon;  believing  that  without  business  support  and  encouragement  The  Ameri- 
cans Would  Be  Starved  Out.  Fortunate  for  the  Americans,  John  McLoughlin 
was  not  built  on  the  narrow  gauge  pattern  of  his  employers  in  London.  His 
great  heart  and  humane  sympathies  would  not  permit  him  to  view  with  cold 
blooded  indifference  the  suffering  and  destitution  of  men  and  women  who  had 
risked  their  lives  and  everything  else  in  the  great  struggle  to  reach  Oregon.  He 
helped  them  as  much  as  he  could,  and  not  be  unceremoniously  kicked  out  before 
the  first  few  Americans  had  secured  a  foothold  in  the  Willamette  valley.  As 
it  was,  for  this  open-handed  aid  to  the  Americans,  he  lost  his  position  and  a  sal- 
ary of  twelve  thousand  dollars  a  year.  With  the  most  hopeful  view  of  the  case 
the  Americans  had  the  narrowest  chance  in  the  world  to  secure  a  foothold  and 
establish  an  American  settlement.  Had  they  not  succeeded  Oregon  would  cer- 
tainly have  become  a  British  province.  With  McLoughlin 's  opposition  exerted 
against  them,  as  his  British  employers  desired  it  to  be  exerted,  the  Americans 
unsupported  by  Congress  as  they  were,  might  not  have  succeeded.  The  tacit 
support  of  John  McLoughlin  given  in  the  name  of  humanity,  undou1)tedly 
greatly  aided  in  deciding  the  fate  of  Oregon  in  favor  of  the  American  settlers. 

THE    COLONUL    PERIOD 

Assuming  that  the  Colonial  Period  commenced  with  the  innuigration  of 
1842,  in  which  none  of  the  Missions  had  any  part  or  parcel,  and  continued  down 
to  1848  when  the  United  States  organized  a  territorial  governnient,  an  idea 
can  be  formed  of  the  respective  influences  which  conspired  to  mould  the  for- 
tunes and  character  of  the  Oregon  settlers. 

Of  the  missionary  forces,  Jason  Lee,  Daniel  Lee,  Cyrus  Shepard,  and  B. 
L.  Edwards  of  the  Methodist  church  came  overland  to  Oregon  in  1834,  and 
founded  the  mission  in  the  Willamette  valley.  Rev.  Samuel  Parker  on  behalf  of 
American  Board  missions,  came  overland  to  Oregon  in  1835,  but  not  to  labor  as  a 
missionary  but  as  an  agent  of  the  Missionary  Board  to  examine  the  country 
and  locate  mis.sionary  stations.  And  next  year,  1836,  in  pursuance  of  Parker's 
plans  and  locations.  Dr.  JMarcus  Whitman,  and  Rev.  II.  H.  Spalding,  with  their 


262  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

wives,  and  Wm.  H.  Gray,  came  out  and  commenced  work  in  Eastern  Oregon 
among  the  Nez  Perces  and  Cayuse  Indians.  And  it  may  be  remarked  liere  that 
Whitman  did  not  select  the  location  among  the  Cayuse  who  afterward  massacred 
himself,  family  and  attendants.  If  he  had  been  left  to  his  own  judgment  he 
would  most  likely  have  located  among  the  Flatheads  who  had  appealed  to  the 
Eastern  States  Christians  for  the  "Book  of  Heaven."  Rev.  Asa  B.  Smith,  and 
wife,  also  on  behalf  of  the  Presbyterians  came  overland  and  settled  among  the 
Nez  Perces,  at  a  station  on  the  Clearwater  river  in  1839,  and  which  he  was 
compelled  to  abandon  on  account  of  the  hostility  of  the  Indians  in  1841.  Mr. 
Smith  was  the  first  person  to  make  up  a  vocabulary  and  grammar  of  the  Nez 
Perce  language. 

Revs.  Elkanah  Walker  and  Gushing  Eells,  with  their  wives,  missionaries  of 
the  American  Board,  came  overland  in  1838,  and  established  a  mission  on  the 
Chemakane  branch  of  the  Spokane  river,  and  there  taught  and  labored  among 
the  Indians  for  ten  years,  having  served  in  that  work  longer  than  any  other  mis- 
sionary to  the  Oregon  Indians,  except  Dr.  Whitman.  Rev.  John  S.  Griffin  and 
wife  and  Asahel  Hunger  and  wife,  independent  Congregational  missionaries, 
came  overland  in  1839,  and  after  making  two  efforts  to  establish  schools  and 
missions  among  the  Snake  Indians,  both  came  on  down  to  the  Willamette  valley, 
Griffin  and  wife  settling  on  a  donation  claim  on  Tualatin  Plains,  and  Munger 
and  wife  going  to  Salem  and  working  for  the  Methodists  until  his  mind  failed 
and  where  he  put  an  end  to  his  life.  To  Mrs.  Griffin  belongs  the  honor  of  being 
the  first  white  woman  to  teach  school  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  In  1840 
came  another  missionary  party  overland  of  the  Congregational  church,  com- 
posed of  Rev.  Harvey  Clarke,  Rev.  P.  B.  Littlejohn,  and  Rev.  A.  T.  Smith, 
each  with  his  wife.  These  people  came  out  independent  of  the  Board  of  Missions, 
intending  to  support  themselves  by  their  own  eiJorts ;  and  after  spending  a  year 
in  the  Indian  mission  field  in  Eastern  Oregon,  came  on  down  to  the  Willamette 
valley  and  settled  on  Tualatin  Plains,  teaching  and  preaching  to  the  white 
people.  And  with  this  Clarke  party  came  out  from  the  States  the  first  family 
of  avowed  immigrants  of  American  settlers  that  came  to  Oregon — Joel  P.  Walker, 
wife  and  five  children. 

And  in  all  human  probability  the  great-hearted  Harvey  Clarke  and  wife 
are  entitled  to  much  credit  in  bringing  in  close  after  them,  two  men  who  were 
not  missionaries,  but  who  made  a  large  figure  in  the  future  of  Oregon;  and 
for  this  Clark  should  have  credit  here.  At  Fort  Hall,  Rev.  Clark  made  the 
acquaintances  of  Joseph  L.  Meek,  Robert  Newell,  C.  M.  Walker,  William  Craig, 
Caleb  Wilkins,  William  M.  Doughty  and  John  Larison,  who  were  each  and 
all  stranded  at  Port  Hall,  and  penniless  on  account  of  the  American  Pur 
Company  abandoning  the  fur  trade  on  the  Pacific  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany. These  men,  like  all  mountain  men,  were  of  improvident  habits,  and 
had  saved  nothing.  They  were  destitute  and  without  occupation.  They  must 
go  somewhere  and  do  something  or  starve ;  and  they  decided  to  follow  Clarke. 
Their  combined  stock  of  worldly  goods  was  the  clothes  on  their  backs,  two 
wagons  which  Clarke  had  given  Newell  for  guiding  him  from  Green  river 
to  Port  Hall,  and  another  wagon  abandoned  by  Joel  Walker.  Prank  Er- 
matinger  (The  H.  B.  Co.  Agt.  at  Port  Hall)  took  an  interest  in  the  unfor- 
tunates and  purchased  one  of  Newell 's  wagons.  This  gave  them  bread  and 
coffee  for  the  trip,  and  their  trusty  rifles  could  provide  the  meat.     And  they 


2!^j5 


c  _ 
03  ^  ::> 


.5    ^ 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  263 

then  I'ollowod  up  Clarke  and  finally  lauded  at  Wailatpu,  briugiug  in  and  deliver- 
iug  up  to  Dr.  Whitman  the  wheels  and  running  gears  of  the  historical  wagon 
lie  had  left  at  Fort  Boise.  That  Clarke  influenced  these  men  to  come  and  settle 
in  Oregon,  the  author  of  this  book  has  the  testimony  of  Doughtj',  IMeek  and 
Wilkins,  who  were  his  neighbors  in  Washington  county  for  years,  and  gave  him 
an  account  of  this  trip. 

The  same  j'ear  that  the  Clarke  party  reached  the  Nez  Perces  country  the 
ship  Lausanne  arrived  in  the  Columbia  river  with  the  great  missionary  party 
of  fifty-three  persons  which  included  seven  preachers,  and  five  teachers,  farmers, 
mechanics,  etc.,  sent  out  by  the  Board  of  Methodist  Missions.  Now  in  addi- 
tion to  these  Protestant  mission  laborers,  the  Catholic  Church  of  Canada  had 
sent  out  four  priests  under  the  control  of  Vicar  General  Blanchet;  and  all 
these  preachers  and  teachers  were  here  in  this  country  to  teach  and  convert 
the  heathen  Indians;  no  intention  ever  having  been  held  to  teach  or  preach  to 
Amei'ican  citizens,  as  none  were  expected  to  ever  come  here.  Here  was  an 
evangelizing  force  of  twenty  preachers  and  priests  and  a  dozen  teachers;  all 
intent  on  converting  and  educating  the  native  Indians.  But  what  was  the 
outcome?  The  Methodists  kept  up  a  failing  effort  to  teach  the  Indians  at  the 
Willamette  Mission  for  a  few  years  and  until  the  first  large  immigration  came 
from  the  states.  Then  the  Indians  abandoned  the  Willamette  valley  and  took 
their  children  with  them.  The  effort  was  continued  in  a  desultory  way  at  the 
mission  at  The  Dalles  until  the  Whitman  jMassacre  in  1847.  That  ended  all 
efforts  to  teach  or  convert  the  Indians  under  the  regime  of  the  missionaries. 
And  whatever  of  influence  or  benefit  had  been  thus  far  exerted  by  the  mission- 
aries over  the  Indians  was  by  that  appalling  murder  of  Whitman  practically 
dissipated  forever.  With  the  coming  of  the  vigorous  assertive  immigration 
of  1843  the  missionaries  were  practically  rediiced,  so  far  as  influences  on  the 
colony  was  concerned,  to  the  common  level  with  all  other  citizens.  They  had 
lost  the  distinction  of  leadership  in  the  little  community ;  but  they  did  not 
lose  their  identity  as  a  vital  force.  To  Jason  Lee  more  than  to  any  other  one 
per.son,  was  due  the  movement  to  organize  the  Provisional  Government.  He 
inspired  the  plan,  Gray  and  GrifiEin  did  the  proselyting  to  support  it  and 
called  out  the  reserves  to  put  the  column  in  motion,  while  Meek  and  his  moun- 
taineers led  the  assault.  But  not  only  did  the  missionaries  inspire  the  organi- 
zation of  civil  government,  they  followed  that  up  by  laying  the  foundation 
for  education.  The  "Oregon  Institute,"  which  developed  into  "The  Willam- 
ette University,"  was  organized  by  the  Methodist  missionaries  in  1842  for 
the  purpose  of  educating  white  children;  and  the  first  Board  of  Trustees 
were,  Jason  Lee,  David  Leslie,  Gustavus  Hines,  J.  L.  Parrish,  L.  H.  Judson, 
George  Abernethy,  Alanson  Beers,  Hamilton  Campbell,  and  J.  L.  Babcock.  For 
the  Congregationalists,  Rev.  Harvey  Clarke  did  a  similar  work  in  giving  his 
time,  labor  and  land  to  lay  the  foundations  of  the  Pacific  University  at  Forest 
Grove.  And  while  McMinnville  does  not  trace  its  foundation  to  missionaries, 
or  to  the  missionai-y  era,  yet  it  can  go  back  to  AVilliam  T.  Newby,  who  came 
overland  in  1843,  and  find  in  him  the  enterprise  and  forethought  to  devote 
his  first  property  in  Oregon  to  the  foundation  of  a  noble  institution  that  rep- 
resents the  missionary  spirt  and  the  conservative  teaching  of  "John  the  Bap- 
lizer,"  greatest  of  the  twelve  disciples.     And  while  the  religious  teaching  of 


264  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

the  Indians  was  greatly  dissipated  by  the  wars  between  whites  and  Indians, 
yet  the  seed  planted  by  the  missionaries  survived  not  only  that  bitter  and  bloody 
strife  and  the  corruption  of  and  robbery  of  the  Indians  by  a  whole  generation, 
of  raseaUy  thieving  Indian  agents,  but  lived  to  bear  good  fruit  in  later  times 
under  the  leadership  of  native  preachers  and  honest  government  agents.  The 
Eastern  Missionary  Boards  of  former  times,  as  well  as  the  immigrants  to 
Oregon  of  recent  years,  have  never  comprehended  or  appreciated  the  value  of 
the  labors  of  Lee,  Whitman,  Walker,  Eells,  and  their  associates.  The  eastern 
men  looked  only  at  the  expenditure  of  money;  and  the  new-comers  to  Oregon 
could  not  see  any  Indian  converts.  But  the  priceless  services  of  the  early 
missionaries  to  Oregon  is  not  to  be  measured  by  dollars  and  cents  or  tolled  off 
by  church  membership.  The  Rev.  Wm  Warren,  in  his  little  book  on  Indian 
missions,  tersely  states  the  case  for  Oregon. 

' '  Indian  missions  brought  the  first  white  women  overland  to  Oregon,  opened 
the  first  immigrant  road  to  the  Columbia  river;  gave  the  first  governor  to  the 
territorjr;  established  the  first  permanent  American  settlement;  and  aided  es- 
sentially in  the  establishment  of  the  Provisional  Government,  five  years  before 
the  United  States  formed  a  Territorial  Government;  brought  the  first  American 
cattle  to  the  Willamette  valley,  and  saved  the  country,  or  at  least  an  important 
part  of  it,  to  the  United  States. 


CHAPTER  XI 

1834—1848 

THE  OREGON  HALL  OF  FAME — -WHO  SAVED  OREGON?  THOMAS  JEFFERSON?  THOMAS 
H.  BENTON?  HALL  J.  KELLEY  ?  JASON  LEE?  MARCUS  WHITMAN?  JOHN  m'LOUGH- 
LIN?  JOSEPH  L.  MEEK?  FE^VNCOIS  XAVIEE  MATTHIEU  ?  GEORGE  ABEENETHY  ? 
SAVED  BY  ALL  SETTLERS   PULLING  TOGETHER. 

The  first  great  uame  naturally  associated  with  the  Oregon  country  is  that 
of  Thomas  Jefferson.  His  place  in  the  history  of  the  United  States,  in  the  esti- 
mation of  the  great  mass  of  the  people,  is  next  to  that  of  Washington.  But 
had  it  not  been  for  his  far-seeing  statesmanship  which  added  the  Louisiana  Ter- 
ritory to  that  of  the  thirteen  original  states,  his  position  would  have  taken  rank 
after  that  of  Franklin,  Hamilton  and  Madison.  His  fortunate  connection  with 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  while  no  special  evidence  of  statesmanship, 
secured  for  him  early  recognition,  and  kept  his  name  to  the  front  at  the  annual 
celebration  of  the  great  event  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  whole 
country.  His  part  in  the  actual  struggle  with  the  foreign  king  for  national  in- 
dependence, amounts  to  very  little.  In  the  making  of  the  Constitution,  where 
Washingtoii,  Hamilton  and  Madison  each  towered  above  all  the  statesmen  of 
their  day,  Jefferson  took  no  part.  And  while  recognized  as  a  man  of  versatile 
talents,  of  genius  and  ability,  he  barely  held  the  place  he  achieved  in  the  Con- 
tinental convention  by  his  persistent  advocacy  of  popular  rights.  He  became 
early  known  as  the  advocate  of  a  democratic  as  distinguished  from  constitu- 
tional government.  And  it  is  a  sharp  commentary  on  the  weakness  of  his  orig- 
inal propositions  of  government,  that  almost  the  very  first  of  his  acts  as  presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  was  admitted  by  himself  to  be  an  infraction  of  the 
letter  of  the  Constitution  he  had  sworn  to  support,  and  of  his  own  ideas  of  the 
proper  mission  of  the  Republic.  In  a  letter  to  John  Breckenridge,  August  12, 
1803,  speaking  of  the  purchase  of  Louisiana,  Jefferson  says : 

"The  treaty,  of  course,  m\ist  be  laid  before  both  houses.  They,  I  presume, 
will  see  their  duty  to  their  country  in  ratifying  and  paying  for  it  (Louisiana), 
so  as  to  secure  a  good  which  would  otherwise  probably  be  never  again  in  their 
power.  The  Constitution  has  made  no  provision  for  our  holding  foreign  terri-. 
tory,  still  less  for  incorporating  foreign  nations  into  our  Union.  The  Executive, 
in  seizing  the  fugitive  occurrence  which  so  much  advances  the  good  of  their 
country,  has  done  an  act  beyond  the  Constitution.  The  Legislature  in  casting 
behind  metaphysical  subleties,  and  risking  themselves  like  faithful  servants, 
must  ratify  and  pay  for  it,  and  throw  themselves  on  their  country  for  doing  for 
them  unauthorized,  what  we  know  they  would  have  done  for  themselves,  had 
they  been  in  a  situation  to  do  it." 

And  to  show  further  the  hazy  ideas  of  this  remarkable  statesman,  when  it 

265 


266  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

comes  to  forming  a  concrete  and  persistent  nation,  take  another  extract  from 
the  same  letter: 

"The  future  inhabitants  of  the  Atlantic  and  Mississippi  states,  will  be  our 
sons.  "We  leave  them  in  distinct,  but  bordering  establishments.  We  think  we 
see  their  happiness  in  their  Union,  and  we  wish  it.  Events  may  prove  it  other- 
wise, and  if  they  see  their  interest  in  separation,  Avhy  should  we  take  sides  with 
our  Atlantic  rather  than  our  Mississippi  descendants.  God  bless  them  both, 
and  keep  them  in  union,  if  it  be  for  their  good,  but  separate  them  if  it  be 
better. ' ' 

And  when  the  great  Jefferson  comes  to  consider  the  Pacific  coast  sons  of  the 
Republic,  he  wanders  still  farther  way  from  a  imion  which  must  for  all  time 
make  us  a  homogeneous  nation.     In  a  letter  to  John  Jacob  Astor,  May  2,  1812 : 

"I  considered  as  a  great  public  acquisition  the  commencement  of  a  settle- 
ment on  that  point  (Astoria)  of  the  western  coast  of  America,  and  looked  for- 
ward with  gratification  to  the  time  when  its  descendants  should  have  spread 
themselves  through  the  whole  length  of  that  coast,  covering  it  with  free  and 
independent  Americans,  unconnected  with  us  by  the  ties  of  blood  and  inter- 
est, and  employing,  like  us,  the  rights  of  self-government." 

And  in  another  letter  to  Mr.  Astor,  November  9,  1813,  Jefferson  says: 

"I  learn  with  great  pleasure  the  progress  you  have  made  towards  an  estab- 
lishment of  the  Columbia  river.  I  view  it  as  the  germ  of  "a  gi-eat  free  and  inde- 
pendent empire  on  that  site  of  our  continent,  and  that 'liberty  and  self-govern- 
ment spreading  from  that  as  well  as  this  side,  will  insure  their  complete  es- 
tablishment over  the  whole.  It  must  be  still  more  gratifying  to  yourself  to 
foresee  that  your  name  will  be  handed  down  with  that  of  Columbus,  and  Ral- 
eigh, as  the  father  of  the  establishment  and  founder  of  such  an  empire.  It 
would  be  an  afflicting  thing  indeed  should  the  English  be  able  to  break  up  the 
settlement.  The  bigotry  to  the  bastard  liberty  of  their  own  country,  and  habit- 
ual hostility  to  every  degree  of  freedom  in  any  other  will  induce  the  attempt. 
They  would  not  lose  the  sale  of  a  bale  of  furs  for  the  freedom  of  the  wholp 
world. ' ' 

This  letter  shows  vividly  the  three  predominant  characteristics  of  Jefferson's 
public  life;  intense  devotion  to  personal  liberty,  expansion  of  the  American 
idea  of  popular  government,  and  intense  hostility  to  everything  British.  Had 
Jefferson  lived  to  read  of  the  formation  of  the  Oregon  Provisional  Government, 
he  would  have  hailed  it  as  the  embodiment  of  his  life-long  principles.  As  it 
was,  he  was  emphatically  the  father  of  Oregon.  Although  admitting  he  vio- 
lated the  Constitution  to  get  control  of  this  vast  region,  and  carry  out  his  long 
cherished  desire  to  explore  the  depths  of  its  wilderness  and  show  to  the  world 
its  vast  riches,  he  put  the  stamp  of  his  genius  and  love  of  liberty  on  its  original 
government  through  the  brains  and  labor  of  the  pioneers  who  had  imbibed  Jef- 
fersonian  principles  with  their  mother's  milk.  Slavery,  he  considered  a 
moral  and  political  evil,  and  declared  in  reference  to  it  that  "he  trembled  for 
his  country  when  he  remembered  that  God  was  just."  And  one  of  the  first 
acts  of  the  legislature  of  the  Provisional  Government  of  Oregon  was  to  declare 
that  slavery  should  never  have  a  foothold  in  this  state. 

Thomas  Jefferson  was  as  accessible  to  the  plain  every  day  farmers,  as  to  the 
highest  dignitary  of  his  own  or  any  foreign  government.     All  titles  of  honor 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OK  ORIOUON  'Hu 

wii'c  (listasleful  In  liiiii,  .•iiid  he  lived  and  died  as  the  popular  incarnation  of 
ri|n,-ili1y.  Jiislicc  aiiil  ilciiHu-racy.  And  it  is  to  Jefferson  lliat  the  conuti'y  is  in- 
(li'lited  fni'  that  nccrssary  iMitci'prise  in  sending  out  the  Lrwis  and  Clark  ex- 
pcilition  to  explore  the  unknown  region  of  Oregon,  and  place  the  stamp  of 
American  title  on  its  whole  extent,  from  the  mountains  to  the  sea.  Judging 
from  the  history  of  the  country,  there  is  not  a  president  since  the  days  of  Wash- 
ington that  had  the  push  and  enterprise,  as  well  as  the  American  spiiit,  to  ex- 
pand the  nation's  boundaries  as  did  Jeff ei*son ;  and  if  it  had  not  been  for  his 
action  in  seizing  what  he  termed  the  "fugitive  opportunity,"  the  United  States 
would  have  been,  in  its  western  expansion,  limited  to  the  boundary  of  the  Miss- 
issippi, and  Oregon  would  have  been  as  British  as  Canada.  It  is  therefore, 
.iustly  due  that  the  name  of  Thomas  Jefferson  should  top  the  scroll  of  Oregon's 
Hall  of  Fame. 

The  next  prominent  character  in  the  long  contest  for  the  American  title 
to  Oregon  was  Senator  Thomas  H.  Benton,  of  Missouri.  Benton  was  not  alone 
in  the  battle,  but  was  ably  supported  by  his  colleague,  Senator  Lewis  F.  Linn. 
Linn  was  a  physician  by  profession,  and  a  forceful,  aggressive  man,  serving  two 
terms  in  the  senate,  but  Benton  was  there  for  thirty  years.  Always  a  com- 
manding figure,  resolute  and  courageous,  far  beyond  the  great  majority  of 
men  who  had  risen  to  that  high  position.  Benton,  next  to  Jefferson,  earl.y  com- 
prehended the  great  importance  of  the  West  to  the  nation.  Living  at  St.  Louis, 
which  was  in  his  day  the  great  gate-way  not  only  to  the  South  and  Southwest, 
but  also  to  the  real  West  beyond  the  mountains,  he  saw  the  national  necessity 
to  seize  every  point  of  vantage  and  hold  on  for  the  future.  And  although  rep- 
resenting a  slave  state  in  the  Senate,  he  was  far  too  large  a  roan  not  to  see  that 
f i-ee  territory  to  the  west  was  a  thousand  times  more  important  to  St.  Louis 
and  to  the  nation  than  more  slave  states.  And  when  the  issue  came,  whether 
there  should  be  territory  added  en  that  would  make  free  states  beyond  the 
mountains,  and  thus  disturb  the  equilibrium  between  slave  and  free  states,  he 
promptly  cast  in  the  whole  force  of  his  great  influence  in  the  Senate  and  with 
the  people  on  the  side  of  the  free  territory  of  Oregon.  For  this  act  for  jus- 
tice and  humanity,  for  national  honor  and  defense,  he  was  discredited  by  the 
slave-holding  leaders  of  the  South. 

No  man  understood  better  the  wants  and  aspirations  of  the  pioneer  settlers 
of  Oregon.  And  no  man  comprehended  as  well  the  future  national  importance 
of  taking  and  holding  the  whole  of  Old  Oregon  for  settlement  by  American  citi- 
zens. His  prophetic  words,  picturing  the  future  greatness  of  this  country,  and 
the  great  commerce  which  would  ebb  and  flow  through  this  state,  and  the 
Columbia  gateway,  has  been  given  in  the  introductory  chapter  of  this  book, 
and  we  have  lived  to  see  it  a  veritable  reality.  For  long  years,  and  through  good 
and  evil  report,  and  in  the  face  of  all  sorts  of  misrepresentations  of  the  value 
of  this  country  by  the  pigmy  men  who  had  gotten  into  the  Senate  by  some  sort 
of  accident,  he  stood  the  "lion  of  the  west,"  making  the  battle  for  Oregon.  And 
some  day,  when  this  state  or  some  of  its  merchant  princes  shall  fully  compre- 
hend the  great  work  which  Thomas  H.  Benton  did  to  "save  Oi-egon"  to  the 
naition,  arid  make  Oregon  an  American  state,  and  the  imperial  commercial 
metropolis  of  the  great  Pacific,  there  will  arise  on  some  commanding  point  in 
the  state,  the  heroic  statue  in  bronze  of  "Old  Bullion,"  friend  of  Oregon, 


268  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

with  that  uplifted  right  arm  of  his  commanding  figure  pointing  to  the  west  to 
emphasize  the  apothegm  that  made  him  famous,  "there's  India,  there's  the 
East!" 

And  now  we  come  to  a  man  who  "saved  Oregon,"  who  is  wholly  unlike 
every  other  man  connected  with  Oregon  history.  Unappreciated  and  misunder- 
stood, by  some  called  a  fanatic,  by  others  a  crank,  and  by  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company  treated  as  a  horse-thief,  the  ghost  of  Hall  J.  Kelley  appears  and  dis- 
appears through  the  shifting  scenery  of  Oregon's  strenuous  history  with  such 
kaleidoscopic  presentment  as  almost  utterly  baffles  description. 

Hall  Jackson  Kelley  was  born  at  Northwood,  New  Hampshire,  February  24, 
1790.  At  the  age  of  sixteen  the  boy  left  home  and  taught  school  at  Hallowell, 
Maine.  He  studied  the  classics  and  graduated  with  honor  at  Middlebury  Col- 
lege in  1814,  and  married  the  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Baldwin,  April  17, 
1822.  After  leaving  college,  -Mr.  Kelley  devoted  his  time  to  teaching,  the  prepar- 
ation of  elementary  school  books,  the  introduction  of  black  boards  in  public 
schools,  the  study  of  the  higher  mathematics,  and  making  a  discovery  of  an 
improved  method  of  topographical  and  geographical  surveying  which  Presi- 
dent Jackson  promised  to  introduce  in  government  work. 

As  early  as  1817,  while  teaching  in  one  of  the  grammar  schools  of  Boston, 
Kelley  conceived  the  idea  of  leading  a  colony  for  the  exploration  and  settlement 
of  Oregon,  then  practically  an  unknown  country.  In  his  memoir  he  says:  "I 
began  first  to  converse  with  friends  about  Oregon,  then  to  lecture  and  write 
books  and  tracts  in  order  to  give  the  widest  publicity  to  my  plans  and  pur- 
poses." In  1824,  he  publicly  announced  his  intentions  to  settle  Oregon  and 
propagate  Christianity  beyond  the  Rocky  mountains.  Here  is  a  definite  and  in- 
disputable statement  that  Hall  J.  Kelley 's  missionary  enterprise  antedated  that 
of  Jason  Lee  by  ten  years,  and  that  of  Marcus  Whitman  by  twelve  years,  and 
that  of  the  Catholic  priests  by  fourteen  years. 

And  while  it  is  true  that  Kelley  never  did  come  to  Oregon  to  preach  the  gos- 
pel, it  is  also  true  that  he,  more  than  all  others,  by  his  public  lectures,  letters, 
pamphlets  and  circtdars,  informed  and  enlightened  the  people  of  the  Atlantic 
states  as  to  the  character  and  value  of  the  territory  of  Oregon.  And  it  was  on 
the  public  sentiment  created  and  built  up  by  Kelley  that  the  Methodists  and 
Presbyterians  were  enabled  to  organize  their  missionary  expeditions  to  Ore- 
gon and  to  get  the  first  money  to  pay  their  expenses.  And  on  this  point  the  fol- 
lowing statements  are  quite  satisfactory  proof : 

"Boston,  January  30,  1833. 
"In  the  year  1831,  I  was  editor  of  Zion's  Herald,  a  religious  paper,  sus- 
taining the  faith  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  church.  •  In  the  above  year  I  pub- 
lished for  Mr.  H.  J.  Kelley  a  series  of  letters  addressed  to  a  member  of  Congress 
developing  his  plans  for  the  settlement  of  Oregon  territory.  At  other  times 
Mr.  Kelley  made  appeals  through  our  paper,  with  a  view  to  excite  the  minds 
of  the  Christian  community  to  the  importance  of  founding  religious  institu- 
tions in  that  territory.  He  was  one  of  the  first  explorers  of  that  region,  and  to 
his  zeal  and  efforts  is  largely  due  the  establishment  of  missionary  operations  in 
that  country. 

"William  C.  Brown." 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  2()9 

Rev.  David  Green,  seeretaiy  of  the  American  Board  of  Foreign  Missions, 
b(uu's  similar  testimony,  and  says:  "The  welfare  and  improvement  of  the  In- 
dians of  that  territory-,  and  the  introduction  there  of  the  blessings  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  the  useful  arts,  with  education  and  Christian  knowledge,  seemed  to 
be  his  leading  object.  Much  of  the  early  interest  felt  in  the  Oregon  country 
by  the  New  England  people  was  probably  the  result  of  Mr.  Kelley's  labors." 
In  1829  Kelley  procured  from  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts  an  Act  to  in- 
corporate "The  American  Societj^  for  Encouraging  the  Settlement  of  the  Ore- 
gon Territory."  and  in  1830  he  published  a  "Geographical  Memoir  of  Oregon," 
accompanied  by  a  map  of  Oregon,  drawn  by  himself,  and  also  a  "Manual  of 
the  Oregon  Expedition,"  for  the  information  and  guidance  of  emigrants  to 
Oregon. 

Then  Kelley  went  to  Washington  city  and  spent  the  winters  of  1830  and  1831 
in  explaining  his  scheme  to  members  of  Congress  and  high  government  offi- 
cials with  a  view  of  securing  the  action  of  the  government  and  aiding  or  en 
couraging  emigration  to  Oregon. 

And  that  after  many  rebuffs  and  disappointments  he  left  Boston  for  Oregon 
in  1832,  two  years  before  Jason  Lee  started  for  Oregon;  and  on  his  way  west 
stopped  at  Washington  city,  where  he  was  the  recipient  of  many  favors,  as  he  says, 
and  encouraged  by  public  officers  to  go  west  and  explore  the  country.  Leaving 
Washington,  he  traveled  by  the  way  of  the  Cumberland  wagon  road  to  the 
Ohio  river,  and  thence  down  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  to  New  Orleans,  and  from 
thence  by  sailing  vessel  to  Vera  Cruz  in  Mexico  and  from  thence  by  stages  to 
Jalapa  and  the  City  of  Mexico.  From  the  capital  of  Mexico  by  mule  team  pack 
trains  he  made  his  way  to  San  Bias,  and  from  thence  up  the  coast  in  a  little 
schooner  to  Monterey,  California.  Here  he  offered  his  services  to  the  Mex- 
ican governor  of  California  to  make  a  survey  of  the  Sacramento  valley, 
which  being  declined, .  he  made  a  reconnoisance  of  the  valley  on  his  own  ac- 
count and  made  a  map  of  the  valley.  Here  he  fell  in  with  Ewing  Young, 
whose  estate,  without  heirs,  was  afterward  urged  as  a  reason  for  organizing 
a  Provisional  Government  in  Oregon.  Young  was  an  American  trader  from 
New  jMexico,  and  K'elley  persuaded  him  to  undertake  a  trading  venture  up  to 
Oregon  with  horses.  And  gathering  up  a  party  of  adventurers  and  deserting 
sailors,  with  a  lot  of  cheap  horses,  one  hundred  and  fifty  or  more,  they  all  started 
for  Oregon.  Getting  as  far  as  the  mountains  of  southern  Oregon,  Kelley  was 
taken  sick.  And  here  he  fell  in  with  the  Frenchman  fur  trader,  Michael  La 
Framboise,  who  seeing  Kelley's  unfortunate  condition  in  the  grasp  of  a  rack- 
ing ague  fit,  at  once  proceeded  to  alleviate  his  distress  with  quinine  and 
hot  venison  broth.  Kelley  remained  with  and  traveled  with  the  Frenchman  for 
several  days,  until  overtaken  by  the  Young  party,  when  they  all  came  downi  to 
Fort  Vancouver.  Here,  weary  and  worn  out,  sick  from  a  relapse,  he  finds  the 
gates  of  Vancouver  closed  against  him.  He  is  informed  that  the  Mexican 
governor  of  California  had  sent  word  to  Dr.  McLoughlin  that  Young  and  his 
party  were  a  gang  of  horse  thieves,  and  cautioning  McLoughlin  against  the 
whole  company.  In  vain  does  the  sick  man",  a  scholar  and  educated  gentleman, 
and  a  Christian,  protest  his  innocence.  McLoughlin  says:  "When  Kelley  ar- 
rived he  was  very  ill,  and  out  of  humanity  I  placed  him  in  a  house,  and  put  a 
man  to  nurse  him,  the  surgeon  of  the  establishment  attended  him,  and  his  vie- 


270  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

tuals  were  sent  him  every  meal  until  he  left  in  1836."  But  the  facts  were  that 
Kelley  while  remaining  at  Vancouver  was  housed  in  a  hut  outside  the  fort, 
and  treated  as  a  mendicant  or  worse,  and  debarred  the  recognition  on  an  honest 
man,  or  a  gentleman,  in  the  country  he  had  done  so  much  to  advertise  to  the 
world. 

Kelley  was  undoubtedly  greatly  embittered  against  the  Americans  he  found 
in  Oregon,  and,  as  he  said,  induced  to  come  here  by  his  representations  of  the 
country.  He  did  not  hesitate  to  charge  the  trader  Wyeth  with  having  gone  over 
to  the  support  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company.  Wyeth  personallj^  knew  that 
Kelley  was  an  educated  man  in  good  standing  in  Boston,  and  not  to  be  thought 
of  an  instant  as  as  a  horse  thief;  and  the  neglect  of  Wyeth  to  assist  a  fellow 
countryman  in  such  straits  shows  him  to  have  been  a  coward  and  an  ingrate. 
And  neither  did  the  Methodist  missionaries  come  to  the  rescue  of  the  man  who 
had  so  largely  contributed  to  their  undertaking  their  noble  work  in  Oregon. 
But  as  McLoughlin  had  posted  the  letter  of  the  Mexican  governor  up  in  the 
Willamette  valley,  and  was  all-powerful  against  everybody  at  that  early  day, 
the  missionaries  evidently  concluded  that  "prudence  was  the  better  part  of 
valor,"  and  left  their  fellow  Christian  patriot  to  sink  or  swim  as  best  he  could. 

But  after  all  his  pains  and  heart-aches,  he  staggered  once  more  to  his  feet, 
and  in  a  most  wretched,  ragged  and  dilapidated  condition  he  commenced  to 
look  around  on  the  land  he  had  so  extensively  advertised  as  the  best  in  the 
world.  He  had  brought  some  surveying  instruments  -v^dth  him,  and  on  the 
peninsula  between  the  Willamette  and  the  Columbia  rivers,  where  we  have 
in  our  day  seen  but  little  but  burnt  out  dead  trees  and  stumps,  and  impassa- 
ble scrub  underbrush,  Kelley  walked  under  the  magnificent  groves  of  tall  firs, 
and  made  a  survey  of  the  site  for  the  great  city  he  had  proposed  and  which  is 
noticed  on  the  plat  thereof  on  another  page.  This  plat  of  Kelley 's  city  was  sur- 
veyed and  located  in  about  1835  about  where  Francis  I.  McKenna's  University 
Park  addition  to  Portland  is  now  located,  and  was  the  first  surveyed  location  of 
a  town  north  of  California  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains.  After  surveying  out 
his  town  site  Kelley  proceeded  to  make  a  survey  of  the  Columbia  river  from 
Vancouver  down  to  Astoria,  and  when  he  returned  to  the  Eastern  states  turned 
his  survey  over  to  the  United  States  Navy  department.  The  Englishman, 
Lieutenant  Broughton,  had  made  a  survey  of  the  river  prior  to  Kelley 's  sur- 
vey, but  the  Americans  got  no  benefit  of  that  as  it  was  given  only  to  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company,  and  British  war  ships.  That  town  site  and  river  survey,  con- 
nects for  aU  time  the  name  of  Hall  J.  Kelley  with  the  history  of  Oregon. 

After  completing  this  work,  Kelley  left  the  country  in  March,  1836,  on  trans- 
portation via  the  Sandwich  Islands,  furnished  by  Dr.  McLoughlin,  and  which 
was  acknowledged  by  Kelley  in  his  narrative  of  his  journey  to  Oregon,  saying 
McLoughlin  kindly  furnished  him  comforts  to  start  home  with,  and  some 
raonej',  which  he  felt  verj'  grateful  for.  On  his  return  to  Boston  by  a  whale 
ship  from  the  islands,  Kelley  published  the  first  satisfactory  report  of  the  Willam- 
ette and  Columbia  river  valleys  ever  made,  giving  far  more  information  about 
the  climate,  soil,  timber  and  other  natural  resources  of  wealth  upon  which  to 
found  a  prosperous  state  than  was  given  by  Lewis  and  Clark.  And  notwith- 
standing his  failure  to  enlist  public  support  of  his  colonization  schemes,  or  to 
get  aid  from  Congress,  or  even  decent  treatment  in  the  wilds  of  Oregon,  Kelley 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  271 

continued  his  agitation  of  the  Oregon  question,  and  advocac-y  of  congressional 
aid,  and  settlement  of  the  country  as  long  as  he  had  financial  means  to  do  so. 
He  had  gone  through  trials,  disappointments  and  severe  labors  in  traveling 
through  foreign  countries  to  reach  Oregon  to  be  received  not  only  with  distrust, 
l>ut  witli  slander  and  persecution,  such  as  would  have  crushed  most  men.  Yet 
his  hopeful  and  unwavering  spirit  of  promotion  and  adventure  did  not  desert 
him,  anci  on  his  return  to  his  old  home,  he  immediately  engaged  witii  othei's  in 
erecting  a  cotton  mill  at  Three  Rivers,  jMassacluisetts.  And  after  losing  the  last 
remnant  of  his  fortune  in  this  venture,  he  retired  to  private  life,  and  lived  and 
was  known  as  "The  Hermit"  of  Three  Rivers,  finally  passing  away  at  the  ad- 
vanced age  of  eighty-five  years. 

The  work  that  Hall  Kelley  did  to  save  Oregon  to  the  United  States  was  that 
of  an  educator  and  agitator.  He  wrote  and  published  more  about  Oregon  than 
all  others  j)ut  together  pricu-  to  tbe  formation  of  the  provisional  government. 
His  writings  were  all  characterized  by  noble  thoughts  and  directed  to  the  promo- 
tion of  the  uplift  and  welfare  of  his  fellowman.  Not  a  line  can  be  found  in  all 
his  voluminous  writings  that  is  not  educational  and  reformatory.  His  labors 
for  spreading  knowledge  and  interest  about  Oregon  were  not  fitful  and  spas- 
modic, but  were  persistently  and  energetically  carried  on  for  more  than  forty 
years.  And  the  result  of  it  all  was  to  secure  and  hold  the  attention  of  men  in 
Congress,  in  public  stations  and  in  the  newspaper  world,  so  that  a  public  senti- 
ment was  created  in  favor  of  holding  on  to  Oregon  as  a  Pacific  outpost  for  na- 
tional development  and  defense.  But  for  Kelley 's  labors,  the  whole  of  the  New 
England  states.  New  York,  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia,  would  have  been  prac- 
tically without  any  information  about  Oregon  further  than  the  report  of  Lewis 
and  Clark.  And  that  this  labor  of  Kelley 's  was  effective  and  of  great  service, 
the  letter  of  United  States  Senator  John  Davis,  of  Massachusetts,  is  here  given. 
Davis  was  a  man  of  such  great  integrity  and  high  character  that  he  achieved 
the  distinction  of  being  known  as  "Honest  John  Davis." 

"June  6.  1848. 
"Eall  J.  Kelley: 

' '  Dear  Sir — Having  learned  that  you  are  about  to  leave  Washington  City  for 
your  home  without  having  obtained  an  act  of  Congress  in  j^our  behalf,  the  sub- 
ject not  having  been  acted  upon,  I  beg  leave  to  say  that  I  consider  you  as  en- 
titled, in  ecpiity  and  good  conscience,  to  a  liberal  grant  of  land  from  the  gov- 
ernment for  your  meritorious  services  in  promoting  the  settlement  of  Oregon, 
and  I  by  no  means  despair  of  obtaining  such  a  grant. 

' '  Respectfully  yours, 

"John  Davis." 

And  among  the  many  distinguished  supporters  of  Kelley 's  claim  for  recogni- 
tion by  Congress  was  the  eminent  historian,  George  Bancroft.  And  in  addition 
to  his  work  in  creating  public  opinion  in  Congress  and  the  Eastern  states  in  fa- 
vor of  holding  Oregon,  he  is  entitled  to  no  small  amount  of  credit  in  sending  the 
first  missionaries  to  Oregon.  Prior  to  the  movement  that  sent  them  out  here, 
Kelley  had  collected  and  published  all  the  facts  and  information  about  Oregon 
that  was  then  available,  and  had  laid  the  foundation  for  practical  efforts,  and 
proved  that  Oregon  was  a  good  country  to  settle  and  people  with  American  citi- 


272  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

zens.  It  was  from  Kelley's  labors  that  the  Missionary  Boards  got  their  facts 
which  justified  them  in  sending  Lee  and  Whitman  to  Oregon. 

Besides  his  work  for  Oregon,  Kelley  surveyed  and  planned  a  canal  from  the 
Charles  river  to  the  Connecticut,  and  for  a  ship  canal  from  Barnstable  to  Buz- 
zard's Bay,  Massachusetts,  and  located  and  engineered  the  construction  of  sev- 
eral railroads  in  the  state  of  Maine.  He  never  made  any  money  for  himself,  but 
he  did  much  to  make  fortunes  for  other  people.  He  was  not  a  cracked-brained 
theorist,  pursuing  unsubstantial  chimeras,  as  some  writers  have  sought  to  make 
out,  but  a  clear-headed,  far-seeing  enthusiast,  patriotically  seeking  the  honor  and 
prosperity  of  his  country.  And,  if  like  Jefferson  and  Benton,  he  could  see  in  the 
future  the  great  importance  of  this  great  country  of  the  Pacific  slope,  when  the 
timid  great  men  and  cowardly  little  men  of  the  United  States  Senate  could  not, 
or  would  not  see  it,  it  is  to  his  honor  and  not  his  discredit.  And  for  these  reasons, 
Hall  J.  Kelley  is  justly  entitled  to  have  his  name  enrolled  among  those  who 
saved  Oregon  to  the  people  of  the  United  States. 

And  now,  in  the  order  of  their  acts  in  point  of  time,  following  down  the  line 
is  found  another  man  of  entirely  different  character  from  any  that  has  preceded 
him,  that  at  the  "psychological  moment"  (to  use  a  modern  expression)  rendered 
a  service  which  seemed  to  be  an  inspiration,  and  that  turned  apparent  defeat 
into  glorious  victory. 

When  all  the  circumstances  of  the  settlement  and  occupation  of  Oregon  are 
considered  in  the  light  of  the  strength  and  facilities  of  the  contending  and  com- 
peting powers,  the  success  of  the  handful  of  scattered  Americans  seems  little 
short  of  a  miracle.  On  one  side  was  the  perfectly  organized,  and  for  the  purpose 
of  settlement  and  holding  the  country,  the  most  powerful  commercial  organiza- 
tion then  in  North  America.  Possessed  of  all  the  money  necessary  for  any  ven- 
ture or  enterprise,  equipped  with  ships  for  immigration  as  well  as  commerce, 
semi-military  jn  its  organization  with  trained  and  perfectly  obedient  servants, 
ready  to  obey  any  order,  with  forts  and  military  supplies  defended  by  light 
cannon  located  at  every  strategic  point,  and  able  to  call  to  its  assistance  ten  thou- 
sand Indian  warriors,  and  backed  by  the  whole  power  of  the  British  government 
if  necessary,  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  was  able  to  crush  at  any  moment  the 
feeble  efforts  of  the  Americans  to  protect  themselves  by  any  kind  of  an  organi- 
zation. Was  it  divine  prophecy,  or  common-sense  reliance  on  the  courage  and 
happy  luck  of  the  men  who  had  sent  him  to  Congress,  that  inspired  Senator 
Benton  to  say  in  the  United  States  Senate :  ' '  Mere  adventurers  may  enter  upon 
it  (Oregon)  as  Aeneas  entered  upon  the  Tiber,  and  as  our  forefathers  entered 
upon  the  Potomac,  the  Delaware  and  the  Hudson,  and  renew  the  phenomenon  of 
individuals  laying  the  foundation  of  a  future  empire."  And  on  the  other  side, 
pitted  against  this  powerful  company  and  the  imperial  power  of  Great  Britain, 
were  wliat  Benton  has  intimated,  "mere  adventurers,"  recklessly  proclaiming 
their  intention  to  found  a  new  state.  Two  opposed  ideas — monarchy  and  special 
privileges  on  one  side,  and  republicanism  and  equal  rights  to  all,  meet  and  clash 
once  more.  Neither  Bunker  Hill  nor  New  Orleans  is  forgotten,  but  here  at  a 
lonely  cabin  on  the  banks  of  a  peaceful  river,  two  thousand  miles  from  the  out- 
post of  all  civil  government,  102  men  meet  to  decide  whether  the  Union  Jack  of 
old  England  or  the  Stars  and  Stripes  of  young  America  shall  float  over  the  four 
great  states  to  be. 


TIlUMAS    JEKFEKSOX 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  273 

Behold  the  picture;  the  bishop  of  his  flock,  with  centuries  of  training  and 
culture  in  his  face,  holds  the  volatile  children  of  the  distant  St.  Lawrence  on  one 
side,  with  steady  poise,  while  over  against  them  are  turbulent  spirits  from  Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee,  IMissouri,  the  plains  and  the  rovers  of  the  sea,  men  inured  to 
dangers  and  trials  from  boyhood  to  manhood,  and  ranged  behind  them  mission- 
aries of  the  cross,  who,  like  the  great  Puritan,  could  "trust  God  and  keep  the 
powder  dry."  And  surrounding  all  the  sullen  red  man,  swathed  in  his  fiery 
blanket,  silently  beholding  the  strange  scene  in  wondering  awe  as  to  which  of 
these  must  be  his  future  master.  To  portray  the  scene  demands  the  genius  of 
a  Michael  Angelo,  and  when  it  is  done  true  to  histoiy,  the  canvas  will  immortalize 
the  painter. 

We  get  a  glimpse  of  the  contending  forces  as  they  rally  in  coouskin  caps  and 
buckskin  trousers  on  the  banks  of  the  Willamette,  May  3,  1843,  to  try  out  the 
momentous  issue.  The  leaders  of  the  rival  forces  are  rallying  every  man  for  the 
fray,  enthusing  them  with  the  patriotic  maintenance  of  their  principles,  and 
with  courage  to  maintain  their  rights.  The  fateful  hour  has  come ;  the  chairman 
calls  for  order ;  the  committee  reports  a  plan  of  organization ;  the  ayes  and  noes 
are  called  for  and  against  a  government,  the  Americans  voting  seatteringly, 
hesitatingly  and  ineffectually.  Then  comes  the  vote  against  a  government,  and 
the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company  men  trained  for  the  occasion,  fire  a  solid  shot,  voting 
loudly  and  as  one  man,  and — everything  seems  lost  for  the  Americans.  A  few 
brave  spirits  refuse  to  be  beaten,  will  not  admit  defeat,  and  call  for  a  division 
and  polling  the  men.  The  division  is  ordered  by  the  chairman  and  pandemonium 
breaks  loose.  The  Hudson's  Bay  men  and  Catholic  Canadians  rapidly  mingle  with 
the  Americans  to  prevent  a  division  and  bitterly  remonstrate  against  any  gov- 
ernment organization.  Neighborhood  friendships,  peace  of  the  community, 
every  consideration  is  recalled  to  prevent  any  action ;  when  suddenly,  as  if  leap- 
ing out  of  the  earth,  springs  forth  the  stalwart  form  of  Joseph  L.  Meek,  and 
shouts  above   the   din  of  contending  voices: 

"DIVIDE!  DIVIDE!   WHO'S  FOR  A  DIVIDE! 

All  in  favor  of  the  American  flag,  follow  me!" 

Instantly  the  commotion  is  silenced.  The  Americans  line  up  after  the  nat- 
ural born  leader  of  men,  and  as  the  lines  lead  out  to  the  banks  of  the  beautiful 
river,  the  decision  hangs  in  the  balance.  The  secretaries  go  down  the  lines  of 
determined  men,  resolutely  facing  each  other  with  that  grim  courage  which  be- 
tokens the  real  heroes  of  a  great  cause,  and  it  looks  fearfully  like  a  drawn  battle. 
Suddenly  a  Frenchman — (the  Frenchman  has  always  helped  Americans  out 
when  them  most  needed  him) — a  Frenchman  steps  out  from  the  ranks  of  those 
of  his  native  land,  conquers  the  greatest  trial  of  his  life,  and  Francois  Xavier  Mat- 
thieu  slowly  crosses  over  to  the  American  side  and  takes  rank  with  his  fellow- 
countryman,  Etienne  Lueier,  and  Oregon  is  saved  to  the  nation — fifty-two  votes 
for  organizing  the  provisional  government  of  Oregon  and  fifty  votes  against. 

Now  it  will  not  be  claimed  that  Colonel  Joe  Meek  was  a  great  man.  It  is 
not  necessary  to  set  up  for  him  any  claim  to  great  talent  or  statesmanship.  It 
was  not  an  occasion  that  required  that.  A  decision  had  to  be  snatched  from 
doubt  and  indecision.  Men  had  to  be  rallied  to  the  greatest  event  not  only  of 
their  lives,  but  in  the  life  of  a  gi'eat  national  movement  and  the  founding  of  a 


274  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

new  state.  The  actors  in  the  dramatic  scene  could  scarcely  have  comprehended 
the  tremendous  consequences  of  their  acts,  and  of  the  unfolding  scheme  big  with 
vast  results  to  two  great  nations.  But  this  chief  actor,  at  the  vital  moment,  had 
the  inborn  imagination,  the  bumptious  dare-devil  courage  and  dramatic  talent, 
to  seize  the  only  point  left  him  for  effect,  and  make  an  appeal  for  the  flag.  He 
had  heard  in  old  Virginia,  as  every  American  boy  has  heard,  the  slogan  of  every 
battle  cry — ' '  Rally  around  the  flag,  boys ! ' '  Meek  saw  the  chance ;  it  might  have 
been  an  inspiration  from  boyhood  days ;  but  he  caught  it  instantly,  used  it  most 
effectively;  won  the  victory  and  secured  organization,  union  and  combination, 
and  by  that  means  enrolled  his  name  among  the  savers  of  Oregon. 

(Joseph  L.  Meek  was  a  native  of  Washington  county,  Virginia,  born  in  1810. 
He  grew  up  without  education  on  a  Virginia  plantation,  and  being  troubled  be- 
cause his  father  contracted  a  second  marriage,  ran  awaj'  and  joined  a  party  of 
fur  traders  going  to  the  Rocky  mountains,  and  drifted  into  Oregon  in  1840.  He 
married  a  Nez  Perce  woman,  and  they  raised  a  very  respectable  family ;  his 
daughter,  Olive,  is  a  woman  of  education,  talent  and  refinement,  and  his  son, 
Stephen,  was  a  member  of  the  Oregon  legislature.  Meek  had  a  splendid  phy- 
sique, a  magnetic  presence,  wit,  courtesy,  and  generous  to  a  fault,  and  if  he  had 
been  afforded  the  advantage  of  an  education,  would  have  reached  high  official 
station.) 

But  not  all  the  heroes  and  savers  of  Oregon  rage  the  battle  field,  or  pace  the 
forum  in  the  limelight  of  popular  acclaim.  Every  man  at  that  historic  meeting 
at  old  Champoeg  pi'oved  his  title  to  true  worth  and  honorable  mention.  Victor 
and  vanquished  proved  their  worth  in  the  founding  of  a  new  empire.  Those  who 
were  defeated,  promptly  and  quietly  withdrew,  showing  neither  faction  or  op- 
position, and  proved  their  real  worth  as  men  and  citizens  in  yielding  cordial  obe- 
dience to  the  new  government. 

Of  Francois  X.  Matthieu,  the  only  one  of  that  band  of  immortals  still  living 
when  this  history  of  the  events  is  recorded,  too  much  cannot  be  said  in  his  praise. 
Born  and  reared  under  the  flag  that  on  that  day  he  reluctantly  discarded,  with  all 
his  educational  bias,  and  all  his  personal  associations,  with  the  policy  and  men 
who  were  defeated,  it  must  have  been  a  soul-trying  ordeal  to  cast  in  his  lot  with 
the  Americans.  But  being  convinced  that  it  would  be  better  for  those  men  and 
their  families,  and  the  future  of  the  country,  to  be  ruled  by  the  United  States 
than  by  England,  he  sacrificed  all  personal  feeling  and  the  associations  of  his 
life-time,  and  voted  unselfishly  for  what  he  conceived  to  be  the  greatest  good  to 
the  greatest  number.  On  his  vote  depended  the  hopes  and  fears  of  both  sides — 
the  whole  mass.  Had  he  remained  with  the  Canadians  the  vote  would  have 
tied  evenly  and  no  decision.  The  future  of  the  community  might  have  drifted 
helplessly,  or  broken  out  into  faction  and  violence.  At  the  least  sign  of  danger- 
ous strife  the  great  commercial  company,  backed  by  England,  would  have  inter- 
vened, and  British  immigration  and  settlement  would  have  followed,  and  Oregon 
would  have  been  lost  to  the  United  States.  And  well  we  may  conclude  that  the 
single  vote  cast  by  the  far-seeing  and  patriotic  heart  of  Francois  Xavier  Mat- 
thieu solved  a  momentous  question  at  a  critical  moment,  and  enrolled  the  name 
of  this  true  man  among  the  savers  of  Oregon. 

(Francois  Xavier  Matthieu  was  born  at  Montreal,  Canada,  April  2,  1818;  and 
in  1837,  at  the  time  of  the  Canadian  rebellion,  was  clerk  in  a  store  in  Montreal. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  275 

lieing  a  rebel,  lie  employed  his  leisure  iu  purehasiug  iuul  sliij)j)iug  arms  to  the 
centers  of  the  rebelliou,  and  was  obliged  at  last  to  quit  Canada  to  save  his  life,  and 
come  over  to  the  United  States,  which  he  did  in  1838.  Going  first  to  Albany,  New 
York,  and  thence  to  St.  Louis,  he  .joined  a  party  of  the  American  Fur  Company 
to  trap  and  trade  up  into  the  Yellowstone  region.  But  the  Indians  being  ftir- 
nished  with  rum,  which  Matthieu  did  not  approve  of,  he  left  the  party  and  joined 
a  partj-  of  1842  immigrants  on  their  way  to  Oregon.  Reaching  Oi'egon  he  went  to 
Champoeg,  and  hired  out  to  Etienne  Lucier  for  two  years  as  a  carpenter  and 
farmer.  Married  a  good  woman  iu  1844,  and  settled  at  St.  Paul  in  French 
Prairie  as  a  farmer.  He  is  the  only  survivor  of  the  102  men  taking  part  in  the 
Champoeg  meeting  to  organize  a  new  state,  and  now  resides  with  a  daughter  in 
Portland,  enjoying  life  and  his  friends  at  the  age  of  ninety-four.) 

But  as  "Peace  hath  her  victories  no  less  renowned  than  war."  so  we  find  that 
after  the  hazardous  and  strenuous  contest  to  establisli  the  provisional  government 
and  launch  the  frail  ship  of  state  on  the  unsounded  seas  of  inexperience,  that  the 
right  man  finally  came  to  the  helm.  Sooner  or  later  the  right  man  always  comes 
to  a  good  cause  ;  and  when  plain,  modest  citizen,  George  Abernethy,  was  elected 
the  first  governor  of  Oregon,  the  good  people  of  the  new-born  state  had  insured 
the  success  of  their  great  enterprise.  A  spark  of  genius  may  strike  out  a  great 
idea,  a  dashing  general  may  win  a  great  battle  for  a  noble  cause,  and  a  close 
student  may  solve  a  great  scheme  of  government ;  but  the  even-tempered,  patient, 
tireless,  honest,  practical  nian  of  common  sense  is  absolutely  necessary  to  utilize 
the  great  idea,  the  great  battle,  or  the  great  scheme.  So  also  with  the  Oregon 
provisional  government.  From  its  very  inception  there  were  ambitious  men 
thirsting  for  glory  and  anxious  to  lead,  but  had  not  the  necessary  brains  or  bal- 
last. A  three-fold  executive  was  tried  and  found  inefficient.  Impatience  for  re- 
sults, the  jealousies  of  little  men  and  petulant  tempers  of  bigger  men,  all  conspired 
to  threaten  the  government  experiment  with  failure.  The  final  success  of  the 
effort  was  only  secured  by  the  majority  of  citizens,  who  asking  nothing  for  them- 
selves but  peace  and  safety,  determined  that  their  efforts  should  not  be  wrecked 
by  incompetency  or  lack  of  conscientious  effort.  And  so  after  more  than  two 
years  of  careful  consideration  of  every  name  in  the  whole  country  favorable  to 
the  government,  Abernethy  was  chosen  to  pilot  the  ship  of  state,  and  continued 
at  the  helm  until  the  United  States  government  assumed  all  responsibility  and 
relieved  him  of  the  great  duties  he  had  discharged  with  singular  integrity  and 
efficiency,  without  salarj',  fee  or  reward. 

To  raise  money  to  support  a  government  in  a  country  where  half  the  people 
did  not  want  any  government,  and  where  there  was  not  even  the  power  to  en- 
force taxation,  and  where  the  legal  tender  was  wheat,  beaver  skin,  etc.,  and  serve 
the  government  for  years  without  salary  or  pay,  was  not  half  a  list  of  the  trials 
and  difficulties  Governor  Abernethy  had  to  contend  with  and  overcome. 

That  he  was  able  to  keep  the  little  craft  afloat,  and  steer  clear  of  the  opposi- 
tion of  open  enemies,  and  the  petty  annoyances  of  racking  rivalry,  until  he 
finally  reached  the  secure  harbor  of  national  protection,  is  a  marvel  of  good 
management,  patient  forbearance  to  all  criticism  and  patriotic  devotion  to  the 
welfare  of  his  fellowmen.  Wlaere  all  Americans  were  ardent  patriots,  and  many 
were  captious  critics,  the  slightest  deviation  from  the  straight  and  narrow  way 
of  strict  rectitude,  and  even  self-sacrifice,  would  have  lost  him  the  confidence  of 


276  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

the  little  commonwealth  and  plunged  the  community  into  anarchy  that  would  have 
wrecked  the  whole  effort  to  found  a  new  state.  And  to  have  succeeded  as  Gov- 
ernor Abernethy  did,  was  to  save  and  strengthen  the  entire  movement  from  day 
to  day,  until  from  infantile  weakness  it  reached  the  vigor  and  capacity  to  defend 
itself  from  foreign  intrigues  and  Indian  wars.  And  thus  saving  the  organiza- 
tion was  in  fact  making  the  state,  and  the  labor  and  success  of  the  achievement 
places  the  name  of  George  Abernethy  among  those  who  reall}'  in  truth  and  in 
fact  saved  Oregon  to  the  United  States. 

George  Abei'nethy  was  a  native  of  New  York  City  and  was  born  October  7, 
1807.  Left  New  York  in  1839,  and  arrived  in  Oregon  in  1840,  coming  with 
a  missionary  party.  He  was  an  ardent  Methodist,  but  smooth  and  politic  in  a 
marked  degree,  and  able  to  manage  Catholic  and  Protestants  with  equal  facility. 
He  was  actively  supported  by  his  Methodist  brethren  for  the  office  of  governor, 
and  made  a  good  executive.  On  his  canvass  for  re-election,  he  had  serious  oppo- 
sition, and  it  is  said  that  a  majority  of  the  voters  preferred  General  Lovejoy,  but 
put  aside  their  preferences  rather  than  disturb  an  existing  order  of  administra- 
tion. He  went  actively  into  business  after  the  expiration  of  his  official  duties. 
He  was  not  successful  in  mercantile  affairs,  and  after  losing  most  of  his  fortune, 
removed  from  Oregon  City  to  Portland,  and  resided  there  for  sixteen  years,  pass- 
ing away  May  2,  1877. 

It  is  appropriate  to  notice  here  a  suggestion  that  has  been  made  occasionally, 
that  but  for  the  timely  arrival  of  the  immigration  of  1843  the  provisional  govern- 
ment organized  at  Champoeg  would  have  gone  to  pieces  and  failed.  And  that  it 
was  saved  by  such  men  as  James  W.  Nesmith,  Jesse  Applegate  and  Peter  H.  Bur- 
nett coming  in  1843,  and  in  time  to  save  the  organization  from  dissolution.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  the  immigration  of  1843,  and  such  men  as  are  named  did  greatly 
reinforce  the  organization  that  had  been  effected.  Both  Nesmith  and  Burnett 
were  successively  Supreme  Judges  of  Oregon,  and  Applegate  was  active  in  the 
Legislature.  But  the  fact  is  the  government  did  not  go  to  pieces;  and  the 
assumption,  that  it  would  have  gone  to  pieces  but  for  the  reinforcements  of 
1843,  has  no  foundation  on  any  historical  facts. 

No  record  of  the  strenuous  times  in  which  the  foundations  of  civil  govern- 
ment were  laid  in  Oregon  would  be  just  or  complete  that  failed  to  recognize  the 
united  efforts  of  all  the  men  and  women  to  organize  society  and  promote  good 
works  here  from  1840  to  1848.  There  were  leaders,  as  there  must  be  in  all  for- 
ward movements,  which  the  turn  of  events  or  characteristic  abilities  brought  to 
the  front.  But  the  record  and  the  results  show  that  while  individuals  stoutly 
contended  for  their  opinions  and  for  the  policies  of  government,  yet  on  the  one 
purpose  in  view  there  was  more  harmony  and  united  action  than  is  generally 
found  in  small  communities.  It  was  all  the  people  who  united  in  the  provisional 
government  and  manfully  pulled  together  through  good  and  evil  report,  that 
saved  Oregon  to  the  United  States. 

Of  all  these,  three  men  have  secured  great  prominence,  and  one  at  least,  a 
national  reputation,  in  the  work  of  saving  Oregon.  And  of  these  three,  one  was 
not  for  a  time  a  citizen  of  the  United  States. 

The  work  of  John  McLoughlin  in  co-operating  to  organize  society  and  estab- 
lish the  institutions  of  education,  religion  and  civil  government,  is  unique  and 
unexampled  in  the  history  of  the  West.     The  work  of  Marcus  Whitman,  cut  off 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  277 

in  tne  midst  of  his  career  by  the  treacherous  hands  of  those  he  vainly  sought  to 
bless,  has  not,  and  probably  never  will  be  fully  known  or  compi'ehended.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  "Whitman  was  one  of  the  first  to  divine  the  plans  of  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company,  as  the  representative  of  Great  l^ritain  in  Oregon,  and 
probably  the  first  man  to  personally  appeal  to  the  govcriiiiu'ut  Tor  that  support 
which  was  so  long  and  so  wrongfully  withheld. 

An  immense  effort  has  been  made,  principally  by  college  professors  and  their 
co-adjutors  to  belittle  the  work  of  Dr.  Whitman.  And  recently  a  volumiaous 
book  written  by  one  William  I.  Marshall  has  been  published  by  i)rivate  sub- 
scription because  it  could  never  have  seen  the  light  of  day  in  any  other  way, 
which  bitterly  attacks  the  work  of  the  dead  martyr  to  the  cause  of  Oregon. 
There  are  certain  great  facts  which  the  enemies  of  Whitman  cannot  deny ;  but 
being  themselves  narrow  and  limited  in  their  conceptions  or  real  greatness  they 
cannot  comprehend  the  importance  of  these  undeniable  facts.  For  example. 
Whitman  in  the  dead  of  winter  made  a  two  thousand  mile  dash  on  horseback 
over  two  ranges  of  mountains,  conc^uering  the  icy  blasts  of  winter  the  depth  of 
snows  that  had  housed  all  animal  life,  staking  his  life  and  that  of  his  faithful 
steed  against  starvation,  freezing  to  death  in  crossing  snowy  falls  on  Alpine 
heights,  fording  icy  rivers,  braving  Indian  enemies  and  landing  safely  at  his 
goal.  Such  a  feat  was  never  heard  of  in  the  world  before.  It  astonished  the 
the  nation,  and  the  news  of  it  spread  far  and  wide  by  wireless  messengers  and 
proved  to  the  waiting  missionaries  and  all  the  west  that  emigrants  could  get 
to  Oregon  safely  and  surely  in  summer  weather.  That  single  fact  alone  puts 
Whitman  to  the  very  forefront  of  all  the  Oregon  savers. 

The  Whitman  critics  say  there  is  no  evidence  that  Whitman  ever  saw  Presi- 
dent Tyler  or  Secretary  of  State  Webster  on  the  Oregon  question.  But  there 
is  evidence  that  Whitman  did  visit  Washington  City  for  some  purpose.  And 
there  is  no  evidence  that  he  did  not  see  both  of  those  officials.  Marcus  Whitman 
was  not  an  idle  gadder-about.  His  time  was  too  precious.  His  life  was  too 
serious;  his  work  in  Oregon  was  too  great  for  any  trifiing  of  time  or  opportun- 
ities. Many  of  the  greatest  feats  of  public  service  are  never  heralded  to  the 
world.  Does  any  sane  man  of  this  age  suppose  for  a  moment  that  if  Marcus  Whit- 
man had  interviewed  the  president  and  secretary  of  state  and  obtained  any 
kind  of  an  expression  of  purposes  from  them  in  relation  to  Oregon  that  he  would 
have  violated  the  confidence  given  him  by  those  high  officials  and  gone  out  and 
published  to  the  world  the  result  of  the  interview?  The  idea  is  absurd.  And 
the  Whitman  critics  only  expose  their  own  ignorance  and  bitterness  by  their 
reiteration  of  the  state  and  senseless  fault  finding  about  a  man  whose  pur- 
pose and  career  in  life  was  above  their  comprehension. 

The  work  and  career  of  Jason  Lee  was  in  many  respects  different  from  that 
of  McLoughlin  and  Whitman.  Lee,  himself  a  native  Canadian,  was  able  to 
command  the  friendship  of  McLoughlin  from  his  first  appearance  in  Oregon; 
but  being  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  all  his  aims  and  ambitions  were  en- 
thusiastically enlisted  with  his  adopted  country;  and  he  w'as  withal  an  in- 
tensely practical  man.  He  passed  over  the  country  that  Whitman  settled  in. 
He  sized  up  the  native  red  man  from  some  observation  of  him  in  Canada.  He 
saw  at  a  glance  that  the  Willamette  valley  offered  a  better  and  broader  foun- 
dation for  a  missionary  station  than  the  more  rugged  regions  east  of  the  Cas- 


278  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

cades.  The  characteristics  of  these  three  great  men  were  entirely  dissimilar. 
Their  work,  careers,  and  influences  in  Oregon  and  in  saving  Oregon  has  been 
the  subject  of  a  great  controversy  for  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Books  have 
been  written,  each  covering  four  hundred  or  more  pages,  proclaiming  the 
good  work  of  these  men  for  Oregon.  And  that  the  work  of  each  of  them 
may  be  fully  and  justly  presented,  and  preserved  in  this  history,  it  has  been 
deemed  best  to  have  their  careers  sketched  by  friends  who  have  made  a  special 
study  of  their  lives.  And  in  pursuance  of  that  arrangement,  Mr.  Frederick 
V.  Holman,  has  prepared  the  monograph  on  Dr.  John  McLoughlin;  Joseph 
R.  Wilson,  D.  D.,  has  rendered  a  like  service  for  Dr.  Whitman,  while  Mr.  John 
Gill  has  given  us  the  career  of  Jason  Lee.  These  sketches  will  be  found  at  the 
end  of  this  chapter. 

If  the  publisher  had  given  more  space  it  would  have  been  a  pleasant  duty 
to  have  noticed  at  length  such  men  as  W.  H.  Gray,  John  S.  Griffin,  Robert 
Newell,  Robert  Shortess,  James  W.  Nesmith,  Peter  H.  Burnett,  John  Minto 
and  others,  all  of  whom  did  valiant  and  effective  work  in  saving  Oregon  to 
the  United  States.  Gray  was  practically  the  lieutenant  of  Whitman.  Ener- 
getic, omnipresent  and  courageous  to  the  limit,  he  lost  no  opportunity  in  his 
determined  purpose  to  do  all  and  say  all  that  could  be  done  or  said  for  Protest- 
antism and  the  provisional  government.  And  besides  this,  Gray's  work  lives 
after  him  in  a  history  of  Oregon  which  contains  many  facts  and  phases  of 
life  in  pioneer  times  that  cannot  be  found  in  any  other  work  on  Oregon.  Peter 
H.  Burnett,  one  of  the  judges  of  the  provisional  government,  did  useful  work 
for  the  new  state,  attained  prominence  here,  and  going  to  California  was  made 
the  first  governor  of  that  state.  James  W.  Nesmith  was  also  one  of  the  judges 
of  the  provisional  government,  colonel  in  the  Indian  wars,  and  United  States 
senator.  John  S.  GriiSn  (Father  Griffin)  was  for  many  years  a  pioneer 
preacher  of  usefulness,  giving  his  services  freely  to  all,  and  living  to  the  hon- 
ored old  age  of  92.  Robert  Newell  was  the  wit  and  philosopher  of  the  whole 
community,  and  the  peace-maker  in  all  petty  contentions  for  office  or  prece- 
dence. He  was  the  diplomat  that  could  "sooth  the  savage  beast"  and  bend  the 
red  men  to  his  will.  What  "Doc.  Bob  Newell"  could  not  plan,  and  success- 
fully carry  out  to  promote  the  public  welfare  and  peace  of  the  community 
sixty-five  years  ago,  is  not  worth  mentioning. 

But  heroes  and  heroines,  all  of  them,  all  gone  but  one,  and  we  will  never 
see  their  like  again.     Peace  to  their  ashes  and  honor  forevermore. 

"Oh,  bring  us  back  once  more 
The  vanished  days  of  yore, 

When   the   world   with   faith   was   filled; 
Bring  back  the  fervid  zeal. 
The  hearts  of  fire  and  steel, 

The  hands  that  believe  and  build." 

JASON  LEE 

Father  of  American  Oregon  (Scott)  ;  Founder  of  American  Institutions 
and  Civilization  on  the  Pacific  Coast  (Bancroft.)     By  John  Gill. 


I 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  279 

A  tale  so  improbable  that  it  lias  been  doubted  by  historians,  and  regarded 
as  a  myth  by  many  critical  readers,  has  been  attested  as  truth  by  the  vera- 
cious testimon}'  of  Miss  McBeth,  missionary  among  the  Nez  Perces  for  thirty 
years. 

Let  us  begin  with  this  link  of  evidence.  In  her  "Story  of  the  Nez  Perces 
since  Lewis  and  Clark,"  Miss  McBeth  says:  "There  are  two  events  in  Nez 
Perces  history  so  well  known  that  even  children  can  tell  about  them.  These 
are  the  coming  of  Lewis  and  Clark  in  1805,  and  their  return  from  the  coast 
in  1806,  and  the  going  out  of  the  four  Flathead  Indians  seeking  the  'Book  of 
Heaven'  twenty-five  years  later."  She  gives  the  names  of  these  four  messen- 
gei's.  One  of  these  names  corresponds  with  that  given  by  Catlin,  who  met  the 
two  surviving  members  of  this  band  of  four  Nez  Perces  in  1832,  in  St.  Louis, 
and  traveled  two  thousand  miles  with  them  on  their  journey  to  their  country 
in  northern  Idaho.  Another  of  the  names  given  by  Miss  McBeth  is  evidently 
but  a  slight  variation  of  the  name  applied  by  Catlin  to  the  same  man. 

Two  old  men  of  the  four  had  died  before  Catlin  met  the  survivors.  They 
had  been  sent  out  upon  their  quest  of  the  white  man's  God  in  1831,  by  mandate 
of  a  grand  council  of  their  tribes. 

If  any  testimony  were  required  to  confirm  Miss  McBeth,  that  of  George 
Catlin,  the  artist  and  traveler,  the  greatest  authority  who  ever  wrote  upon  the 
Indians,  is  sufticient.  He  says:  "When  I  first  heard  the  report  of  this  extraordi- 
nary mission,  I  could  scarcely  believe  it;  but  on  conversing  with  General  Clark 
(William  Clark  of  the  great  exploring  expedition)  I  was  fully  convinced  of  the 
fact."  Catlin  painted  the  portraits  of  over  five  hundred  Indians,  which  are  now 
in  the  National  Museum  at  Washington,  and  among  them  are  the  portraits  of 
the  two  Nez  Perces  spoken  of.  Catlin  traveled  with  these  Indians  for  weeks  on 
the  first  steamboat  that  made  the  voyage  from  St.  Louis  to  the  upper  Missouri. 
This  was  in  the  spi-ing  of  1832. 

General  Clark  was  probably  the  fir.st  American  wlio  took  a  deep  interest  in 
the  quest  of  these  Nez  Perces.  He  received  them  into  his  own  house  and  was 
most  hospitable  and  helpful  to  them.  When  Keepeelele,  the  old  man  of  the  three 
remaining  upon  their  arrival  at  St.  Louis,  was  mortally  sick.  Mrs.  Clark  min- 
istered to  him.  She  was  herself  in  feeble  health,  and  died,  it  is  stated,  of  mias- 
matic fever,  December  25,  1831.  Keepeelele  was  buried  in  St.  Louis.  His 
epitaph  reads:  "Keepeelele,  enterree,  October  31,  1831,  Nez  Perces  de  la  tribu 
des  Choponeck,  apple  Tete-plate." 

Conquest,  Mrs.  Eva  Emery  Dye. 

Some  have  stated  that  General  Clark  was  a  Roman  Catholic.  He  was  in 
fact  a  communicant  of  tlie  Episcopal  church.  General  Clark  upon  first  receiv- 
ing these  mes.sengers  directed  them  to  Rev.  John  York  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  then 
a  resident  of  St.  Louis.  In  1876,  Mr.  York  was  pastor  of  the  M.  E.  Church  of 
Corvallis,  Oregon. 

An  eloquent  speech  made  at  St.  Louis  by  He-oh-kste-kin,  one  of  these  Nez 
Perces,  is  recorded  by  Dr.  Hines.  It  too  lias  been  considered  mythical ;  not  more 
so  than  the  earliest  claims  that  these  "Flathead"  messengers  were  Nez  Perces, 
probably.  This  speech  tells  of  the  regret  of  the  messengers  that  "they  must  re- 
turn empty  handed  to  their  people. "  They  returned  home  disappointed,  but  their 
errand  was  not  in  vain.    Three  years  after  the  meeting  of  the  council  that  sent 


280  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

them  forth,  Jason  Lee  and  his  companions  passed  through  the  Nez  Perces  countzy, 
seeking  for  the  "Flathead  Indians"  who  had  borne  the  message  and  the  tribes 
that  sought  the  light.  It  was  for  their  sake  that  Lee  undertook  the  mission 
though  his-  work  was  destined  to  be  in  a  field  far  to  westward. 

The  appeal  of  the  Nez  Perces  was  carried  swiftly  from  St.  Louis  to  the  At- 
lantic States.  It  stirred  the  missionary  spirit  of  the  churches  wonderfully. 
Dr.  Wilbur  Fisk,  pi-esident  of  Wilbraham  Academy  (Mass.),  was  one  of  the 
earliest  and  most  active  to  respond.  "Zion's  Herald"  of  Boston,  in  issue  of 
March  22,  1833,  contained  a  rousing  address  to  the  Methodist  churches,  in  part 
as  follows: 

A    GREAT    PKOCLAMATION 

Missionary  Intelligence 
Hear !     Hear ! 

"Who  will  respond  to  the  call  from  beyond  the  Rocky  mountains?  The  com- 
munication from  Brother  G.  P.  Disosway,  on  the  subject  of  the  deputation  of 
Flathead  (Nez  Perces)  Indians  to  General  Clark,  has  excited  intense  interest. 
We  are  for  having  a  mission  established  there  at  once.  *  *  *  Money  shall  be 
forthcoming.  I  ^vill  be  bondsman  for  the  church.  All  we  want  is  the  men.  Who 
will  go?  Who?  I  known  one  young  man  who,  I  think,  will  go,  and  I  know  of 
none  like  him  for  the  enterprise.  *  *  *  Were  I  younger  and  unencumbered, 
how  joyfully  would  I  go !  But  this  honor  is  reserved  for  another.  Great  will 
be  his  reward;  glorious  his  crown. 

"Wilbur  Fisk. 

"Wesleyan  Academy,  March  9,  1833." 

On  March  20,  1833,  the  Missionary  Board  of  the  M.  E.  Church  in  session 
in  New  York  City  received  the  above  communication  from  Dr.  Wilbur  Fisk, 
urging  the  sending  of  a  missionary  to  the  Indians.  Through  the  bishops  of  the 
church  inquiries  were  made  and  a  correspondence  with  General  Clark  fol- 
lowed. From  him  the  board  received  valuable  information  of  the  tribe  and 
the  country,  and  the  result  was  a  resolution  of  the  board  to  establish  a  mis- 
sion among  the  Indians  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  The  church  had  then  a 
single  mission,  recently  established  in  Liberia.  Dr.  Fisk,  who  was  the  presi- 
dent of  Wilbraham  Acadenw  and  a  great  leader  in  the  church,  was  asked  to 
name  a  man  to  take  the  proposed  mission  in  charge.  He  replied:  "I  know 
but  one  man,  Jason  Lee."  On  July  17,  1833,  Lee  was  appointed  to  the  super- 
intendency  of  the  mission  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

boston's    part    in    the    early    occupation    op    OREGON 

New  England  was  alive  with  the  spirit  of  colonization  in  the  early  years 
of  the  last  century.  From  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  large  colonies  trav- 
eled to  the  territories  of  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois,  and  especially  to  the 
"Western  Reserve."  The  sons  and  grandsons  of  some  of  these  Yankee  set- 
tlers moved  westward  again  in  the  forties  to  the  Oregon  country. 

In  Massachusetts  the  idea  of  American  occupation  of  Oregon  first  took  a 
certain  shape.     This  was  naturally  due  to  the  diseovei-y  of  the  Columbia  by 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  ORKOOX  281 

Captain  Robert  Gray,  a  Boston  sailor  in  the  "Columbia,"  owned  by  Boston 
nierehiuits  trading  for  furs  along  the  north  Tacific  coast.  Otiier  Boston  ships 
also  traded  along  these  shores.  Even  before  the  Astoria  enterprise,  three  brothers 
named  "Winship,  z-esidents  of  Boston,  and  others,  formed  a  company  for  settle- 
ment and  trade  on  the  Columbia,  and  Nathaniel  Winship  sailed  upon  this 
enterprise  in  1801)  in  the  "Albatross."  This  ship  entered  the  Columbia  in 
1810,  and  ascended  the  river  to  Oak  Point  (on  tlie  Oregon  side)  nearly  north 
of  the  village  of  Marshland. 

Hei-e  Winship  planted  a  garden  and  began  the  building  of  a  foi-t  or  trad- 
ing station;  but  the  June  rise  of  the  Columbia  swept  away  the  foundation, 
destroyed  the  garden,  and  caused  Winship  to  abandon  his  efforts.  These  New 
England  ventures  doubtless  inspired  Astor's  expedition  of  the  following  year. 

Hall  J.  Kelley,  a  Bostonian,  became  an  active  advocate  for  the  occupation 
of  Oregon,  as  already  stated  in  this  chapter. 

THE    STUDENT    AND    HIS    LINEAGE 

At  the  time  when  Kelley  was  most  active  in  his  exhortations  for  the  settle- 
ment of  Oregon,  a  young  Canadian  giant  came  down  from  Stanstead,  a  bor- 
der town  of  the  Vermont  line,  to  study  at  Wilbraham  academy.  This  was 
Jason  Lee,  then  twenty-four  years  old.  He  had  been  recently  converted  and 
determined  upon  entering  the  Methodist  ministry.  Though  born  in  Canada, 
Jason  Lee  was  of  one  of  the  New  England  families,  his  father,  Daniel  Lee, 
having  moved  to  Stanstead  in  1800,  to  join  a  colony  of  New  Englanders  who 
were  settling  that  township  which  they  believed  would  be  included  in  Ameri- 
can territory  when  the  international  boundary  was  finally  settled.  Daniel 
Lee  was  of  Connecticut,  and  his  wife  also.  John  Lee,  the  English  pi-ogenitor 
of  the  family,  was  of  Colchester,  Essex,  and  came  to  America  in  1643,  in  the 
ship  "Francis"  of  Ipswich.  He  lived  in  Cambridge  and  was  one  of  the  com- 
pany of  Rev.  Thomas  Hooker,  which  settled  and  founded  the  city  of  Hartford. 

His  descendants  were  soldiers  in  the  French  and  Indian  wars,  and  fought 
at  Concord,  Lexington.  Long  Island,  Valley  Forge,  and  Bennington.  Colonel 
Noah  Lee,  equipped  a  regiment  and  fought  with  Ethan  Allen.  Captain  Na- 
than Hale,  Washington's  scout,  was  a  descendant  of  Tabitha,  youngest  daugh- 
ter of  John  Lee,  and  Rev.  Edward  Everett  Hale  is  of  the  same  lineage.  Such 
wei-e  the  ancestoi-s  of  Jason  Lee. 

This  young  student  was  six  feet,  three  inches  in  height,  and  of  correspond- 
ing herculean  proportions.  His  complexion  was  ruddy,  his  eyes  gray-blue; 
an  Anglo-Saxon  in  type,  full  of  the  strong  virile  elements  of  that  race.  He 
attracted  the  especial  attention  and  care  of  Dr.  Wilbur  Fisk.  then  president 
of  Wesleyan  Academy,  and  when  the  Methodist  church  determined  upon  send- 
ing a  mission  to  the  Indians  of  the  Oregon  country.  Dr.  Fisk  recalled  Jason 
Lee,  who  had  returned  to  Stanstead,  and  by  authority  of  the  Missionary  Board 
of  the  church  he  wrote  to  Lee,  offering  him  the  supei'intendency  of  the  mission. 
The  young  man  had  already  offered  his  services  to  the  Wesleyan  Missionary 
Society  of  London  as  a  missionary  to  the  Canadian  Indians,  and  when  Dr. 
Fiske's  letter  reached  him,  he  was  expecting  the  appointment  from  London. 


282  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

Up  to  this  time,  Jason  Lee  liad  been  a  member  of  the  "Wesleyan  Church  of 
Canada;  but  at  once  accepted  the  offered  appointment. 

Jason  Lee  was  born  in  1803  at  Stanstead,  and  his  life  was  that  of  a  back- 
woodsman, with  limited  means  of  education.  It  was  in  1827  that  he  entered 
Wilbraham  academy  as  a  student,  at  the  age  of  twenty-four. 

Jason  Lee  was  received  into  the  New  England  conference  in  the  spring  of 
1833,  and  set  about  the  preparation  for  his  mission  at  once.  As  his  assistant 
in  the  duty  of  the  new  field  he  chose  Rev.  Daniel  Lee,  his  nephew,  then  a 
minister  in  New  Hampshire.  As  a  teacher,  Cyrus  Shepard,  of  Lynn,  was  en- 
gaged. They  held  a  farewell  meeting  in  New  York  in  the  Forsyth  street 
church,  November  20,  Bishop  Hedding  presiding. 

Captain  Wyeth  at  this  time,  was  planning  a  second  expedition  to  Oregon, 
and  was  to  start  overland  in  the  spring  of  1834.  The  opportunity  was  thus 
offered  for  our  missionaries  to  cross  the  plains  and  mountains  with  men  who 
had  become  acquainted  with  the  route,  and  the  Methodist  mission  took  its  de- 
parture in  March  to  pass  via  Pittsburg,  and  the  Ohio  river  and  Mississippi  to 
St.  Louis,  and  fell  into  the  train  of  Captain  Wyeth  at  Independence,  then  the  last 
town  westward,  on  April  22d.  Prom  St.  Louis  to  Independence,  Jason  and 
Daniel  Lee  had  ridden  horseback  across  Missouri.  At  Independence  Mr.  Lee 
engaged  P.  L.  Edwards  as  a  teacher  and  Courtney  M.  Walker  as  an  assistant. 

ACROSS   THE   PLAINS    WITH    CAPTAIN   WYETH 

The  young  evangelist  found  himself  in  strange  company.  There  were  nearly 
two  hundred  of  Wyeth 's  men,  and  they  were  a  tough  lot  of  mountaineers  and 
trappers,  accustomed  to  hard  life  and  scant  ceremony — winters  spent  in  St. 
Louis  and  the  river  towns  in  wild  orgies,  then  back  to  the  fur  country.  This 
company  was  expecting  to  compete  with  the  Hudson's  Bay  establishment  for  the 
fur  trade  of  the  Northwest,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  Captain  Wyeth  engaged  any 
class-leaders  for  the  enterprise.  The  Lees  were  sick  of  their  strange  surround- 
ings at  first,  but  soon  found  themselves  none  the  worse.  They  bore  their  proper 
share  of  the  toils  and  dangers  of  the  journey  through  the  Indian  country  and 
won  the  friendship  and  good-will  of  the  party. 

On  June  15,  the  Wyeth  company  met  the  great  body  of  trappers  and  mountain- 
eers of  the  inter-mountain  region  at  the  ' '  summer  rendezvous, ' '  a  summer  gather- 
ing of  these  semi-wild  men,  at  a  time  when  they  were  footloose.  This  time  the 
rendezvous  was  on  Ham's  Pork,  a  stream  which  enters  Green  river,  a  branch  of 
the  Colorado,  at  a  point  near  the  site  of  Port  Bridger.  Two  days'  journey  by 
the  old  emigrant  road  west  from  Green  river,  some  of  the  trappers  in  the  motley 
crowd  promised  to  make  trouble  for  the  missionary  party,  but  as  soon  as  Jason 
Lee  was  informed  of  their  threats,  he  sought  the  men  out  and  had  a  frank  talk 
with  them,  which  quite  removed  their  hostile  ideas  and  gave  them  a  wholesome 
respect  for  the  young  preacher. 

At  the  redezvous  Lee  encountered  certain  Indians  of  the  Nez  Perces  tribe 
who  had  heard  of  Christianity,  like  their  neighbors,  the  Platheads,  and  the 
young  chief  who  was  at  the  head  of  this  party  of  Nez  Perces  invited  him  to 
come  to  the  country  of  his  people  and  establish  his  mission  among  them.     This 


Til  10  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  283 

cliiel:  was  the  eeleliraled  leader  of  his  tribe,  sul)SP(|ueiitly  known  as  "Law^yer, " 
and  is  remembered  by  many  of  our  pioneers. 

On  July  10th,  the  expedition  passed  over  the  divide,  from  which  the  waters 
flow  west  into  the  Shoshone,  and  three  days  later  they  reached  that  river  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Port  Neuf.  Here  Wyeth's  party  remained  some  time,  procuring 
provisions  from  the  Indians  and  establishing  the  trading  post  station  linown  as 
Fort  Hall.  Here  Lee  preached  the  fii-st  sermon  ever  uttered  in  the  Oregon 
country,  July  27,  1834. 

His  audience  consisted  of  Indians,  half-breeds,  Canadian  trappers,  etc. 
Among  the  listeners  w-as  the  famous  Captain  Tom  McKay,  who  acted  as  guide 
for  Wyeth's  party  from  this  point  west,  and  two  years  later  he  performed  the 
same  service  for  Dr.  Marcus  Whitman,  whom  he  also  escorted  from  Fort  Hall 
to  Vancouver. 

On  the  first  day  of  September,  they  emerged  from  the  Blue  mountains  and 
before  night  of  September  2,  they  reached  Fort  Walla  Walla.  The  missionaries 
had  been  placed  under  obligations  for  the  food  they  ate  to  Captain  McKay  and 
the  Indians  of  the  country.  Lee  says  in  his  diary:  "The  Indian  women  would 
bring  food  and  putting  it  down  return  without  saying  a  word,  as  they  speak 
no  language  we  can  understand." 

The  Lees  reached  Vancouver  September  17,  1834,  going  down  the  Columbia 
river  in  flat  boats. 

That  night  the  missionaries  slept  in  beds,  in  houses  for  the  first  time  in  150 
days.  Tliey  were  the  guests  of  a  prince  among  men.  Dr.  John  McLoughlin, 
chief  factor  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  ma.ster  of  a  territory  that  stretched 
from  California  to  the  Arctic  and  from  the  Pacific  to  Saskatchewan. 

The  country  was  esteemed  much  as  Kamchatka  and  the  seal  rookeries  of 
the  North  Pacific  by  ourselves  now.  The  handful  of  white  men  scattered  between 
the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the  sea  had  no  idea  of  "settling"  the  country.  It  was 
to  them  a  great  preserve  of  fur-bearing  animals,  and  they  intended  to  keep  it  so. 
No  greater  menace  to  their  interest  was  possible  than  the  occupation  of  the  coun- 
try by  settlers  of  whatever  origin ;  and  yet  they  put  no  obstacles  in  the  way  of 
the  stream  which  had  its  beginning  in  Jason  Lee's  party,  and  increased  in  volume 
year  by  year  thereafter.  Until  long  after  Lee's  arrival  the  Oregon  country  was 
a  no-man's-land — a  debatable  ground,  the  intrinsic  value  of  which  was  unknown 
alike  to  both  America  and  England.  Dr.  McLoughlin  was  the  governor  of  the 
country,  acting  for  the  only  civilized  people  within  its  borders,  who  by  existing 
treaties  had  at  least  an  equal  right  in  it  wdth  the  only  other  contestant,  and  by 
possession  and  vested  interests  a  better,  than  any  then  existing. 

Jason  Lee  was  received  by  Dr.  McLoughlin  as  hospitably  as  man  could  be, 
and  with  the  respect  and  deference  due  him  as  a  clergyman.  He  was  not  quite 
sure  that  his  mission  met  Dr.  McLoughlin 's  approval  at  first,  but  his  frank 
kindness  soon  won  Mr.  Lee's  confidence.  The  appeal  of  the  four  Indians  who 
had  gone  to  St.  Louis  still  rang  in  his  ears,  and  he  counseled  with  the  Doctor 
about  going  back  into  the  Clearwater  country  to  find  their  people,  but  Dr.  Mc- 
Loughlin advised  the  establishment  of  the  mission  in  the  Willamette  valley  in 
the  neighborhood  of  French  prairie,  where  a  number  of  former  employees  of  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  had  settled  on  farms,  and  where  many  Indians  gathered. 
This  advice  ought  to  set  at  rest  any  idea  that  Dr.  McLoughlin  was  opposed  to 


284:  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Lee's  enterprise,  for  it  would  have  been  easy  enough  to  second  his  own  desire 
to  go  far  into  the  interior  where  the  difficulties  in  the  way  would  have  been  per- 
haps insurmountable.  McLoughlin  was  a  Catholic,  indeed,  and  his  hearty  con- 
currence in  Jason  Lee's  plan  to  Christianize  the  Indians  marks  the  liberal, 
magnanimous  gentleman. 

Wlien  Lee  determined  to  visit  the  locality  proposed  by  Dr.  McLoughlin, 
the  company  offered  him  every  facility.  Boats,  boatmen  and  provisions  were 
freely  given  him.  At  the  "Willamette  Palls  the  Indians  assisted  in  the  portage 
of  the  boat  and  goods,  and  the  journey  to  the  site  of  the  mission  in  the  Willam- 
ette valley  was  completed  October  6th. 

The  season  was  already  too  far  advanced  for  beginning  such  an  undertaking 
as  the  construction  of  a  mission  house,  but  Jason  Lee  was  resolved  upon  its  com- 
pletion for  winter  use  as  a  house  for  himself  and  companions,  and  as  a  school 
and  chapel.  Dr.  McLoughlin  had  sent  up  oxen  and  a  number  of  cows  for  the 
mission.  Jason  Lee  was  a  New  England  frontiersman,  handy  with  the  axe  and 
care  of  cattle;  and  the  management  of  the  clearing,  hauling  and  building  were 
his  personal  care  and  labor.  He  was  a  collossal  man,  eight  inches  above  aver- 
age heighth  and  powerful  in  accord.  The  building  first  constructed  was  eight- 
een by  thirty-two  feet  and  one  story  high.  It  was  occupied  four  weeks  after 
their  arrival  on  the  spot,  though  not  yet  completed.  This  was  the  first  Ameri- 
can home  built  on  the  Pacific  coast  or  on  the  western  side  of  the  Rocky  moun- 
tains. 

Before  the  completion  of  the  building  Indian  children  of  the  prairie  were 
receiving  instruction  and  care.  October  19th,  Jason  Lee  preached  his  first  ser- 
mon near  the  Mission  in  the  house  of  Joseph  Gervais,  of  French  Prairie,  as  a 
large  tract  of  land  between  the  Willamette  and  the  present  town  of  Gervais  was 
called.  The  location  chosen  was  in  some  ways  unfortunate,  but  all  considera- 
tions of  comfort  or  future  advantage  were  properly  set  aside  by  Lee  in  his  de- 
termination to  perform  the  work  to  which  he  was  called.  The  half-breed  chil- 
dren of  the  prairie  were  numerous,  and  many  Indians  traveled  the  river  and 
lower  trails,  or  made  their  homes  near  French  Prairie.  Here  was  the  most 
favorable  place  for  reaching  the  people,  and  so  the  mission  site  was  chosen 
near  the  river  on  land  too  low,  as  it  proved  later,  being  subject  to  inundation 
in  river  floods,  and  peculiarly  miasmatic. 

THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  VALLEY 

It  was  the  intention  of  the  church  to  Christianize  the  Indians;  the  mes- 
sage of  the  pilgrims  to  St.  Louis  had  evoked  a  remarkable  response  from  the 
eastern  churches,  and  it  was  doubtless  intended  that  Jason  Lee  should  establish 
himself  among  the  "Flatheads. "  The  people  who  sent  him  knew  nothing  of 
Nez  Perces,  and  Lee  overshot  the  actual  mark  five  hundred  miles,  by  coming 
to  the  Willamette,  but  the  Indians  of  our  vicinity  were  flatheaded  as  any,  and 
as  fit  subjects  of  missionary  aid  as  could  be  found  anywhere.  They  were  not 
the  most  hopeful  subjects,  but  the  first  great  missionary  of  Christianity  seems 
not  to  have  balanced  very  carefully  the  advantage  of  preaching  to  Greeks  or 
Romans  rather  than  to  Hebrews. 

Among  the  resident  Indians  of  the  Willamette  were  Chinooks,  Multnomahs, 


THE  CENTENNIAL  IIISTOllY  OF  OKECOX  285 

Clackiinias,  t'alapooia.s,  IMolallas  and  other  tribes,  wliose  names  in  some  instances 
si  ill  pertaiu  to  the  land  they  lived  in.  These  Indians,  like  most  of  their  race, 
had  no  fixed  dwelling  place.  When  the  camas  or  wapato  or  berries  were  ready 
i'or  gathering  or  digging,  they  migrated  in  bands  to  places  where  these  things 
were  to  be  had.  When  salmon  were  plenty  at  the  Falls  or  do\^^l  the  Columbia, 
the  men  would  be  off  fishing.  In  the  fall  there  was  game  in  abundance,  par- 
ticularly wild  fowl,  and  the  tribes  followed  these  necessary  ob.iects  of  their 
lives  from  place  to  place  over  large  tracts,  from  the  river  to  the  mountains, 
fi'om  the  mountains  to  the  sea.  The  aborigines  had  been  rapidly  decreasing 
in  number  for  half  a  century  or  more.  Their  traditions  tell  of  terrible  pestilence 
among  them,  even  before  the  first  contact  with  the  white  race  on  the  Pacific, 
half  a  century  before  Lee's  coming.  The  year  after  Lee  established  the  mission 
llie  ^lultnomahs  living  on  Wapato  Island  and  the  ad.joiuing  low  lands,  died  by 
hundreds  from  measles,  having  been  infected  from  a  trading  vessel  in  the  river. 
'I'iie  disease  contracted  from  the  whites  had  greatly  reduced  the  population 
of  the  Willamette,  and  soon  after  the  establishment  of  the  mission  sickness  of 
a  dangerous  sort  prevailed  among  the  Indian  children,  who  had,  up  to  that 
lime  been  received  in  considerable  numbei's,  and  begun  their  new  duties  as 
proselytes  of  the  mission  with  encouraging  zeal  and  interest.  The  sickness 
seemed  to  cling  about  the  place  for  years.  It  was  a  fever,  and  is  explained  by 
some  as  malarial,  due  to  the  cultivation  of  the  moist  lowlands.  Jason  Lee  and 
his  two  assistants  gave  the  utmost  care  possible  to  the  sick,  and  Daniel  Lee 
was  compelled  to  seek  relief  from  labor  and  sickness  by  a  voyage  to  the  Sand- 
wich Islands  the  following  winter. 

Like  certain  Asiatics,  our  Indians  held  the  medicine  man  responsible  when 
the  patient  died;  this  spirit  of  vengeance  nearly  cost  Lee  and  his  companions 
their  lives  more  than  once.  Some  other  Indians,  grateful  for  kindnesses  shown 
them,  gave  Lee  warning. 

The  Indians  of  1834,  in  the  western  Oregon  countrj^  were  half  savage  only, 
the  nobler  traits  of  the  ancient  race  being  supplanted  by  the  white  man's  vices. 
The  remoter  tribes  maintained  the  tribal  customs  and  manner  of  living,  but 
from  Astoria  to  Wai-il-at-pu,  and  for  a  hundred  miles  up  the  Willamette,  the 
tools,  trinkets,  arms  and  cast  off  clothing  of  the  whites  were  common  enough. 
The  Indians  of  this  locality  attempted  to  imitate  the  trapper  and  voyageur. 
Many  hovered  about  the  trading  posts,  more  ready  to  eat  the  scraps  and  offal  than 
follow  the  ancient  hardy  habits  of  their  race.  Exceptional  Indians  foresaw  this 
new  order,  and  were  anxious  that  their  children  should  get  the  wisdom  of  the 
white  man,  or  even  his  religion.  Manj^  such  children  came  under  the  care  of 
the  Willamette  mission. 

The  children  of  French  Prairie  were  more  hopeful  subjects  for  instruction. 
Their  fathers  were  mostly  Canadian  trappers  and  voyaguers,  formerly  servants 
of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  who  had  taken  Indian  women  to  wife  in  their 
days  of  wandering;  and  now  domesticated  in  the  heart  of  the  valley,  released 
from  service,  they  were  glad  to  have  the  mission  and  school  available  for  their 
children. 

The  settlement  on  the  "Prairie"  now  included  in  the  old  Catholic  parishes 
of  St.  Louis  and  St.  Paul,  was  begun  in  1829.  Dr.  McLoughlin  advised  the 
servants  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  who  had  served  their  enlistment  to  settle 


286  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

there,  and  aided  them  substantially  in  making  their  homes;  furnished  them 
plows  and  cattle,  and  assured  them  the  protection  of  the  great  company.  Even 
at  that  early  date  Dr.  McLoughlin  was  convinced  that  this  settlement  was  des- 
tined to  be  an  American  settlement. 

The  material  for  conversion  to  Christian  and  civilized  liviag,  was  not  the 
most  hopeful.  After  three-quarters  of  a  century  the  problem  of  education  for 
the  Indian  is  still  a  doubtful  one.  Jason  Lee's  idea  of  teaching  the  children  of 
the  mission  to  do  useful  work  as  well  as  study,  seems  to  have  been  followed  and 
approved  by  missionaries  and  teachers  to  this  day.  His  work  and  methods  were 
approved  by  men  qualified  to  judge.  Rev.  Samuel  Parker  who  visited  the  mis- 
sion in  1835,  while  investigating  the  conditions  for  the  establishment  of  American 
Board  missions  among  the  Pacific  coast  Indians,  records  his  approval  and  ad- 
miration of  the  mission ;  and  its  head,  Dr.  McLoughlin,  a  year  and  a  half  after  the 
mission  was  begun,  sent  to  Mr.  Lee,  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  which  had  been 
contributed  by  himself  and  other  gentlemen  of  the  post,  with  this  noble  letter  of 
commendation : 

"I  do  myself  the  pleasure  to  hand  you  the  enclosed  subscription,  which  the 
gentlemen  who  have  signed  it  request  you  will  do  the  favor  to  accept  for  the  use 
of  the  mission;  and  they  pray  our  Heavenly  Father,  without  whose  assistance 
we  can  do  nothing,  that  of  His  infinite  mercy,  He  will  vouchsafe  to  bless  and 
prosper  your  pious  endeavor ;  and  believe  me  to  be,  with  esteem  and  regard,  your 
sincere  well-wisher  and  humble  servant." 

"John  McLoughlin. 

"Fort  Vancouver,  First  of  March,  1836." 

Toward  the  end  of  the  same  year,  Mr.  Wm.  A.  Slacum,  naval  agent  of  the 
United  States,  visited  the  mission  and  all  the  families  of  the  "Prairie." 

Mr.  Slacum  wrote  Jason  Lee  a  letter  of  high  approval,  and  enclosed  a  gift  of 
fifty  dollars,  "  as  an  evidence  of  my  good  will  toward  the  laudable  efforts  you  are 
making,  regretting  that  my  means  will  not  allow  me  to  add  more. ' ' 

Mr.  Slacum  and  Jason  Lee  discussed  the  situation  of  the  settlers  in  the  Willam- 
ette, and  Mr.  Slacum  gave  important  aid  to  an  enterprise  of  vital  interest  to 
the  country.  Cattle  were  still  very  scarce,  and  a  company  was  formed,  by  the 
settlers  who  had  money,  to  bring  a  large  band  of  cattle  from  California.  Jason 
Lee  was  a  leader,  if  not,  if  not,  as  seems  probable,  the  leader  in  this  effort. 

Ewing  Young,  another  of  the  early  Americans,  went  as  captain  of  the  expedi- 
tion. Mr.  Slacum  took  those  who  went  from  the  valley  on  this  errand  in  the 
"Loriot"  to  San  Francisco  without  cost,  and  Mr;  Edwards,  who  came  out  in 
Jason  Lee's  party,  accompanied  these  pioneer  cowboys  as  treasurer  of  the  cattle 
company.  The  animals  were  driven  up  the  Sacramento,  and  then  to  Oregon, 
closely  following  the  present  route  of  the  railroad.  The  cost  delivered  at  desti- 
nation was  eight  dollars  per  head.  Probably  this  large  influx  of  Spanish  blood 
is  responsible  for  many  of  the  gifted  fence-.jumping  bovines  that  still  roam  our 
fields. 

reinforcements  arrive 

In  January,  1838,  Jason  Lee  set  out  upon  a  journey  to  the  Umpqua  valley, 
to  see  about  establishing  a  mission  there.    He  spent  two  months  on  this  quest, 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  2H7 

enduring  great  privations  and  peril.  The  Dalles  was  selected  as  a  promising 
point  for  a  mission,  and  to  this  field  Rev.  Daniel  Lee,  and  Rev.  H.  K.  .\V. 
Perkins,  were  assigned.  They  arrived  at  their  destination,  the  Indian 
town  of  Wascopam,  ^larch  22,  and  immediately  began  their  work.  The 
field  of  their  labors  extended  from  the  Cascades  to  Deschutes  river,  and  ou  both 
sides  of  the  Columbia.  In  this  territory  were  clans  of  Walla  Walla,  Wishram 
(the  notorious  robber  tribes  of  the  (Ii-and  Dalles),  Waseos,  who  lived  at  Wasco- 
pam, Klickitats,  and  the  "Upper  Chinooks,"  the  two  latter  occupying  the  coun- 
try north  of  the  river;  about  two  thousand  Indians  were  more  or  less  perma- 
nently in  this  field,  and  Yakimas,  Cayuses  and  Klickitats  were  frequently  pass- 
ing through  it.  The  latter  tribes  made  astonishing  journeys  from  their  country 
to  Northern  California  annually  and  claimed  to  overlord  the  Willamette  tribes. 
The  Dalles  mission  religiously  aeeouiiilished  more  among  the  Indians  than  any 
of  the  other  stations. 

The  missionaries  used  the  Chinook  intertribal  tongue  in  their  public  talk  to 
the  Indians ;  and  the  upper  tribes  as  far  as  the  Nez  Perce,  at  least,  were  accus- 
tomed to  make  use  of  Chinook,  though  speaking  languages  of  their  own,  which 
were  as  different  from  Chinook  as  Arabic  is  from  the  English.  Some  of  their 
hymns,  prayers  and  addresses  are  preserved,  all  in  Chinook  of  the  "Upper"  dia- 
lect in  old  books. 

P"'requentlj'  it  was  necessary  that  the  words  of  the  missionary  should  be  trans- 
lated into  the  speech  of  the  interior  tribe  by  an  interpreter. 

In  1840,  after  the  arrival  of  a  lay  party  of  missionaries  in  the  Lausanne,  a 
council  or  conference  of  the  members  of  the  mission  was  held  at  Vancouver,  and 
new  missions  were  detailed  for  Clatsop  (sometimes  called  Chinook),  Nisqually, 
Umpqua  and  Willamette  Falls.  Jason  Lee  remained  in  charge  of  all  as  their 
superintendent. 

A  MISSION  TO  THE  E,\ST 

Three  years  after  the  establishment  of  the  Willamette  mission  the  question 
of  sending  Jason  Lee  east  for  more  workers  in  the  field  and  financial  aid  from 
the  missionary  society  was  discussed.  Besides  Lee  and  his  earlier  assistants, 
there  were  then  connected  with  his  work  Rev.  David  Leslie,  Rev.  H.  K.  W.  Per- 
kins, Alanson  Beers,  W.  H.  Willson  and  Dr.  Elijah  White.  These  all  earnestly 
advised  Lee's  return.  A  similar  situation  in  some  respects  existed  at  Wai-il-at-pu 
in  the  fall  of  1842,  four  and  a  half  years  later  than  Jason  Lee's  first  return  to 
the  east.  Both  of  these  missions  felt  the  need  of  representing  to  their  parent 
societies  by  an  envoy  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  situation  the  importance 
of  their  field  of  labor  and  its  needs  in  1842.  The  American  board  had  deter- 
mined to  abandon  the  Waiilatpu  and  Clearwater  missions.  The  Methodist 
Episcopal  society  ^vas  not  very  warmly  interested  in  the  Oregon  work.  Jason 
Lee  and  Marcus  Whitman  had  like  ambitions  to  see  the  American  people  and 
government  in  control  of  this  western  empire,  which  was  no-man's  land  for  many 
years.  The  great  spring  of  action  in  both  instances  was  the  duty  to  his  mission. 
That  Lee  was  awake  to  the  political  importance  of  his  errand  is  proven  by  the 
fact  that  before  he  started  east,  in  March,  18.38,  at  a  meeting  of  the  American 
settlers  in  the  mission  house,  Lee,  Leslie  and  Perkins  drew  up  a  memorial  to  be 
presented  to  Congi-ess  asking  that  body  to  "take  formal  and  speedy  posession." 


288  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

The  memorial  is  wortlij"  of  a  statesman.  It  set  out  tlie  great  value  of  Oregon 
as  a  territory  to  the  United  States,  and  stated  intelligently  the  whole  situation 
historically  and  economically.  This  paper  was  signed  by  thirty-six  residents  of 
the  Willamette  valley,  including  all  Americans  and  many  Canadian  settlers. 

Lee  set  out  on  his  journey  in  March,  staying  for  two  days  at  the  Wascopam 
mission  As  far  as  possible  he  went  by  canoe.  Thus  he  arrived  at  Waiilatpu, 
where  he  remained  nearly  three  weeks  in  the  friendliest  intimacy  with  Dr.  Whit- 
man and  Rev.  H.  H.  Spalding.  It  is  not  probable  that  there  was  any  reserve  be- 
tween these  men,  engaged  in  the  same  work,  and  with  the  same  patriotic  senti- 
ments. If  we  could  have  Dr.  Whitman's  word  about  it  he  would  tell  us  now  that 
he  read  every  word  of  the  memorial  from  the  settlers  of  the  Willamette,  and 
knew  Jason  Lee  would  present  it  to  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  as  soon  as 
he  reached  Washington. 

At  Wallula  (Fort  Walla  Walla  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company),  Lee  left  the 
river,  and  from  thence  onward  a  thousand  miles  or  more,  horseback  to  the  Mis- 
souri. At  Fort  Hall  he  took  in  charge  three  sons  of  Captain  Tom  McKay,  who 
had  been  Lee's  guide  westward  from  that  fort  in  1834.  The  boys  were  com- 
mitted to  him  by  their  father  to  be  put  in  school,  and  Lee  took  them  to  Wilbra- 
ham  academy,  his  own  alma  mater.  At  Westport,  Missouri,  September  1,  a  mes- 
senger from  Oregon  overtook  him  with  letters.  They  brought  him  the  terrible 
news  that  his  young  wife  and  new-born  son  had  passed  away  at  the  mission  June 
26.  Her  gravestone  in  Lee  mission  cemetery  at  Salem,  bears  the  legend:  "Be- 
neath this  sod,  the  first  ever  broken  in  Oregon  for  the  reception  of  a  white  mother 
and  child,  lie  the  remains  of  Anna  Maria  Pittman,  wife  of  Rev.  Jason  Lee." 

Perchance  her  hands  planted  the  climbing  white  rose  that  John  Minto  found 
growing  luxuriantly  over  the  walls  and  roof  of  the  log  house  that  was  her  home 
when  he  purchased  the  mission  farm  in  1845.  Mr.  Minto  has  distributed  this 
rose  over  the  Willamette  valley,  nature's  most  favored  rose  garden,  and  he  speaks 
lovingly  of  it  as  "the  sweetest  rose  that  grows." 

By  way  of  St.  Louis,  Mr.  Lee  passed  to  Illinois.  Again  the  nation  awoke  to 
the  existence  of  the  Oregon  country.  At  Peoria  he  delivered  an  address  invit- 
ing immigration  to  Oregon.  This  resulted  in  the  formation  of  the  first  company 
of  settlers  for  the  Willamette,  which  left  Illinois  the  following  spring.  He  ar- 
rived in  New  York  in  November,  and  so  well  did  he  plead  his  cause  before  the 
Missionary  Board  that  that  body  determined  to  send  the  largest  missionary  col- 
ony to  Oregon  that  had  ever  left  American  shores.  The  party  included  thirty- 
three  adults  to  take  various  duties  and  eighteen  children.  The  fund  raised  for 
the  new  expedition  was  over  forty-two  thousand  dollars. 

The  memorial  from  the  settlers  of  the  Willamette  was  presented  by  Lee  to 
Senator  Linn,  of  Missouri,  and  by  him  to  the  Senate.  Caleb  Cushing,  of  Massa- 
chusetts, desiring  more  information,  wrote  to  Lee  for  the  facts,  and  he  replied 
from  Middletown,  Conecticut,  stating  clearly  and  powerfully  the  needs  and  de- 
sires of  the  Oregonians.  Senator  Cushing  was  a  relative  of  Captain  John  H. 
Couch,  who  was  induced  to  come  to  Oregon  in  the  brig  ' '  Chenamus, ' '  by  reason 
of  Lee's  letter  to  Cushing.  The  Cushing  family  were  Boston  merchants,  and 
here  again  appears  the  helping  hand  of  Massachusetts  to  the  Oregon  settlement. 
Two  brothei-s  of  the  Couch  family  commanded  vessels  of  the  Cushings.  They 
were  interested,  as  stated  above,  in  Jason  Lee's  report  to  Senator  Linn,  and  the 


THE  CENTKXNIAI.  IlLSTORY  OF  OJJJ'XJON  289 

ciiiTfsiioiuli-'iirL'  bet\vi'(.'ii  the  luissiouary  ;uk1  tliu  iiiCn/luml  resulted  in  tlie  Couehes 
aiid  the  Cushings'  eutranee  into  Oregon  conimerce. 

Captain  Coueh  made  several  voyages  here,  and  finally  took  up  a  claim  in 
Portland,  and  became  one  of  the  founders  of  that  citj",  which  has  done  his  name 
well-deserved  honor  in  perpetuating  it  by  giving  the  name  of  Couch  to  one  of  its 
important  streets  and  to  one  of  its  public  schools.  Lee's  reply  to  Senator  Cush- 
ing  closed  with  these  words :  "  to  whom  we  can  look  for  laws  to  govern  our  ris- 
ing settlements,  but  to  the  Congress  of  our  own  beloved  country?  It  depends 
much  upon  Congress  what  the  character  of  our  population  shall  be,  and  what 
shall  be  the  faith  of  the  Indian  tribes  of  that  country.  It  may  be  thought  Oregon 
is  of  little  importance ;  but  rely  upon  it,  there  is  the  germ  of  a  great  state.  We 
are  resolved  to  do  what  we  can  to  benefit  the  country,  but  we  throw  ourselves 
upon  you  for  protection. ' '  Lee 's  presentation  of  the  claim  of  the  Oregon  settlers, 
was  so  favorably  received  by  the  President  and  his  Cabinet  that  $5,000  from  the 
secret  service  fund  was  contributed  toward  the  expense  of  the  missionary  so- 
ciety, in  recognition  of  the  strategic  and  political  importance  of  the  mission  of 
the  "Willamette. 

On  October  9,  1839,  the  "Lausanne"  sailed  from  New  York  with  fifty-one 
souls,  destined  for  the  Willamette  and  other  missions  of  Oregon.  Among  them 
were  George  Abernethy,  who  became  Oregon's  first  provisional  governor;  Rev. 
J.  P.  Richmond,  Rev.  J.  L.  Parrish,  Rev.  Gustavus  Hines,  Hamilton  Campbell 
and  other  men  afterwards  notable  in  the  annals  of  early  days  here.  Jason  Lee 
made  the  voyage  with  them.  They  touched  at  Rio,  Valparaiso,  and  made  a  stay 
of  three  weeks  in  Honolulu.  On  May  21,  1840,  the  "Lausanne"  entered  the  Co- 
lumbia. At  Vancouver,  Dr.  McLoughlin  made  all  welcome,  "as  long  as  they 
chose  to  remain." 

Very  soon  after  their  arrival  the  men  appointed  to  the  missions  at  Clatsop, 
Nisqually,  "The  Falls"  and  The  Dalles,  were  on  their  way  to  their  stations.  In 
the  neighborhood  of  all  these  points  have  sprung  up  important  cities,  whose 
nuclei  were  the  missions. 

In  1841  the  Central  mission  was  removed  aboiit  ten  miles  south  from  its  orig- 
inal location  to  Chemekete.  A  manual  training  school  was  erected  here  for  in- 
struction of  Indian  children.  Mills  had  been  built  earlier  at  this  site  for  the  mis- 
sion.   Around  this  Chemekete  mission  grew  the  city  of  Salem. 

THE  mission's  NEW  MISSION 

Jason  Lee  found  the  Indian  population  greatly  reduced  upon  his  return  in 
the  "Lausanne."  There  was  no  increase  up  to  that  time  in  the  number  of  Amer- 
icans in  the  Willamette,  but  there  were  more  Canadians  and  half-breed  children. 
The  newer  missions  found  more  populous  fields  at  The  Dalles  and  Nisqually,  and 
made  great  progress.  The  American  immigration  of  1841  arrived  in  the  fall  of 
that  year,  and  many  settled  near  the  Valley  mission. 

In  1840  a  saw  mill  and  grist  mill  was  built  for  the  needs  of  the  mission  on 
Mill  creek,  ten  miles  south  of  the  mission  site.  On  Mill  creek  was  built  latei- 
the  Indian  manual  training  school  and  a  mission  house.  The  site  of  these  build- 
ings was  near  the  old  woolen  mill  at  Salem,  and  two  of  them  are  still  standing: 
the  oldest  of  these  is  a  jiart  of  the  residence  of  Hon.  R.  P.  Boise,  at  852  Broad- 

Vol.  1—19 


290  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

way  street,  Salem,  aud  the  hewn  timbers  of  the  buildiug,  acording  to  the  diary  of 
Rev.  Mr.  "Waller,  who  assisted  in  the  work,  warrant  the  belief  that  Jason  Lee's 
hand  wielded  the  broad-axe  upon  them.  Around  this  new  establishment  and 
because  of  it,  the  community  which  developed  into  the  capital  city  of  Oregon 
grew  up. 

The  Indians  of  the  Willamette  had  decreased  in  number  constantly,  and  the 
central  mission  found  its  intended  field  of  labor  among  the  Indians  less  fruitful 
year  by  year ;  the  white  settlers  were  becoming  more  numerous,  and  the  teachers 
and  preachers  of  the  mission  saw  larger  opportunities  offered.  In  1842,  at  a  con- 
ference of  the  mission  it  was  determined  to  build  a  school  at  ' '  Chemekete, ' '  to 
be  called  the  Oregon  Institute.  This  project  was  the  conception  of  Jason  Lee. 
The  building  erected  was  planned  for  great  things.  None  knew  so  well  as  Jason 
Lee  the  certain  future  of  the  Willamette  valley,  destined  to  be  perhaps  the  most 
populous  valley  of  the  Pacific  coast.  The  building  was  completed  in  1844,  the 
missionarj'  community  contributing  generously  to  the  fund.  In  the  same  year 
the  missionary  at  "'The  Falls,"  Rev.  A.  F.  Waller,  completed  the  first  church 
built  in  Oregon,  still  standing  at  Oregon  City,  where  during  the  four  preceding 
years  a  large  community  of  Americans  had  settled. 

Thus  the  work  of  the  mission  in  the  valley  was  directed  to  a  new  channel — 
the  educational  and  religious  care  of  the  immigrants  streaming  in  constantly  in- 
creasing wagon  trains  into  western  Oregon. 

B.ecause  of  this  natural  diversion  of  the  energies  of  the  Willamette  mission, 
some  writers  have  considered  its  work  a  failure.  Such  a  view  would  indicate 
that  the  holder  of  it  considered  it  better  to  teach  dead  Indians  than  the  young 
pioneers.  No  fair-minded  reader  and  observer  can  fail  to  see  the  great  and 
blessed  influence  of  Jason  Lee  and  his  missionary  contemporaries  upon  the  peo- 
ple of  the  Willamette  and  other  fields  of  their  labors.  As  examples,  only  cite 
Salem  and  Forest  Grove  as  representative  cities  of  missionary  origin,  and 
largely  populated  still  by  the  descendants  and  pupils  and  proselytes  of  Oregon 
missions. 

Jason  Lee  in  1843  wrote  to  the  New  York  Missionary  Board:  "Jly  interest 
in  the  Oregon  missions  is  not  in  the  least  abated.  Oregon  is  still  of  immense  im- 
portance as  a  field  of  missionary  operations  among  the  Indians, ' ' 

Enough  has  been  said  already  to  show  Jason  Lee's  knowledge  of  Oregon's 
importance  as  a  future  territory  of  the  United  States,  and  enough  to  set  at  rest 
any  doubt  regarding  his  deep  interest  in  "saving  Oregon."  In  1834,  before  he 
started  upon  his  mission,  he  visited  Washington  and  secured  passports  and  cre- 
dentials entitling  him  to  the  government 's  recognition  and  protection.  Upon  his 
return  in  1838  he  went  as  early  as  possible  to  W^ashington  and  presented  to  Con- 
gress the  memorial  of  the  missionaries  and  settlers  in  Willamette,  urging  the 
government  to  extend  its  control  over  the  territory.  His  addresses  in  the  middle 
west  the  same  year  were  the  source  of  that  interest  in  Oregon  which  started  the 
mightj'  stream  of  pioneer  immigration  to  the  Willamette  valley.  First  and  fore- 
most of  the  builders  of  Oregon  was  Jason  Lee, 

Before  the  "Lausanne"  sailed,  Jason  Lee  married  Miss  Lucj'  Thompson,  of 
Barre,  Vermont,  who  accompanied  him  to  Oregon  with  the  Lausanne  party. 
On  March  20,  1842,  she  died  at  the  mission,  leaving  an  infant  daughter.  This 
child,  upon  Lee's  return  to  the  east  in  1844,  was  left  in  the  care  of  Rev.  Gus- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OKEGOX  291 

ta\us  Iliiics.  Slic  was  an  early  ui'aduair  of  Willaiiirtlr  riiivci'sily.  ami  liccaiiio 
the  wilV  of  Professor  Eniiicis  II.  (inililis.  tci  whom  I  am  imicli  imlditiMl  lor 
informal  ion  here  reeorded. 

lke's  skcoM)  .idiunkv  kast 

Jjater,  in  18J:;i,  .Jason  J^ee  determined  to  go  again  to  New  York  to  set  before 
the  missioiiarj'  board  the  affairs  of  (lie  Oregon  mission.  He  was  aware  that  the 
board  was  not  satisfied  witli  the  work  in  Oregon.  Tlie  disappointment  was  <hie 
to  their  laek  of  knowledge  of  eonditious  there,  and  to  the  results  of  the  work 
among  the  Indians  particularly.  In  the  most  favorable  cireumstauces  a  letter 
sent  from  Oregon  in  1840  would  not  be  answered  until  the  end  of  the  following 
year.  The  information  of  the  board  was  always  a  year  behind  the  fact.  The 
board  was  hoping  for  conversion  of  thousands  of  Indians,  and  quite  unaware 
of  the  splendid  work  the  mission  was  doing  among  the  whites  as  well  as  at  several 
of  the  Indian  stations.  It  w-as  to  inform  them  of  these  matters  that  Lee  left  Ore- 
gon February  3,  1844,  on  the  British  barque  "Columbia"  whieh  sailed  from 
Vancouver  for  London  in  the  service  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company. 

At  Honolulu,  Lee  received  information  that  his  successor  had  been  appointed 
and  was  on  his  way  to  Oregon.  After  consideration  of  this  unexpected  phase  of 
affairs,  he  determined  to  go  on  his  intended  journey.  He  went  from  Honolulu 
to  ilazatlau,  crossed  Mexico  to  Vera  Cruz,  barely  escaping  imprisonment  on  ac- 
count of  the  ill-feeling  due  to  the  Texas  intrigues,  all  his  letters  and  papers  be- 
ing seized. 

P'rom  Vera  Cruz  by  sail  to  New  Orleans,  then  by  steamboat  to  Pittsburgh,  and 
by  stage  to  the  Atlantic  sea-board,  July  1st,  he  appeared  before  the  missionary 
board  and  made  a  plea  of  such  couviucing  power  that  that  body  expressed  its 
renewed  confidence  in  him  and  his  wise  administration ;  but  his  successor  was  at 
sea,  irreclaimable,  and  arrived  in  Oregon  about  the  time  Jason  Lee  arrived  in 
Ne\v  Orleans. 

Again  Lee  visited  AVashiugton,  called  upon  I'resident  Tyler,  and  was  assured 
by  him  that  the  "Oregon  Bill"  would  probably  pass  Congi'ess  at  the  coming  ses- 
sion. He  spent  two  weeks  at  Washington  at  this  time,  but  a  presidential  election 
was  near  at  hand,  and  was  the  principal  affair  of  the  time.  It  was  then  in  view 
of  the  approaching  settlement  of  the  claims  of  the  Oregon  country  that  the 
"Fifty- four,  Forty  or  Fight"  slogan  was  ringing  through  the  country. 

After  finishing  his  business  in  New  York,  Jason  Lee  went  to  bis  old  home  in 
Stanstead.  He  expected  to  return  to  the  west  after  some  months  of  rest  and 
renewal  of  old  acquaintance  in  his  native  place.  On  his  way  thither  he  visited 
AVilbraham  Academy,  where  his  student  years  were  passed. 

It  seems  strange,  indeed,  that  a  man  of  Lee's  heroic  frame,  inured  to  hardshiii 
for  ten  years  in  all  the  climates  of  our  country,  should  have  met  death  in  life's 
jn-ime,  at  his  early  home,  among  his  dearest  relatives  and  boyhood  friends.  He 
j>reached  to  them  his  last  sermon  in  November.  1884,  even  then  feeble  and  ema- 
ciated, but  yet  tilled  with  zeal  and  fire. 

As  late  as  February.  1845.  he  wrote  to  his  friend.  Rev.  G.  Hines,  in  Oregon: 
"Unless  some  favorable  change  in  my  malady  occurs  soon  it  is  my  deliberate  con- 
viction that  it  will  i.rove  fatal.     Should  sneli  a  change  take  place  I  advise  you 


292  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

to  be  looking  out  for  me,  coming  around  Cape  Horn,  or  threading  my  way  up 
the  Willamette  as  I  used  to  do."  On  March  12  he  passed  away  at  the  age  of 
forty-one  years. 

Sixty-four  years  afterward,  on  June  15,  1906,  the  ashes  of  Jason  Lee  were 
consigned  with  solemn  and  impressive  ceremonies  to  the  hallowed  soil  of  the  Lee 
mission  cemetery  at  Salem.  Great  men  from  four  great  states  were  there ;  states 
carved  from  the  territory  of  the  old  Oregon  country.  These  men,  speaking  above 
his  ashes,  accorded  him  the  honor  that  is  his  due  as  pioneer,  patriot  and  priest. 

MAECUS  WHITMAN 

Among  those  who  bore  an  important  part  in  the  beginning  of  Oregon  was  Dr. 
Whitman,  the  missionary  of  Walla  Walla.  Marcus  Whitman,  third  son  of  Beza 
and  Alice  Whitman,  was  born  at  Rushville,  Yates  county.  New  York,  September 
4,  1802.  He  was  descended  from  English  ancestors  who  had  settled  in  Massa- 
chusetts early  in  the  seventeenth  century.  His  father  died  when  he  was  eight 
years  of  age  and  shortly  after  Marcus  was  sent  to  live  with  his  grandfather, 
Samuel  Whitman,  of  Plainfield,  Massachusetts,  where  he  lived  for  nine  years, 
and  received  the  greater  part  of  his  education  in  his  professional  studies. 

His  first  choice  of  a  profession  was  that  of  the  gospel  ministry ;  but  the  way 
not  being  open  for  his  entering  this,  he  studied  medicine,  first  privately  with 
Dr.  Ira  Bryant,  a  physician  of  his  native  town,  and  later  in  the  medical  col- 
lege of  Fairfield,  New  York,  from  which  he  was  graduated  in  1824.  The  next 
ten  years  of  his  life  he  spent  chiefly  in  the  practice  of  his  profession,  first  in 
Canada  and  later  in  Wheeler,  New  York,  with  an  interval  in  which  he  engaged 
with  his  brother  in  running  a  saw  mill ;  an  experience  which  was  to  stand  him 
in  good  stead  in  his  later  life  in  Oregon. 

Dr.  Whitman  seems  never  to  have  been  quite  reconciled  to  the  relinquishment 
of  his  early  purpose  of  entering  the  Christian  ministrJ^  His  natural  tastes,  had  he 
followed  out  his  first  purpose,  would  doubtless  have  led  him  either  to  some  foreign 
field  or  to  the  frontiers  of  his  own  country.  Being  a  man  of  strong  and  mus- 
cular frame,  of  indomitable  will  and  courageous  and  adventurous  spirit,  he  was 
not  one  to  be  content  to  settle  in  the  quiet  and  comfort  of  older  communities 
and  build  on  other  men's  foundations.  He  was  a  man  quick  to  hear  and  prompt 
to  respond  to  the  call  of  human  needs,  and  counted  it  rather  a  joy  if  such  re- 
sponse called  him  to  face  danger  and  hardsips.  The  opportunity  to  give  full 
vent  to  his  pent-up  desire  for  an  active  life  of  ministry  to  his  fellow  men  came 
at  the  close  of  his  first  ten  years  of  professional  life ;  aud  it  came  in  such  a  way 
as  to  make  to  one  of  his  nature  and  ambition  an  irresistible  appeal. 

In  the  early  thirties,  at  a  time  when  the  various  missionary  societies  of  the 
east  were  warmly  interested  in  missions  to  the  native  races  of  the  Mississippi 
valley,  an  incident  occurred  that  directed  their  interest  and  effort  particularly 
to  the  region  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  A  delegation  of  four  Indian  chiefs 
from  one  of  the  tribes  located  in  the  Oregon  country  appeared  in  St.  Louis,  on 
an  unusual  mission.  Having  heard  from  explorers  and  traders  something  of 
the  white  man 's  religion,  they  had  been  impressed  by  what  they  had  heard,  and 
came  to  try  to  find  some  one  that  would  tell  them  more  of  this  religion.     The 


THE  CENTF.NNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  29^ 

romance  and  pathos  of  this  incident  thrilled  the  whole  Christian  churcli  and 
kindled  it  to  a  new  zeal  and  enthusiasm  in  Indian  missions. 

The  first  response  to  this  appeal  from  the  Oregon  country  was  the  mission 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  church,  under  Jason  Lee,  who  came  with  his  com- 
pany overland  to  Oregon  in  1834,  and  settled  in  the  Willamette  valley.  The 
nest  response  was  by  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Mis- 
sions, located  at  Boston  and  representing  the  Congregational,  Presbyterians  and 
Dutch  Reformed  churches.  Earlj-  in  the  year  1835,  this  board  commissioned 
the  Rev.  Samuel  Parker  of  Ithaca.  New  York,  and  Dr.  Marcus  Whitman,  to 
go  to  the  Oregon  country  and  explore  the  field  with  a  view  to  the  establishment 
of  missions  among  the  Indians  of  that  region.  Mr.  Parker  and  Dr.  Whitman 
set  out  at  once  on  this  mission,  and  joining  the  caravan  of  the  American  Fur 
Company  which  left  Liberty,  ilissouri,  in  May  of  that  year,  proceeded  under 
the  safe  conduct  of  this  company  as  far  as  the  company's  rendezvous  on  Green 
river,  one  of  the  headwaters  of  the  Colorado.  Here  they  met  representative 
men  of  the  Nez  Perces  nation,  who  were  so  earnest  in  their  entreaty  that  mission- 
aries be  sent  to  their  people,  that  it  was  at  once  decided  that  Mr.  Parker  should 
go  on  alone,  and  Dr.  Whitman  should  return  and  report  to  the  Board  of  Mis- 
sions and  secure,  if  possible,  the  sending  out  of  missionaries  the  next  year. 

Dr.  Whitman's  fitn&ss  for  pioneer  missionary  life  was  abundantly  .shown 
during  his  connection  with  the  caravan  of  the  Fur  Company,  composed  of 
hunters,  traders  and  trappers;  the  type  of  men  with  whom  in  after  life  he 
was  to  have  much  to  do.  While  at  the  rendezvous  on  the  Missouri  river  an 
epidemic  breaking  oiit  which  threatened  serious  results,  by  his  promptness  and 
skill  he  not  only  saved  the  lives  of  many,  but  saved  the  expedition  itself  from 
destruction  or  disbandment.  And  later,  at  the  rendezvous  on  Green  river  as 
well  as  on  the  route,  he  commanded  respect  for  his  professional  skill,  and  by 
his  readiness  to  put  his  skill  at  the  sen'iee  of  his  fellow  travelers  won  the  good 
will  of  the  men  of  the  company. 

Dr.  Whitman  lost  no  time  in  carrying  oiit  his  agreement  with  I\Ir.  Parker, 
Ijut  retiirned  at  once  to  New  York  and  Boston.  The  spring  of  the  following 
year  found  him  again  at  the  rendezvous  on  the  Missouri  river  with  a  company 
of  missionaries  commissioned  and  equipped  for  the  Oi'cgon  country.  He  had 
been  married  in  the  meantime  to  Narcissa,  daughter  of  Judge  Stephen  Prentiss 
of  Pratt.sburg,  New  York,  a  young  Avoman  of  strong  character  and  devoted 
piety,  who  had  given  her  life  to  the  cause  of  missions.  The  mission  consisted 
of  himself  and  Mrs.  Whitman,  and  the  Rev.  H.  H.  Spalding  and  Mrs.  Spald- 
ing, together  with  ilr.  W.  H.  Gray  of  Utica,  New  York,  in  the  capacity  of 
assistant  mi.ssionary.  Mrs.  Whitman  and  Mrs.  Spalding  were  the  first  white 
women  to  attempt  the  daring  feat  of  crossing  the  Rocky  mountains  into  the  wild 
i-egion  beyond.  But  to  their  honor  it  must  be  said  that  they  performed  it  with  a 
I'ourage  and  endurance  that  commanded  the  admiration  of  all  who  witnessed  it. 

They  reached  the  Columbia  river  early  in  September  of  the  same  year,  and 
proceeded  at  once  under  the  escort  of  agents  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  company  to 
Fort  YancoiTver.  Here  they  w'ere  received  with  the  utmost  hospitality  by  Dr. 
John  ilcLoughlin,  chief  factor  of  the  company.  Dr.  Whitman  had  already  pro- 
visionally agreed  with  IMr.  Parker  that  the  mission  should  be  established  among 
the  tribes  east  of  the  Cascade  range.     He  was  advised  by  Dr.  IMcTiOughlin  to 


294  THE  CENTEiNNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

the  same  decision.  The  result  was  that  Mr.  Spalding  settled  at  Lajiwai  among 
the  Nez  Perees  Indians,  on  what  is  now  the  western  edge  of  the  state  of  Idaho ; 
while  Dr.  Whitman  settled  on  the  Walla  river  near  the  site  of  the  present  town 
of  Walla  Walla. 

The  site  of  what  came  to  be  commonly  known  as  the  Whitman  mission  was 
well  chosen ;  not  so  much  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  mission  to  the  Indians  as 
from  the  point  of  view  of  a  vantage  ground  from  which  to  influence  the  destinies 
of  the  Oregon  country.  It  lay  near  the  junction  of  the  two  principal  trade 
routes  from  the  east  and  near  to  one  of  the  chief  forts  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  com- 
pany. It  was  a  station  at  once  for  observation  and  influence.  The  various 
interests  of  this  whole  region  centered  here  as  in  no  other  place.  The  various 
currents  of  travel  that  were  to  determine  the  ultimate  destiny  of  this  region 
passed  this  way  as  at  that  time  they  passed  nowhere  else.  Dr.  Whitman  proved 
to  be  the  man  for  the  place ;  quick  to  grasp  the  significance  of  the  situation  and 
bold  and  prompt  to  seize  and  use  its  opportunities. 

The  life  of  Whitman  in  Oregon  falls  into  two  well  marked  periods.  The 
first  of  these  extending  from  the  establishment  of  the  mission  in  1836,  to  Octo- 
ber, 1842,  was  the  period  of  his  distinctively  missionarj-  work.  The  second, 
extending  from  that  eventful  year  to  his  death  in  1847,  was  marked  by  a  wider 
activity  in  which,  while  keeping  the  interests  of  his  mission  and  the  welfare  of 
his  Indians  as  his  central  object,  he  yet  exerted  well-directed  efi:orts  toward 
furthering  the  nation's  interests  in  the  Oregon  country. 

Dr.  Whitman's  conception  of  his  mission  to  the  Indians  and  the  persist- 
ence with  which  he  strove  to  carry  it  out,  are  indicative  of  the  character  of  the 
man.  His  ideal  for  the  Indians  was  that  they  should  become  not  only  Chris- 
tians, biit  peaceful  and  thrifty  citizens.  With  this  ideal  before  him  he  at  once 
set  about  to  instruct  them  in  the  faith  and  morality  of  the  Christian  religion, 
to  give  them  an  elementary  education  in  their  own  tongue,  and  to  instruct  them 
in  agricultural  and  other  arts  of  a  peaceful  and  settled  life.  His  efforts  toward 
these  ends  in  this  earlier  period  promised  a  fair  measure  of  success.  As  the 
fruit  of  his  and  Mrs.  Whitman's  patient  instruction  and  consistent  daily  lives, 
a  few  of  the  natives  were  brought  to  embrace  the  Christian  religion;  some  of 
whom  commanded  the  highest  respect  of  the  white  man  by  their  lives  of  con- 
sistent piety  and  integrity.  A  school  was  early  established,  and  though  main- 
tained under  the  utmost  difficulties,  enrolled  considerable  numbers  of  the  In- 
dians, reaching  at  one  time  an  enrollment  of  more  than  one  hundred.  Agri- 
culture, too,  was  taught,  with  promising  results.  More  than  one  immigrant 
and  early  traveler  on  visiting  the  mission  remarked  on  the  prosperous  appear- 
ance of  the  mission  farm,  and  observed  with  special  interest  the  well  cultivated 
farms  of  the  Indians  that  surround  it. 

The  attitude  of  the  Cayuse  Indians,  among  whom  Dr.  Whitman  settled,  to- 
ward Dr.  Whitman  and  his  work  changed  at  the  end  of  this  period.  The  mis- 
sion had  been  established  on  the  invitation  of  prominent  men  of  the  Indian 
tribes,  and  the  missionaries  and  their  wives  had  been  made  welcome.  But 
from  the  fall  of  1839.  to  the  end  of  this  period  the  feelings  of  the  Indians  show 
a  change  from  that  of  cordial  good  will  to  one  of  suspicion  and  faultfinding, 
which  resulted  in  the  later  years  in  threats,  and  even  in  over  acts  of  violence. 
Several  things  contributed  to  this  change  of  attitude.     One  was  the  indirect 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGOX  1^9.-, 

inlliu'iii-c  (if  till'  (Jntliolic  iinssioiuii'ics  who  had  coiue  into  tlie  region  in  ISlJl). 
Thisai'osc  not  fi'om  liostilily  on  Ihr  pari  of  these  missionaries  personally  toward 
the  I'rotestant  niissionarios,  hnt  it  was  an  inevitable  result  of  theii-  variant 
teaching,  unsettling  the  minds  of  tlie  Indians,  and  still  fui-ther,  from  a  |>oliiy 
differing  from  that  of  the  I'rotestant  missions  in  following  the  Indian  in  iiis 
roaming  life,  and  not  insisting  on  his  settling  in  one  place  to  a  life  of  industi-y. 
Tlie  treatment,  too,  by  the  missionaries,  of  their  wives,  was  on  an  equality  with 
themselves,  of¥ended  the  leading  Indians,  as  being  a  constant  rebuke  to  their 
own  conduct,  and  as  tending  to  cause  in  their  wives  restlessness  and  discontent. 
Finally,  the  coming  of  the  white  settler  in  such  numbers  as  to  attract  the  at- 
tention of  the  Indians  and  awaken  their  fears  that  they  should  be  dispossessed 
of  their  lands  by  the  white  men,  contributed  to  this  growing  spirit  of  hostility 
toward  the  Protestant  missions.  The  situation  of  the  mission  on  the  highway 
of  immigration  of  that  period  made  it  peculiarly  open  to  this  influence.  In  a 
letter  of  JMay  2,  1840,  Mrs.  Whitman  writes: 

■'A  tide  of  immigration  appears  to  l>c  moving  this  way  rapidly.  A  great 
change  has  taken  place  even  since  we  entered  the  coiintry,  and  we  have  no  rea- 
son to  believe  it  will  stop  here.  Instead  of  two  lonely  American  females  we 
now  number  fourteen,  and  soon  may  twenty  or  forty  more,  if  reports  are  true. 
We  are  emphatically  situated  on  the  highway  between  the  states  and  the  Colum- 
bia river. ' ' 

The  fall  of  1S42  brought  a  still  larger  inunigration,  numliering  more  than 
one  hundred  and  including  many  families.  It  was  an  immigration  well  .suited 
to  impress  the  Indians  as  it  passed  through  their  lands,  and  further  to  arouse 
their  appi'chensions  for  the  future. 

With  the  arrival  of  this  immigration  affairs  at  Walla  Walla  mission  seem  to 
have  reached  a  crisis.  There  had  been  for  some  time  a  growing  feeling  at  the 
headquarters  of  the  Board  of  ]\Iissions  at  Boston  that  the  results  of  the  mission 
at  Walla  Walla  were  not  satisfactory.  ^lissionaries  at  that  day  were  expected 
by  the  board  that  commissioned  them  to  confine  themselves  strictly  to  the  re- 
ligious instruction  and  care  of  those  to  whom  they  were  sent.  Even  education 
had  not  yet  come  to  be  regarded  as  a  proper  part  of  their  work,  while  instruc- 
tion in  industry  and  secular  arts  must  have  appeared  quite  aside  from  it.  Be 
sides,  news  had  reached  the  Board  of  unpleasant  differences  among  the  mis 
sionarirs  themselves,  which  seemed  to  bode  ill  for  the  work  of  the  mission. 
Whitman  now  learned  that  the  order  for  the  abandonment  of  the  Walla  Walla 
mission,  if  not  already  issued,  was  the  least  imminent.  A  less  far-sighted  and 
courageous  man  than  he  might  have  welcomed  the  order  to  leave  the  post  where 
hardshijis  were  great  and  where  perils  from  the  natives  were  thickening  around 
him.  But  it  was  not  of  Whitman's  character  to  abandon  a  post  which,  peril- 
ous as  it  was.  he  felt  was  important  to  the  cause  of  missions  and  to  the  interests 
of  his  country  to  hold.  lie  would  not  abandon  it  without  fir.st  making  a  de- 
termined effort  to  secure  from  the  mission  board  its  continuance  and  reinforce- 
ment, and  from  the  government  at  Washington  provisions  and  the  adoption 
of  measures  that  would  bring  content  to  the  Indians  and  open  an  easier  and 
safer  highway  for  intending  immigration. 

Accordingly,  on  the  2nd  of  October.  1842.  within  a  month  after  the  arrival 
at  Walla  Walla  of  the  immigration  of  that  year,  Whitman  was  on  his  way  to 


296  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Washington  and  Boston,  accompanied  by  a  single  companion.  Crossing  the 
mountains  at  any  season  of  the  year  in  those  days  was  a  serious  undertaking; 
entered  upon  at  the  edge  of  winter  it  was  perilous,  and  for  any  object  but  one 
of  supreme  importance  and  urgency,  foolhardy.  Undertaken  as  it  was  with 
Whitman's  full  knowledge  of  its  difficulties  and  perils  and  with  his  conception 
of  the  interests  at  stake,  it  was  heroic. 

Whitman's  one  companion  on  this  perilous  ride  was  A.  L.  Lovejoy,  a  young 
lawyer  who  had  arrived  in  Oregon  with  the  immigration  of  that  year.  They 
reached  Fort  Hall  without  serious  difficulty,  but  here  they  found  their  way  over 
the  direct  route  barred  by  the  snows  of  an  early  winter.  Not  discouraged  by 
this,  Whitman  procured  a  guide,  and  he  and  his  companion  turned  soiTthward, 
keeping  along  the  western  base  of  the  Rocky  mountains,  to  the  Santa  Fe  trail, 
and  thence  eastward  to  St.  Louis  where  Whitman,  having  left  Lovejoy  on  the 
way  to  return  by  way  of  Fort  Hall  to  Oregon,  arrived  in  February  after  a  jour- 
ney of  four  months  of  incredible  hardships  and  privation  and  peril.  From 
St.  Louis  he  hastened  on  to  Washington,  stopping  briefly  in  Cincinnati  on  the 
way.  From  Washington  he  went  to  Boston  by  way  of  New  York.  The  date 
of  his  visit  to  Washing-ton  is  not  fixed,  but  it  is  certain  that  he  was  in  New 
York,  March  28,  and  a  day  or  two  later  was  on  the  steamer  on  the  sound  bound 
for  Boston,  and  that  he  was  in  Boston  the  first  week  in  April.  His  stay  at  his 
home  after  leaving  Boston  must  have  been  brief,  for  he  was  back  in  St.  Louis 
early  in  May  on  his  return  to  Oregon,  in  less  than  three  months  from  the  time 
of  his  arrival  there  on  his  eastward  journey. 

Finding  the  emigration  somewhat  delayed  in  setting  out,  lie  visited  rela- 
tives in  Quincy,  Illinois,  then  went  to  the  Shawnee  mission  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  rendezvous  from  which  immigrants  for  Oregon  were  accustomed  to 
start.  On  May  17,  he  was  visited  here  by  a  committee  of  emigrants  appointed 
for  that  purpose,  and  on  the  20th  attended  a  meeting  of  the  committee  ap- 
pointed to  draw  up  the  rules  and  regulations  for  the  journey. 

The  emigration  started  on  the  22nd  under  Captain  Gantt,  a  man  experienced 
in  the  route  as  far  as  Fort  Hall,  who  had  been  employed  to  pilot  the  company 
to  that  point.  Whitman  remained  at  the  Shawnee  mission  for  some  days  and 
joined  the  emigrants  on  the  Platte  river  about  the  middle  of  June,  and  continued 
with  it  to  Fort  Hall.  During  this  part  of  the  route  he  traveled  for  the  most 
part  with  Jesse  Applegate,  who  after  the  division  of  the  emigrants  was  captain 
of  one  of  the  divisions.  This  division  was  generally  in  advance,  as  appears  from 
the  diary  of  J.  W.  Nesmith,  who  was  made  orderly-sergeant  of  the  company  as 
first  organized.  It  was  perhaps  while  traveling  with  this  division  in  advance 
that  Whitman  obtained  information  from  the  Catholic  missionaries,  who  were 
somewhat  in  advance  of  the  immigration,  of  a  shorter  route  by  Fort  Bridger, 
known  afterwards  as  the  Fort  Bridger  cut-off.  Of  this  Peter  H.  Burnett  wi'ites : 
"On  the  12th  of  August  we  were  informed  that  Dr.  Whitman  had  written  a  let- 
ter, stating  that  the  Catholic  missionaries  had  discovered  by  the  aid  of  their 
Flathead  Indian  pilot  a  pass  through  the  mountains  by  way  of  Fort  Bridger, 
which  was  shorter  than  the  old  route.  We  therefore  determined  to  go  by  the 
fort.  On  the  14th  we  arrived  at  Fort  Bridger,  situated  on  the  Black's  fork  of 
Green  river,  having  traveled  from  our  camp  on  the  Sweetwater  two  hundred 
and  nineteen  miles  in  eighteen  days.    Here  we  overtook  the  missionaries." 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  liOT 

Fifteen  clays  later  on  August  27tli,  the  iniiuiy:ratioii  ;iiiived  at  i"'oit  Hall. 
Of  the  route  up  to  this  point  Burnett  writes:  "Up  to  this  point  the  route  over 
which  we  had  passed  was  perliaps  the  finest  natural  road  of  the  same  length  to 
be  found  in  the  world.  Only  a  few  loaded  wagons  had  ever  made  their  way  (o 
Fort  Hall  and  were  there  abandoned.  Dr.  Whitman  was  at  the  fort  and  was  our 
l)ilot  from  there  to  the  Grande  Ronde,  where  he  left  us  in  charge  of  an  Indian 
l)ilot;  whose  name  was  Stiekus,  and  who  proved  to  be  faithful  and  competent. 

■'We  had  now  arrived  at  tlie  most  critical  period  in  our  journey,  and  we  had 
many  misgivings  as  to  our  ultimate  success  in  making  our  way  with  our  wagons, 
teams  and  families.  We  had  yet  to  acomplish  the  untried  and  difficult  portion 
of  our  long  and  exhaustive  journey.  We  could  not  anticipate  at  what  moment 
we  should  be  compelled  to  abandon  our  wagons  in  the  mountains,  pack  our 
scant  supplies  upon  our  poor  oxen  and  make  our  way  on  foot  through  the  terrible 
rough  country  as  best  we  could.  We  fully  comprehended  the  situation;  but  we 
never  faltered  in  our  inflexible  determination  to  accomplish  the  trip ;  if  within 
the  limits  of  possibility,  with  the  limited  resources  at  our  command,  Dr.  Whit- 
man assured  us  we  could  succeed,  and  encouraged  and  aided  us  with  every  means 
in  his  power." 

Tliis  from  Burnett's  "Recollections"'  was  not  so  much  a  forecast  of  the  trip  as 
a  description  of  what  it  proved  to  be.  Others  who  had  passed  over  the  trail  by 
whicli  they  must  go  represented  its  manifold  difficulties  and  perils,  and  did  not 
hesitate  to  present  in  the  strongest  terms  the  obstacles  to  their  taking  wagons 
successfully  over  it.  It  was  to  the  minds  of  the  hardy  mountaineers  a  trail  for 
a  pack  train  only,  and  a  dilificult  one  at  that.  It  was  no  wagon  road  over  wliich 
a  company  of  a  thousand  men,  women  and  children  could  hope  successfully  to 
pass,  taking  their  wagons  as  they  had  come  thus  far.  Whitman,  howevei',  al- 
though knowing  the  difficulties,  was  confident  that  it  could  be  done,  and  his 
counsel  prevailed.  The  emigration  left  Fort  Hall  August  30th,  and  reached  the 
Whitman  mission  the  10th  of  October.  Whitman  had  left  the  company  in  charge 
of  a  skillful  Indian  pilot  when  he  saw  it  safely  pass  Fort  Hall,  and  was  already 
at  the  mission  on  its  arrival.  He  there  had  the  gratification  of  seeing  encamped 
near  the  banks  of  the  Columbia  the  largest  immigration  that  had  ever  entered 
Oregon,  and  as  he  looked  on  it  with  its  unbroken  families,  with  their  wagons  and 
goods  and  herds,  having  successfully  passed  through  all  the  difficulties  and  perils 
of  the  journey,  he  knew  that  the  road  to  Oregon,  was  now  fully  open.  In  his  let- 
ter to  the  Secretary  of  War  a  few  weeks  later,  he  writes : 

"The  government  will  now  doubtless  for  the  first  time  be  apprised  through 
you  and  by  means  of  this  comnuinication.  of  the  immense  migration  of  families 
to  Oregon  which  has  taken  place  this  year.  I  have,  since  our  interview,  been 
instrumental  in  piloting  across  the  route  described  in  the  accompanying  bill, 
and  which  is  the  only  eligible  wagon  road,  no  less  than  one  hundred  families  con- 
sisting of  one  thousand  persons  of  both  sexes,  with  their  wagons,  amounting  in 
all  to  more  than  one  hundred  and  twenty  and  ninety-four  oxen,  seven  hundred 
and  seventy-three  loose  cattle." 

"The  immigrants  are  from  different  states,  but  principally  from  Missouri.  Ar- 
kansas. Illinois  and  New  York.  The  majority  of  them  are  farmers,  lured  by  the 
prospect  of  bounty  in  lands,  by  the  reported  fertility  of  the  soil,  and  by  the  de- 
sire to  be  the  first  among  tliose  who  are  planting  our  institutions  on  the  Pacific 


298  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

coast.  Among  them  are  artisans  of  every  trade,  comprising  with  farmers,  the 
very  best  material  for  a  new  colony.  As  pioneers  these  people  have  undergone 
incredible  hardships,  and  having  now  safely  passed  the  Blue  mountains  with 
their  wagons  and  effects,  have  established  a  durable  road  from  Missouri  to  Ore- 
gon, which  will  serve  to  mark  permanently  the  route  for  larger  numbers  each 
succeeding  year." 

The  note  of  triumph  in  this  letter  may  be  pardoned  Whitman  when  we  re- 
member how  persistently  he  had  labored  to  bring  his  wagon  over  this  route  when 
he  first  came  to  Oregon,  and  how  firmly  he  believed  in  the  face  of  all  assertions 
to  the  contrary  that  the  trail  through  the  mountains  would  yet  prove  to  be  an 
open  highway  for  immigrants  and  their  wagons  and  herds ;  and  when  we  remem- 
ber, too,  how  clearh'  he  saw  that  the  iiltimate  demonstration  of  this  would  bring 
a  solution  of  the  Oregoii  qiiestion  favorably  to  his  country.  In  the  great  caravan 
safely  encamped  on  the  Columbia,  he  saw  with  pardonable  pride,  the  accomplish- 
ment of  a  cherished  hope  and  of  a  purpose  persisted  in  for  seven  j^ears ;  and  full 
justification  of  all  the  hardships  and  toil  he  had  endured  to  bring  it  to  a  success- 
ful accomplishment. 

On  his  return  the  mission  work  was  resumed,  the  school  re-opened  and  its 
numbers  enlarged,  the  grist  mill  was  re-built,  and  in  addition,  a  saw  mill  erected ; 
and  new  efforts  were  made  to  induce  the  Indians  to  settle  down  to  the  pursuits 
of  agriculture  and  stock  raising.  But  conditions  had  changed ;  Wliitman  felt  it, 
and  the  Indians  showed  that  they,  too,  felt  it.  It  was  no  longer  a  matter  of  doubt 
to  either  that  the  Americans  were  to  have  Oregon,  and  both  foresaw  that  this 
meant  sooner  or  later,  the  dispossession  of  the  Indian,  of  a  large  portion  of  his 
land.  In  a  letter  to  his  father  and  mother  in  the  May  following  his  return,  Whit- 
man gives  expression  to  his  view  to  the  changed  condition : 

"It  gives  me  much  pleasure  to  be  back  again,  and  quietly  at  work  again  for 
the  Indians.  It  does  not  concern  me  so  much  what  is  to  become  of  any  particular 
set  of  Indians,  as  to  give  them  the  offer  of  salvation  through  the  gospel,  and  the 
opportunity  of  civilization,  and  then  I  am  content  to  do  to  all  men  as  I  have  the 
opportunity.  I  have  no  doubt  our  greatest  work  is  to  be  to  aid  the  white  settle- 
ment of  this  country  and  help  to  found  its  religious  institutions.  Providence  has 
its  full  share  in  all  these  events.  Although  the  Indians  have  made,  and  are  mak- 
ing rapid  advance  in  religious  knowledge  and  civilization,  yet  it  cannot  be  hoped 
that  time  will  be  allowed  to  mature  either  the  work  of  christianization  or  civiliza- 
tion before  the  white  settlers  will  demand  the  soil  and  seek  the  removal  of  both 
the  Indians  and  the  missions. 

In  April  of  the  same  year  ^Ivs.  Whitman  had  written  to  Mrs.  Brewer  of  the 
Methodist  Mission:  "Our  Indians  have  been  very  much  excited  this  spring,  but 
are  now  quiet.  The  influx  of  immigration  is  not  going  to  let  us  live  in  as  much 
quiet,  as  it  regards  the  people,  as  we  have  done." 

The  fall  of  1845  broi;ght  a  larger  immigration  than  ever,  ni;mbering  in  all 
several  thousand.  Shortly  after  this  ilrs.  Whitman  writes  again  of  her  appre- 
hension : 

"It  ma.v  be  that  we  shall  be  obliged  to  leave  here  in  the  spring.  The  state  of 
things  now  looks  very  much  as  though  we  should  be  required  to.  *  *  *  For 
the  poor  Indians'  sake  and  the  relief  of  future  ti'avelers  to  this  country,  I  could 


HALL    ,TAC'K8()X    KELLEY 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  I'iHt 

wish  to  stay  liere  loiigci'  if  we  could  do  it  ia  peace.  We  I'eel  sonietimes  as  if  our 
i|uietness  were  past  for  this  country,  at  least  I'or  a  season." 

Such  was  the  growing  uneasiness  at  the  Mission.  It  awakened  api)i'elien- 
sions,  but  did  not  weaken  purpose  or  paralyze  activity.  The  same  zeal,  wai'ui 
aud  unabated,  for  the  welfare  of  the  Indians,  was  manifest  through  it  all.  .Mcan- 
w  hile  the  increased  immigration  t)r()ught  to  the  Whitman  household  cai-c  and 
work  of  another  kind.  The  long  journey  was  a  severe  tax  upon  the  strongest, 
luit  for  the  weak  it  was  doubly  trying.  Some  fell  by  the  way;  mothers — now  and 
then  both  father  and  mother — sickened  and  died,  leaving  dependent  families  of 
young  children;  invalids  unable  to  complete  the  journey  without  a  period  of 
rest;  wives  approaching  confinement;  families  of  slender  means  which  the  cxai't- 
ing  journe.v  had  exhausted — such  from  time  tn  time,  toolc  i-efuge  uiidci-  the  hos- 
pitable roof  of  the  mission. 

]\Irs.  Whitman  in  letters  to  friends  gives  us  vivid  i)ictures  of  the  family  at 
Waiilatpu  these  years  after  the  great  immigration.  In  January  following  iicr 
return  from  her  stay  at  the  Methodist  Mission  dui'ing  her  husband's  absence, 
she  wi-ites  to  one  of  her  friends : 

"My  family  consists  of  six  children,  aud  a  Frenchman  that  came  from  the 
mountains  and  stops  with  us  without  invitation.  IMary  Ann,  however,  is  with 
Mrs.  Littlejohn  now.  Two  English  girls,  Ann  and  Emma  Hobson,  one  thirteen 
and  the  other  seven,  of  the  party,  stopped  with  us;  husband  engaged  to  take 
them  in  the  first  party  of  the  journey,  but  when  they  arrived  here,  they  went  di- 
rectly to  Walla  Walla,  being  persuaded  not  to  stay  by  some  of  the  party  on  ac- 
count of  the  Indians.  When  I  arrived  at  Walla  Walla  they  saw  me  and  made 
themselves  known  to  me  and  desired  to  come  home  with  me.  The  girls  were  so 
urgent  to  stop  that  I  could  not  refuse  them,  and  their  father  was  obliged  to  give 
them  up.  I  felt  unwilling  to  increase  my  family  at  that  time,  but  now  do  not 
regret  it.  as  they  do  the  greater  part  of  my  work  and  go  to  school  besides." 

A  day  or  two  later  Mrs.  Whitman  writes  of  the  household  to  which  she  re- 
turneti : 

"When  I  arrived  home  I  found  ]\Ir.  and  Mrs.  Littlejohn  occupying  my  bed- 
room. She  was  sick,  having  been  confined  a  few  days  before  I  came.  The  room 
east  of  the  kitchen,  Mr.  East  and  family  occupied — four  children,  all  small.  Mr. 
Looney  with  a  family  of  six  children  and  one  young  man  In'  the  name  of  Smith, 
were  in  the  Indian  room.  My  two  boys,  Perrin  Whitman,  and  David,  slept  up- 
stairs. Alex,  the  Frenchman,  in  the  kitchen  and  Mary  Ann  and  Helen  in  the 
trundle  bed  in  the  room  with  IMr.  Littlejohn.  The  dining  room  alone  remained 
for  me.  Husband  and  mj^  two  English  gii-ls ;  all  of  these  we  fed  from  our  table 
except  Mr.  Looney 's  family,  and  our  scanty  fare  consisted  of  potatoes  and  corn 
meal,  with  a  little  milk  occasionally,  and  cakes  from  the  burnt  wheat.  This  was 
a  great  change  for  me  from  the  well  furnished  tables  of  Waskopum  and 
Willamette.'" 

It  was  due  to  the  memory  of  the  mission  liy  the  wayside  to  present  one  more 
picture  of  its  hospitable  home.  In  a  letter  datiMl  .\pril  26,  1846,  Mrs.  Whitman 
again  writes : 

"You  will  be  astonished  to  know  that  we  have  eleven  children  in  our  family, 
and  not  one  of  them  our  own  by  birth,  but  .so  it  is.  Seven  orphans  were  brought 
to  our  dooi-  in  October.  1S44.  whose  parents  both  died  on  the  way  to  this  coun- 


300  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

try.  Destitute  and  friendless,  there  was  no  other  alternative — we  must  take  them 
in  or  they  must  perish.  The  youngest  was  an  infant  five  months  old — born  on 
the  way — nearly  famished  but  just  alive;  the  eldest  was  thirteen,  two  boys  and 
five  girls;  the  boys  were  the  oldest.  The  eldest  girl  was  lying  with  a  broken 
leg  beside  her  parents  as  they  were  dying  one  after  the  other.  They  were  an 
afflicted  and  distressed  family  in  the  journey,  and  when  the  children  arrived  here 
they  were  in  a  miserable  condition.  You  can  better  imagine  that  I  can  describe 
my  feelings  under  these  circumstances.  Weak  and  feeble  as  I  was  in  an  Indian 
country  without  the  possibility  of  obtaining  help,  to  have  so  many  helpless  chil- 
dren cast  upon  our  arms  at  once,  rolled  a  burden  on  me  unsuiDportable.  Nothing 
could  reconcile  me  to  it  but  the  thought  that  it  was  the  Lord  that  brought  them 
here,  and  He  would  give  me  grace  and  strength  so  to  discharge  my  duty  to  them 
as  to  be  acceptable  in  His  sight."'     These  orphans  were  the  Sager  children. 

Such  was  the  enlarged  scope  of  the  Whitman  mission  and  the  increased  bur- 
den put  upon  its  heads  by  the  increased  immigration.  The  burden  was  made 
heavier  by  the  fact  that  the  stream  of  immigration  which  brought  these  new  in- 
mates to  the  Whitman  home,  increased  the  irritation  of  the  Indians  to  the  point 
where  more  than  once  during  these  j'ears  it  seemed  as  if  the  mission  must  be 
abandoned  for  lack  of  protection.  The  letters  of  this  period  made  frequent 
mention  of  this  impending  peril.  One  letter,  howevex*,  of  Mrs.  Whitman's  writ- 
ten in  the  midsummer  of  1846  speaks  with  joy  of  a  season  of  relief  from  these 
painful  apprehension : 

"The  Indians  are  quiet  now,  and  never  more  friendly.  '*  *  *  So  far  as 
the  Indians  are  concerned  our  prospects  of  permanently  remaining  among  them 
were  never  more  favorable  than  at  present.  It  is  a  great  pleasure  to  them  to  see 
so  many  children  growing  up  in  their  midst.  Perrin, 'the  elder,  is  able  to  read 
Nez  Perces  to  them,  and  when  husband  is  gone  takes  his  place  and  holds  meetings 
with  them.    This  delights  them  much." 

This  season  of  quiet  was  not  to  last.  Late  in  the  summer  of  the  following 
year  Mrs.  AVhitman  writes  of  their  situation  in  a  less  hopeful  strain.  It  is  on 
the  eve  of  the  passing  of  another  caravan  of  immigrants,  and  she  views  their 
coming  not  Avithout  apprehension,  for  the  Indians  as  well  as  for  themselves: 
"It  is  difficult  to  imagine  what  kind  of  a  winter  we  shall  have  this  winter, 
for  it  will  not  be  possible  for  so  many  to  all  pass  through  the  Cascades  into  the 
Willamette  this  fall,  even  if  they  should  succeed  in  getting  through  the  Blue 
mountains  as  far  as  here.  *  *  *  We  are  not  likely  to  be  as  w^ll  off  for 
provisions  this  season  as  usual — our  crops  are  not  abundant. 

"Poor  people,  those  that  are  not  able  to  get  on,  or  pay  for  what  they  need  are 
those  that  will  most  likely  wish  to  stop  here,  judging  from  the  past.  *  *  * 
The  poor  Indians  are  amazed  at  the  overwhelming  numbers  of  Americans  com- 
ing into  the  country.  They  seem  not  to  know  what  to  make  of  it.  Very  many  of 
the  principal  ones  are  dying,  and  some  have  been  killed  by  other  Indians,  in 
going  south  into  the  region  of  California.  The  remaining  ones  seem  attached 
to  us  and  cling  to  us  the  closer ;  cultivate  their  farms  quite  extensively,  and  do 
not  wish  to  see  any  Sniapus  (Americans)  settle  among  them  here;  they  are 
willing  to  have  them  spend  the  winter  here,  but  in  the  Spring  they  must  all 
move  on.     They  would  be  willing  to  have  more  missionaries  stop  and  those  de- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  :J01 

voted  to  their  good.     They  expeet  that  eventually  this  eouutry  will  he  settled 
by  them,  but  they  wish  to  see  the  Willamette  filled  up  first." 

The  undertone  of  foreboding  in  this  letter  was  not  groundless.  "Whether 
-Mrs.  AVhitinan  was  conscious  of  it  or  not  as  she  wrote,  her  letter  describes  a 
situation  that  boded  ill  for  the  mission.  A  proud  tribe,  accustomed  in  the  past 
to  dominate  neighboring  tribes,  seeing  its  numbers  decimated  by  war  and  by 
disease,  and  its  lands  each  year  more  surely  destined  to  pass  into  the  hand  of 
the  white  man — this  was  a  situation  that  might  easily  on  further  provocation, 
pass  into  one  of  bitter  hostility  and  open  revolt. 

Dr.  Whitman  had  felt  this  for  some  time,  but  without  taking  measures  for 
protection.  In  a  letter  to  her  sister  in  the  spring  of  18-i7,  Mrs.  Whitman  writes 
of  her  husband's  absence  for  several  weeks  at  Vancouver.  This  absence  J. 
Quiun  Thornton,  in  his  history  of  the  provisional  government  of  Oregon  ex- 
plains in  part  at  least.  "lu  the  spring  of  1847,"  he  writes,  "Dr.  Whitman  being 
at  my  residence  in  Oregon  City  spoke  to  me  freely  on  the  subject  of  his  mission 
station,  and  of  the  perils  to  which  he  feared  all  connected  with  it  were  exposed. 
And  he  said  that  he  believed  nothing  short  of  a  territorial  government  would 
save  him  and  his  mission  from  falling  under  the  murderous  hands  of  the 
savages.  And  he  urged  me  to  yield  to  the  solicitations  I  had  received  to  go  at 
ouL-e  to  Washington  on  behalf  of  the  people  and  provisional  government,  for  this 
and  other  purposes. ' ' 

This  was  no  imaginary  peril.  It  was  the  forecast  of  a  clearsighted,  fearless 
man,  one  whose  courage  did  not  blind  him  to  impending  danger.  The  stroke 
fell  sooner  than  he  had  expected  and  with  not  less  murderous  effect.  In  the  late 
summer  and  fall  of  this  3'ear  an  epidemic  of  measles  prevailed  among  the  In- 
dians about  the  Whitman  mission,  and  among  other  tribes  of  the  Columbia  val- 
ley. Many  of  them  died  in  spite  of  the  utmost  exertions  of  Dr.  Whitman  and 
his  assistants.  Dr.  Whitman's  very  efforts  to  save  the  Indians  only  made  his 
death  at  their  hands  more  certain,  such  were  their  cruel  supei-stitions  regarding 
their  medicine  man  or  anyone  else  in  whose  hands  any  of  their  number  died. 
Then,  too,  the  presence  among  them  at  that  time  of  a  vicious  and  disaffected  per- 
son (an  Iroquois  Indian  )made  it  almost  certain  that  this  dreadful  superstition 
would  work  disaster  to  the  mission. 

So  it  did.  On  the  morning  of  November  29,  with  no  immediate  warning, 
the  storm  of  savage  passion  broke  with  murderous  effect  on  the  devoted  mission. 
Dr.  Whitman,  himself,  fell  first,  then  the  others  until  fourteen  in  all  were  slain 
— including  Mrs.  Whitman,  the  one  woman  among  the  victims,  and  fifty-three 
taken  captives,  mostly  women  and  children. 

The  causes  of  the  massacre  have  already  been  indicated.  As  years  remove  us 
from  the  event,  and  passions  cool  and  partisan  feeling  abates,  historians  grow 
less  inclined  to  find  in  it  any  purpose  other  than  that  of  which  the  Indians  under 
the  circum.stances  already  described  were  of  themselves  fully  capable. 

It  was  the  death  of  the  mission  at  Waiilatpu.  The  mission  was  never  re- 
organized, or  even  sought  to  be  re-established.  The  Cayuse  Indians  themselves 
decimated  by  disease  and  war,  became  scattered  and  soon  were  lost  in  other 
tribes.  Estimated  by  the  results  of  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Whitman's  united  labors  for 
the  Indians,  the  mission  can  hardly  be  reckoned  among  the  great  missions  of 
the  country.    Other  neighboring  missions  may  justly  be  regarded  as  having  sur- 


302  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

passed  it.    But  when  looked  at  in  its  work,  for  passing  immigrants,  and  its  effect 
on  the  fortunes  of  the  Oregon  country,  the  case  is  altogether  dift'erent. 

By  common  consent  the  culmination  of  Whitman 's  exertions  for  the  American 
interests  in  Oregon  is  considered  to  have  come  in  the  year  1842-43,  and  to  have 
centered  particularly  in  his  journey  to  Washington  and  Boston,  and  his  return 
with  the  immigrants  of  that  year.  Various  views  of  the  objects  of  this  celebrated 
journey  have  been  expressed  by  historians.  That  Whitman  had  several  objects 
in  view  is  now  well  ascertained.  What  they  were  may  be  gathered  partly  from 
considering  the  main  objective  points  of  the  journey,  partly  from  official  docu- 
ments, and  parti j^  from  his  and  Mrs.  Whitman's  private  correspondence.  The 
main  objective  points  of  Whitman's  visit  were  Washington  and  Boston.  These 
he  visited,  and  beyond  reasonable  doubt  in  this  order. 

The  main  object  of  this  visit  to  Washington  may  be  gathered  from  the  bill  he 
drew  up  at  the  request  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  from  the  letter  with  which 
he  accompanied  it.     To  the  Secretary  he  wrote : 

"In  compliance  with  the  request  which  you  did  me  the  honor  to  make  last 
winter  while  at  Washington,  I  herewith  transmit  to  you  the  synopsis  of  a  bill, 
which,  if  it  could  be  adopted,  would,  according  to  my  experience  and  observation, 
prove  highly  condiicive  to  the  best  interests  of  the  United  States,  generally, 
and  to  Oregon  where  I  have  resided  more  than  seven  years  as  a  missionary,  and 
to  the  Indian  tribes  that  inhabit  the  intermediate  coiTutry. ' ' 

The  bill  itself  exhibits  the  object  here  stated  in  an  extended  form.  It  is  re- 
markable for  the  thorough  grasp  it  shows  of  the  situation,  of  the  needs  of  every 
interest  involved  and  of  the  means  best  suited  to  meet  each  one.  No  document  of 
that  time  exhibits  a  more  full  and  clear  grasp  of  the  Oregon  problem,  and  of  the 
condition  of  its  ultimate  solution.  A  reasonable  hope  on  his  part  of  his  being 
able  by  any  representations  that  he  might  make  of  securing  the  adoption  of  such 
a  measure  by  the  government,  was  itself  a  justification  of  his  perilous  journey. 

To  a  member  of  the  board  of  missions  at  Boston  after  his  return  to  Oregon, 
he  writes  touching  the  objects  of  his  visit : 

' '  It  was  to  open  a  practical  route  and  a  safe  passage  and  to  secure  a  favorable 
report  of  the  journey  from  emigrants,  which,  in  connection  with  other  objects, 
caused  me  to  leave  my  family  and  brave  the  toils  and  dangers  of  the  journey, 
which  carried  me  on,  notwithstanding  I  was  forced  out  of  my  direct  track  and 
notwithstanding  the  unusual  severity  of  the  winter  and  the  great  depth  of  the 
snow. ' ' 

In  the  same  letter  we  have  frankly  stated  the  other  great  object  of  his  visit, 
that  which  took  him  to  Boston  as  the  other  had  taken  him  to  Washington.  In 
3lose  connection  with  that  quoted  above  he  writes : 

' '  The  other  great  object  for  which  I  went  was  to  save  the  mission  from  being 
broken  up  just  then,  which  it  must  have  been,  as  you  will  see  by  reference  to  the 
doings  of  the  committee  which  confirmed  the  recall  of  Mr.  Spalding  only  two 
weeks  before  my  arrival  in  Boston." 

These  were  two  of  the  main  objects  of  his  journey,  the  one  leading  him  to 
Washington,  and  the  other  to  Boston,  both  clearly  stated  in  his  own  words. 

The  third  object  of  this  journey  had  to  do  particularly  with  the  immigration 
of  that  year.  His  ob'ject  in  connection  with  this  immigration  was  not  in  induc- 
ing men  to  join  it,  or  in  organizing  the  company  when  together.     It  was  already^ 


TJIE  CHNTKXNIAL  IllSTol.'V  OF  ()|;K(;().\  ;]03 

assiii'cd  l)criii-cli;iii(l  tliiit  ;i  l;ii'j;-r  iiiiiiiij,n';iti()n.  l;irgcT  lliiiii  ;iiiy  before,  wiiiild  as- 
semble ill  the  spring  of  18-i;i,  and  start  for  Oregon.  Immigrants  of  the  year  be- 
fore liad  bronght  this  word.  Whitman  had  received  it  before  he  had  even  de- 
cided npon  his  jonrney.  He  had  bnt  little  directly  to  do  with  gathering  the  com- 
pany, fnrtlier  than  to  tirop  encouraging  words  here  and  there  in  the  western 
states  as  he  journeyed  eastward.  His  main  purpose  in  connection  with  it  was, 
as  he  says,  to  secure  its  safe  conduct,  in  a  manner  as  satisfactory  as  possible  to 
the  immigrant,  but  especially  that  at  Port  Hall  they  should  not  be  induced  to 
turn  aside  to  California,  or  to  leave  their  cattle  and  wagons  behind  for  fear  of  the 
difficulties  of  the  road  beyond  this  point.  He  wished  nothing  to  prevent  the  safe 
arrival  of  the  whole  body  with  wagons  and  stock  on  the  Columbia,  so  that  when 
the  word  went  back,  as  he  intended  to  make  sure  that  it  did,  both  the  government 
and  the  people  of  the  east  should  know  that  a  highway  for  immigration  \\as  now 
fully  open  through  the  mountains  into  the  Oregon  country. 

These  then  were  Whitman's  chief  objects  in  that  winter  ride.  There  were 
others  incidental  and  subsidiary  to  these.  One  was  to  get  reinforcements  for  liis 
mission,  if  not  of  commissioned  missionaries,  at  least  of  such  families  as  would 
settle  near  the  mission  and  aid  in  furthering  its  purpose.  Another  was  to  secure 
an  appropriation  from  the  secret  service  fund  of  the  government  to  aid  in  the 
support  of  schools  among  the  native  tribes,  and  still  another  was  to  induce  the 
government  to  send  sheep  and  cattle  to  the  Indians.  In  a  letter  to  his  brother 
written  from  the  Shawnee  mission  May  27,  1843,  on  the  eve  of  his  joining  the 
emigrants  in  the  westward  journey,  he  writes : 

"Sheep  and  cattle,  but  especially  sheep,  are  indispensabje  for  Oregon 
*  *  *  I  mean  to  impress  <he  Secretary  of  War  that  sheep  are  more  important 
to  Oregon  than  soldiers.  We  want  to  get  sheep  and  stock  from  the  government 
for  the  Indians  instead  of  money  for  their  lands.  1  have  written  of  the  main  in- 
terests of  the  Indian  country. 

'"My  plan,  you  know,  was  to  get  funds  for  founding  schools  and  to  have  good 
people  come  along  as  settlers  and  teachers,  while  others  might  have  sheep  of  their 
own  along  also. 

This  passage  in  Whitman's  letter  is  explained  by  a  letter  of  the  brother- 
in-law  to  whom  he  wrote,  J.  G.  Prentiss.  Mr.  Prentiss  says:  "His  project  was, 
so  far  as  the  Indians  were  concerned,  to  induce  the  government  to  pay  them  off 
for  their  lands  in  sheep  and  leave  them  to  be  a  herding  people.  Hence  in 
his  letter  to  me  he  wrote  about  a  secret  fund  controlled  by  the  cabinet." 

In  seeking  to  draw  upon  this  fund  for  the  Indians  he  was  but  following  the 
IMethodist  and  the  Catholics  in  their  several  missions.  All  seemed  to  feel  jus- 
tified in  drawing  upon  this  fund  to  aid  them  in  their  secular  work  for  those 
whom  they  justly  regarded  as  the  nation's  wards. 

Of  the  three  main  objects  of  his  journey  Whitman  seems  to  have  regarded 
the  safe  conduct  of  the  immigration  on  his  return  as  the  most  important,  pos- 
sibly because  it  proved  to  be  the  most  obviously  fruitful  of  results.  Nor  did 
he  overestimate  the  importance  of  the  success  of  that  immigration.  Ten  times 
larger  than  any  former  immigration,  oiunbered  with  wagons  and  herds  besides, 
it  might  easily  have  ended  in  disaster.  But  if  successful  it  insured  still  larger 
immigrations  in  the  future,  and  would  satisfy  those  cautious  and  hesitating 
statesmen  who  were  waiting  to  be  shown  that  Ort'gon  was  accessible  liefoi'c  vot- 


304  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  0RJ3G0N 

ing  measures  for  relief  and  pi-otection  of  the  few  scattered  settlers  already  there, 
and  offering  inducements  to  others  to  follow. 

It  does  not  seem,  eithei-,  that  "Whitman  claimed  a  larger  share  in  the  con- 
duct of  this  immigration  than  was  actually  his.  Prominent  members  of  the  com- 
pany have  fully  justified  his  claim.  M.  M.  McCarver,  writing  within  a  month 
after  his  arrival  in  Oregon  to  A.  C.  Dodge,  member  of  congress  from  Iowa,  says : 

"We  had  less  obstacles  in  reaching  here  than  we  had  a  right  to  expect,  as 
it  was  generally  understood  before  leaving  the  states  that  one-third  of  the 
distance,  to-wit,  from  Fort  Hall  to  this  place,  was  impassable  for  wagons.  Great 
credit,  however,  is  due  to  the  energy  and  perseverence,  and  industry  of  this 
emigrating  company,  and  pai-ticularly  to  Dr.  Whitman,  one  of  the  missionaries 
of  the  Walla  Walla  mission,  who  accompanied  us  out.  His  knowledge  of  the 
route  was  considerable  and  his  exertions  for  the  interest  of  the  company  un- 
tiring. ' ' 

Years  afterward  when  the  pioneers  of  Oregon  began  to  recall  the  beginning 
of  their  state,  other  members  of  the  immigration  of  1843  bore  like  testimony  to 
the  services  of  Dr.  Wliitman.  One  of  these  was  J.  W.  Nesmith,  orderly  sergeant 
of  the  company,  and  afterwards  a  United  States  senator  from  Oregon.  In  an 
address  before  the  Oregon  Pioneer  Association  at  its  annual  reunion  in  1875,  he 
said : 

"Beyond  that  (Fort  Hall)  we  had  not  the  slightest  conjecture  of  the  con- 
dition of  the  country.  We  went  forth  trusting  to  the  future  and  doubtless 
would  have  encountered  more  difficulties  than  we  did  had  not  Dr.  Whitman 
overtaken  us  before  we  reached  the  terminus  of  our  guide's  knowledge.  He 
was  familiar  with  the  whole  route  and  was  confident  that  wagons  could  pass 
through  the  canyons  and  gorges  of  Snake  river,  and  over  the  Blue  mountains, 
which  the  mountaineers  in  the  vicinity  of  Fort  Hall  declared  to  be  a  physical 
impossibility.  Captain  Grant  then  in  charge  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  at 
Fort  Hall  endeavored  to  dissuade  us  from  proceeding  further  with  our  wagons, 
and  showed  us  the  wagons  which  the  emigrants  of  the  preceding  year  had  aban- 
doned, as  an  evidence  of  the  impracticability  of  our  determination.  Doctor 
Whitman  was  persistent  that  wagons  could  proceed  as  far  as  the  Grand  Dalles 
of  the  Columbia  river,  from  which  point,  he  asserted  they  could  be  taken  down 
by  rafts  or  batteaux  to  the  Willamette  vallej^,  while  our  stock  could  be  driven 
over  an  Indian  trail  near  Mt.  Hood.    Happily  AVhitman's  advice  prevailed." 

From  the  diary  of  Nesmith  kept  on  the  journey  we  learn  that  Whitman  trav- 
eled much  of  the  waj'  in  company  with  Jesse  Applegate,  who  was  captain  of  one 
division  of  the  immigrants  and  travelled  much  of  the  time  in  advance  of  the 
others.  In  a  paper  written  for  the  annual  reunion  of  the  Oregon  Pioneers  in 
1876,  Applegate  says  of  Whitman's  services  to  this  immigration: 

"It  is  no  disparagement  to  others  to  say  that  to  no  other  individual  are  the 
emigrants  of  1843  so  much  indebted  for  the  successful  conclusion  of  their  jour- 
ney as  to  Dr.  Marcus  Whitman." 

At  their  organization  at  Independence,  Missouri,  the  emigrants  selected 
Peter  H.  Burnett,  one  of  their  number  as  captain.  Burnett  had  an  important 
part  in  the  organization  and  conduct  of  the  company,  and  on  the  journey  kept  a 
careful  diary,  by  the  aid  of  which  years  afterwards  he  wrote  his  "Recollections 
of  a  Pioneer. ' '  In  this  book  he  thus  spoke  of  Whitman  and  his  services : 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  :!05 

■■  I  knew  Dr.  Wliitiiuni  wi'll;  I  first  siiw  liiiu  ;it  tlu>  rendezvous  near  the  west- 
ern line  of  Alissouri  in  Way,  1843;  saw  iiiiii  aiiaiii  at  Fort  Hall,  and  again  at  his 

own  mission  in  the  fall  of  that  year I  saw  him  again  at  my  home 

in  Tualatin  Plains  in  1844.  He  called  at  my  house  and  finding  that  I  was  in 
the  woods  he  came  to  me  there.  This  was  the  last  time  I  ever  saw  him.  Our 
relations  were  of  the  most  cordial  and  friendly  character,  and  I  had  the 
greatest  respect  for  him.  I  considered  Dr.  Whitman  to  have  been  a  brave,  kind, 
devoted,  and  intrepid  spirit,  without  malice  and  without  reproach.  In  my  best 
judgment  he  made  greater  sacrifices,  endured  more  hardships,  and  encountered 
more  perils  for  Oregon,  than  any  other  man,  and  his  services  were  practically 
more  efficient,  except  perhai)s  those  of  Dr.  Linn,  United  States  senator .  from 
Jlissouri.  I  say,  perhaps,  for  I  am  in  doubt  which  of  these  two  men  did  more 
in  effect  for  Oregon."' 

AVhitman's  work  for  Oregon  had  little  to  do  with  its  internal  affairs.  He 
had  little  or  no  part  in  organizing  its  scattered  settlements  into  a  civil  com- 
munity. But  in  the  work  of  bringing  Oregon  into  close  connection  with  the 
states  of  the  Union  by  oi^ening  the  door  through  the  barrier  of  the  intervening 
mountains,  be  was  among  the  foremost.  Others  contribnted  to  this  end,  but 
no  one  seems  to  have  seen  as  early  as  did  he  the  supreme  importance  of  finding, 
or  making  this  highway,  nor  to  have  seen  it  with  so  single  and  unclouded  an 
eye.  He  saw  almost  from  the  first  that  if  Oregon  was  to  become  the  territorj- 
of  the  United  States ;  if  England  was  to  be  brought  to  acknowledge  the  right- 
fulness of  the  American  claim;  if  the  American  government  itself  was  to  be 
brought  to  take  any  serious  and  effective  steps  toward  pressing  its  claim  to 
that  to  which  it  pretended  to  have  a  just  title,  American  families  must  be 
brought  through  the  mountains  into  the  region  claimed,  and  the  way  be  shown 
beyond  all  doubt  to  be  open  for  others  to  follow.  To  this  end  Whitman  ad- 
dressed himself  with  tireless  purpose,  and  when  he  discovered  that  the  supreme 
moment  for  action  had  arrived,  acted  with  heroic  daring.  He  succeeded,  but  liis 
very  success  was  his  undoing. 

Joseph  R.  Wilson. 

ni!.  ,7oiix  JicLorciiiUN 

Dr.  John  ]\icLoughliu.  his  title  having  been  for  years  used  as  though  a  part 
of  his  name,  is  the  most  conspicuous  man  of  Oregon's  true  pioneer  period.  He 
was  born  in  Parish  le  Riviere  du  Loup,  Canada.  His  paternal  grandfather, 
born  in  Parish  Desertagney,  Ireland,  immigrated  to  Canada,  married  there,  and 
his  son  John  was  the  father  of  Dr.  John  ilcLoughlin.  The  maiden  name  of  the 
mother  of  Dr.  John  MeLoughliu  was  Angelique  Praser,  born  in  parish  of  Beau- 
mont, Canada.  Her  father  was  Malcolm  Fraser,  a  Scotch  highlander.  a  member 
of  the  well  known  Scotch  family,  or  clan  of  that  name.  A  relative  of  hers  was 
General  Fraser,  one  of  Burgoyne's  principal  officers,  w-ho  was  killed  in  the  bat- 
tle of  Saratoga,  October  7,  1777.  Her  father,  as  a  lieutenant  in  the  regular  Brit- 
ish army,  took  part  in  the  capture  of  Quebec,  under  General  Wolfe.  At  the  time 
of  his  retirement  from  the  army  and  .settlement  in  Canada,  he  was  the  captain 
in  the  Eighty-fourth  regiment  of  the  British  regular  army.  He  was  the  first 
seigneur  of  ^It.  ^Murrav.  Ciinada. 


306  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Dr.  John  McLoughlin's  father  was  accidentally  drowned  in  the  St.  Lawrence 
river,  while  the  former  was  a  child.  He  and  his  brother  David  were  brought  up 
in  the  home  of  their  maternal  grandfather.  He  was  educated  in  Canada  and 
Scotland,  and  became  a  physician  while  still  very  young  and  did  not  long  prac- 
tice his  profession.  He  joined  the  Northwest  company  and  his  ability  soon 
made  him  prominent.  When  the  Northwest  company  and  the  Hudson 's  Bay  com- 
pany coalesced  in  1821,  he  was  in  charge  of  Fort  William,  situated  on  Lake 
Superior,  the  chief  depot  and  factory  of  the  Northwest  company.  Although 
he  strenuously  opposed  the  coalition  of  the  two  companies  his  abilitj^  was  such 
that  he  was  soon  after  appointed  chief  factor  of  all  the  Hudson's  Bay  company's 
business  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains.  In  1824  he  arrived  at  Fort  George 
(Astoria)  near  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river,  which  was  then  the  chief 
post  of  the  company  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains.  The  next  year  he  estab- 
lished the  headquarters  of  the  company  at  Fort  Vancouver  now  in  the  state  of 
Washington.  About  the  year  1830,  he  erected  a  new  Fort  Vancouver,  about 
one  mile  distant  from  its  first  location.  Here  is  now  located  the  United  States' 
military  post  known  as  Vancouver  Barracks.  Dr.  McLoughlin  soon  established 
a  farm  of  about  3,000  acres  near  Fort  Vancouver,  on  which  were  gi'own  quan- 
tities of  grain,  principally  wheat.  He  gradually  developed  a  large  herd  of 
cattle.  He  constructed  saw  mills  and  flour  mills  near  the  fort,  and  yearly 
shipped  lumber  to  the  Hawaiian  islands  and  flour  to  Sitka.  He  established 
and  maintained  a  number  of  trading  forts  and  posts,  and  made  the  part  of 
the  Hudson's  Bay  Company's  business  under  his  control  the  most  profitable  of 
all  its  business  in  North  America. 

When  he  first  came  to  Oregon  the  number  of  Indians  in  the  country  in  which 
he  had  command  is  estimated  at  about  one  hundred  thousand.  At  that  time  it 
was  not  safe  for  white  men  to  travel  except  in  large  parties  and  heavily  armed. 
In  a  few  years  there  was  practically  no  danger  and  small  parties  traveled 
safely  in  all  parts  of  the  country  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains.  This  was  due 
almost  wholly  to  Dr.  McLoughlin 's  personal  qualities  and  his  superb  command 
and  influence  over  men  of  all  kinds.  He  was  the  autocrat  of  the  country,  yet 
ever  tempered  austerity  with  kindness,  justice  and  mercy.  His  subordinates  and 
the  Indians  soon  came  to  know  that  he  was  a  man  of  his  word  whether  it  was 
for  reward  or  punishment.  He  had  no  police  or  armed  men,  except  the  regular 
trade  officers  of  the  company  and  its  employees  and  servants.  No  one  ever  un- 
derstood how  to  manage  Indians  better  than  he.  Physically  he  was  a  man  of 
large  frame  and  fully  six  feet  four  inches  in  height.  While  comparatively 
a  young  man  his  hair  became  white.  Usually  his  hair  was  worn  long,  reach- 
ing nearly  to  his  shoulders.  His  mental  qualities  matched  his  magnificent 
physical  proportions.  He  was  fearless,  just  and  honorable.  No  one  was  more 
approachable  than  he,  for  he  was  a  man  with  a  kindly  courtesy,  yet  he  was  ever 
true  to  his  company's  interest,  except  where  humanity  required  him  to  act 
otherwise. 

It  was  necessary  that  some  one  should  be  in  command  in  what  was  known 
as  "the  Oregon  country,"  being  all  that  part  of  North  American  north  of  latitude 
42  degrees  north,  the  present  northern  boundary  of  California,  and  Nevada,  then 
Spanish  possessions  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains,  south  of  latitude  54  degi-ees 
and  40  minutes  the  southern  boundary  of  the  Russian  possessions,  and  east  of 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  307 

the  Pacific  ocean.  By  a  couveiitiou  or  treaty  between  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain,  dated  October  20,  1818,  it  was  agreed  that  for  a  period  of  ten 
years  the  Oregon  country  should  be  open  to  the  citizens  and  subjects  of  the  two 
powers,  without  prejudice  to  the  rights  of  either  of  them  or  of  any  other  power 
or  state,  this  being  what  is  called  for  convenience  "joint-occupancy."  By  an- 
other convention  or  treaty  between  these  two  nations,  dated  August  6,  1827,  this 
joint-occupancy  was  indefinitely  extended,  subject  to  be  terminated  by  either  of 
the  two  nations  by  giving  notice  of  twelve  months,  after  October  20,  1828.  This 
joint-ocupancy  was  terminated  by  the  boundary  treaty  of  June  15,  1846,  estab- 
lishing the  present  north  boundary  of  the  United  States,  south  of  Alaska,  from 
the  Rocky  mountains  to  the  Pacific  ocean.  During  this  joint-occupancy  neither 
the  laws  of  the  United  States  nor  of  Great  Britain  were  in  force  in  the  Oregon 
country,  but  Canada  in  1821  passed  a  law  which  probably  applied  to  Canadians  in 
the  Oregon  country,  giving  its  courts  jurisdiction  of  civil  and  criminal  matters 
in  the  Indian  territories  not  within  the  pi'ovince  of  lower  or  upper  Canada  or 
of  any  civil  government  of  the  United  States.  No  attempt  was  ever  made  to  en- 
force this  law  on  a  citizen  of  the  United  States.  By  his  own  initiative,  approved 
by  common  consent,  Dr.  McLoughlin,  became  the  ruler,  or  the  efficient  but 
kindly  autocrat  of  the  Oregon  country,  as  applied  to  the  officers  and  employees 
of  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company  and  to  the  Indians.  But  his  rule  was  just.  On 
two_  occasions  he  caused  an  Indian  to  be  hanged  for  murdering  a  white  man. 

In  1828  fourteen  men  of  a  party  of  eighteen,  commanded  by  Jedediah  S. 
Smith,  an  American  rival  trader,  were  murdered  by  Indians  near  the  mouth  of 
the  Umpqua  river,  who  took  all  of  Smith's  goods  and  furs.  Dr.  McLoughlin  suc- 
cored tlie  four  survivors,  one  of  whom  was  Smith,  and  sent  a  party  of  the  Hud- 
sou 's  Bay  Company's  men  who  recovered  the  furs,  which  were  of  large  value. 
Dr.  McLoughlin  bought  these  furs  from  Smith,  paying  the  fair  value  to  the  lat- 
ter's  satisfaction.  In  1829,  when  one  of  the  company's  vessels  was  wrecked  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  river  and  the  wreck  was  looted  by  the  Indians,  he 
sent  a  well-armed  party  who  punished  the  Indians.  There  are  other  instances 
of  retributive  justice  meted  out  by  him  to  the  Indians,  which  lack  of  space  pre- 
vents the  telling.  The  result  was  an  admiration  and  obedience  of  Dr.  McLough- 
lin by  the  Indians.  They  called  him  the  great  white  chief  and  from  his  master- 
ful ways,  his  grand  appearance  and  his  long  white  hair,  they  also  called  him  the 
■'Whiteheaded  Eagle."  The  few  extreme  measures  he  took  with  the  Indians  were 
always  justifiable  under  the  circumstances.  The  unusual  conditions  justified  the 
unusual  methods. 

There  were  no  Indian  wars  during  the  twenty-two  years  Dr.  McLoughlin  liad 
charge  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company 's  affairs  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  The 
first  Indian  war,  caused  by  the  "Whitman  massacre,  occurred  the  year  after  Dr. 
McLouglilin's  resignation  went  into  effect. 

Never  was  there  a  finer,  truer,  or  more  acceptable  hospitality  extended  than 
that  of  Dr.  ilcLoughlin  at  Fort  Vancouver  to  missionaries,  without  regard  to 
sect,  to  strangers  from  any  country,  and  also  always  to  rival  traders.  These  trad- 
ers were  all  Americans,  for  British  traders  were  forbidden  to  trade  in  the  Oregon 
country,  under  the  grant  of  the  British  government  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany. But  as  the  head  of  this  company  in  the  Oregon  country  he  readily  en- 
gaged in  ruinous  competition  with  rival  traders,  including  Nathaniel  J.  "Wveth. 


308  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

On  each  side  it  was  always  a  commercial  war  to  finisli.  It  was  a  similar  com- 
petition to  that  the  American  traders  engaged  in  with  each  other.  Rev.  H.  K. 
Hines,  D.  D.,  a  ilethodist  minister,  who  came  to  Oregon  in  1853,  in  an  address 
at  Pendleton,  Oregon,  December  10,  1897,  said:  "My  own  conclusions,  after  a 
length}^  and  laborious  investigation,  the  results  of  which  I  have  given  only  in 
bare  outline,  is  that  Dr.  McLougirlin  acted  the  part  of  an  honorable,  high-minded 
and  loyal  man  in  his  relation  with  the  American  traders  Avho  ventured  to  dis- 
pute with  him  the  commercial  dominion  of  Oregon  up  to  1835  or  1837." 

In  November,  1850,  Samuel  R.  Thurston,  the  first  territorial  delegate  from 
Oregon  territorj-,  who  was  unfriendly  to  Dr.  McLoughlin,  wrote  to  Nathaniel  J. 
Wj^eth,  at  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  where  the  latter  then  resided,  asking  for 
information  against  Dr.  McLoughlin  as  to  his  treatment  of  Wyeth,  wheu  the  lat- 
ter was  in  Oregon  in  1832  and  1834.  Wyeth  replied  in  a  letter  of  praise  and 
also  wrote  to  Robert  C.  Wiuthrop,  then  a  congressman  from  Massachusetts,  say- 
ing that  Wyeth  had  no  confidence  that  his  testimony  would  be  called  for  by  any 
congressional  committee  and  that  he  woiild  like  to  present  a  memorial  in  favor 
of  Dr.  McLoughlin.  In  this  letter,  after  quoting  an  excerpt  from  Thurston 's  let- 
ter, Wyeth  wrote  Winthrop :  "  I  have  written  Mr.  Thurston  in  reply  to  the  above 
extract,  that  myself  and  others  were  kindly  received  and  were  treated  well  in 
all  I'espects,  by  J.  McLoughlin,  Esq.,  and  the  officers  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany. *  *  *  The  very  honorable  treatment  received  by  me  from  McLough- 
lin during  the  years  1832  to  1836,  during  which  time  there  were  no  other  Amer- 
icans on  the  lower  Columbia,  except  myself  and  parties,  calls  on  me  to  state  the 
facts."  Wyeth  forthwith  sent  a  copy  of  this  correspondence  to  Dr.  McLough- 
lin and  wrote  him,  tendering  Wyeth 's  good  offices  in  the  matter,  and  saying: 
' '  Should  you  wish  such  services  as  I  can  render  in  this  part  of  the  United  States, 
I  should  be  pleased  to  give  them  in  return  for  the  many  good  things  you  did 
years  since,  and  if  any  testimony  as  regards  your  efficient  and  fyiendly  actions 
towards  me  and  other  earliest  Americans  who  setled  in  Oregon,  will  be  of  any 
use  in  placing  you  before  the  Oregon  people  in  the  dignified  position  of  a  bene- 
factor, it  will  be  cheerfully  rendered. ' ' 

But  Dr.  McLoughlin 's  humanit.v  was  extended  also  to  those  who  were  not  of 
his  race.  In  1834  he  learned  accidentally  that  three  Japanese  sailors,  the  sur- 
vivors of  a  crew  of  seventeen  of  a  derelict  Japanese  junk  which  had  drifted 
across  the  Pacific,  had  been  captured  and  enslaved  by  the  Indians  a  few  miles 
south  of  Cape  Flattery,  near  the  entrance  of  the  straits  of  Fuca.  After  great 
trouble  these  Japanese  were  rescued  and  taken  to  Fort  Vancouver,  where  they 
were  most  kindly  treated  for  several  months.  He  then  sent  them  to  England  on 
one  of  the  company's  vessels,  whence  they  were  sent  to  China. 

In  1832  he  started  the  first  school  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  John  Ball, 
who  came  with  the  trading  party  of  Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth  in  1832,  was  a  graduate 
of  Dartmouth  college.  On  the  failure  of  this  expedition.  Dr.  McLoughlin  en- 
gaged Ball  to  teach  his  son  and  other  children  at  the  fort.  After  teaching  about 
two  months  he  was  succeeded  by  Solomon  H.  Smith,  who  also  came  with  Wyeth. 
Smith  taught  his  school  about  eighteen  months,  when  he  was  succeeded  by  Cyrus 
Shepard.  a  lay  missionary,  who  came  with  Revs.  Jason  and  Daniel  Lee  in  1834. 

The  first  missionaries  to  Oregon  were  Methodists  who  came  to  Oregon  with 
Wyeth 's  second  party  in  1834.     The  next  missionaries  were  the  Presbyterians, 


THE  ("ENTEXNTAL  HISTORY  OF  ORIOCiON  :!()0 

who  caiiie  in  1836.  Aiuoug  tlie  latter  was  Dr.  Jlarcus  Whituiaa  ami  wife.  Al- 
tliough  none  of  these  missionaries  were  of  his  religious  faith,  i)r.  McLoughlin 
treated  them  with  the  greatest  hospitality  and  kindness.  He  assisted  and  pro- 
tected them  from  all  troubles  and  perils  from  the  Indians.  The  missionaries  who 
came  later  received  the  same  kindly  treatment  and  assistance.  The  first  Cath- 
olic missionaries  came  to  Oregon  in  1838.  These,  too,  he  assisted  as  he  had  the 
Protestants,  although  he  was  then  a  mendjer  of  or  at  least  followed  the  practices 
of  the  English  estahlished  church.  It  was  his  custom  to  read  the  service  of  that 
church  on  Sundays  to  a  congregation  of  officers  and  employes  at  Fort  Van- 
couver. He  became  a  member  of  the  Catholic  church  in  1S42,  and  for  the  rest 
of  his  life  was  a  consistent  and  devoted  Catholic. 

After  the  death  of  Dr.  ilcLoughlin  there  w-as  found  among  his  private  papers 
a  document  in  his  own  handwriting  probably  written  a  short  time  before  his 
death,  setting  forth  what  he  had  done  in  Oregon  and  the  treatment  he  had  re- 
ceived. It  is  one  of  the  important  contributions  to  the  history  of  early  Oregon. 
It  was  presented  to  the  Oregon  Pioneer  Association.  It  is  published  in  full  in 
the  "Transactions"  of  that  association  for  the  year  1880,  on  pages  46-55.  In  this 
document  he  says  that  he  early  saw  from  the  mildness  and  salubrity  of  the  cli- 
mate that  it  was  the  finest  portion  of  North  America  for  the  residence  of  civi- 
lized man.  He  evidently  had  determined  to  make  Oregon  his  home  for  life,  and 
with  this  in  view,  in  1829  he  located  his  laud  claim  at  the  falls  at  Oregon  City, 
where  there  is  a  large  and  excellent  water  power.  He  encouraged  the  French- 
Canadian  employes  whose  services  with  the  Hud.son  's  Bay  Company  had  expired, 
to  settle  in  the  Willamette  Valley.  The  first  settler  located  a  land  claim  near 
Champoeg  in  1829.  He  furnished  these  settlers  with  wheat,  seeds  and  necessary 
supplies  at  low  prices  to  enable  them  to  be  successful,  loaned  them  cattle  and 
bought  their  crops  of  wheat  at  a  good  price.  It  was  the  beginning  in  Oregon  of 
farming  and  of  home  life,  outside  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company.  To  this  colony 
of  settlers  there  added  from  time  to  time  a  few  persons,  mostly  American  citi- 
zens ;  some  of  these  were  free  trappers,  who  wished  to  stop  their  nomadic  careei's, 
a  few  of  Wyeth's  two  unsuccessful  ventures,  and  other  adventures.  All  these 
were  treated  by  Dr.  McLoughlin  with  the  same  kindness  and  consideration  he 
had  extended  to  the  French-Canadian  settlers.  He  felt  certain  that  these  settlers 
would  not  interfere  with  he  fur  trade  of  his  company,  and  he  had  also  been  in- 
formed by  the  directors  of  his  company  as  early  as  1825,  that  Great  Britain 
did  not  inteucl  to  claim  any  part  of  the  Oregon  country  south  of  the  Columbia 
river. 

Until  after  the  year  1840.  Dr.  jMcLoughlin  was  a  very  happ.v  and  prosperous 
man.  In  that  year  he  was  fifty-six  years  of  age.  He  was  happily  married.  His 
children  were  coming  to  maturity ;  he  had  accumulated  a  fortune,  and  his  salaiy 
was  $12,000  a  year  and  the  country  was  to  his  liking.  Few  men  at  his  time  have 
brighter  prospects  for  a  happy  old  age.  He  had  planned  to  erect  mills  on  his 
land  claim  and  live  there  when  he  retired  from  the  service  of  his  company. 

In  1840  the  Oregon  missions,  particularly  in  the  Willamette  valley,  were  a 
failure.  Most  of  the  Indians  had  died  from  epidemics  in  the  years  1829-1832, 
and  the  few  who  were  left  in  that  valley  were  a  miserable  lot.  They  would  not 
be  converted,  or  if  converted,  stay  so.  But  in  the  fall  of  1838,  Rev.  Jason  Lee 
went  to  tlie  eastern  states  and   with    sircat   fervor  delivered  lectures  collected 


310  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

moneys,  and  enlisted  new  missionaries,  clerical  and  lay,  to  go  to  Oregon,  osten- 
sibly to  convert  the  Indians,  but  in  reality,  as  he  said  in  his  verbal  report  to  the 
missionary  board  in  July,  1844, — "When  the  board  sent  out  its  last  reinforce- 
ment (in  1840)  its  object  in  my  view,  and  I  believe  in  theirs,  was  that  Methodism 
should  spread  throughout  Oregon;  for  what  purpose  else,  I  ask,  did  so  large  a 
number  of  laymen  go  out?"  A  ship,  the  Lausanne,  was  chartei-ed,  loaded  with 
goods,  machinery  and  merchandise  to  establish  mills  and  stores  for  mercantile 
purposes.  The  moneys  raised  for  these  purposes  amounted  to  $42,000.  This- 
ship  carried  as  passengers  thirty-six  missionaries  men  and  women,  and  sixteen 
children.  It  is  usually  called  "The  Great  Reinforcement."  The  Lausanne  ar- 
rived at  Fort  Vancouver,  June  1,  1840.  Dr.  McLoughlin  sent  a  skillful  pilot,  for 
the  captain  of  the  ship  did  not  have  any  reliable  chart  of  the  river.  He  sent 
fresh  vegetables,  milk  and  a  large  tub  of  butter  from  Fort  Vancouver.  On  their 
arrival  there  Dr.  McLoughlin  supplied  rooms  and  provisions  for  the  whole  mis- 
sionary party.  They  were  his  guests  for  about  two  weeks.  A  few  weeks  after 
some  of  these  missionaries  Avere  endeavoring  to  take  for  themselves  Dr.  McLough- 
lin's  land  claim  at  Oregon  City.  The  Methodist  Mission,  as  such,  did  not  offi- 
cially take  part  in  these  proceedings.  Some  of  the  missionaries  took  no  part  in 
these  actions.  The  mission  took  up  a  land  claim  of  640  acres  north  of  Dr.  Mc- 
Loughlin 's  claim.  The  first  missionary  work  on  this  claim  was  done  where  Glad- 
stone pai-k  is  now  situated.  In  July,  1840,  Rev.  A.  F.  "Waller,  one  of  the  new 
missionaries  who  had  charge  of  this  mission,  was  sent  by  Rev.  Jason  Lee  to  es- 
tablish a  mission  at  Oregon  City.  Dr.  McLoughlin  gave  to  the  mission  a  piece 
of  his  land  claim  and  assisted  in  building  the  mission  house  thereon.  July  21, 
1840,  Dr.  McLoughlin  having  been  informed  that  the  mission  intended  to  try 
to  take  his  land  claim,  notified  Rev.  Jason  Lee,  the  superintendent  of  the  Ore- 
gon Methodist  missions,  that  Dr.  McLoughlin  had  taken  up  this  claim  and  gave 
a  general  description  of  it.  Lee  returned  a  satisfactorj"-  answer.  In  1841  some 
of  these  missionaries  attempted  to  occupy  what  is  now  known  as  Abernethy  Isl- 
and, near  the  crest  of  the  Falls,  a  part  of  Dr.  McLoughlin 's  claim.  On  Dr.  Mc- 
Loughlin's  protest,  this  occupancy  was  stayed  for  a  while.  In  the  fall  of  1842, 
after  Dr.  McLoughlin  had  made  further  improvements  on  his  land,  had  it  sur- 
veyed and  laid  off,  part  of  it  into  lots  and  blocks,  and  named  the  place  Oregon 
City,  Waller  employed  John  Ricord,  a  peripatetic  lawyer,  and  asserted  his  owner- 
ship of  the  whole  claim,  except  Abernethy  Island.  The  result  was  that  Dr.  Mc- 
Loughlin bought  oft'  Waller,  by  giving  him  personally  five  hundi*ed  dollars,  a 
few  acres  of  land  in  Oregon  City,  also  six  lots  and  a  block  to  the  Methodist 
Mission.  About  three  months  after  this  settlement.  Rev.  Geo.  Gary,  who 
came  from  the  eastern  states  to  close  the  mission  and  to  dispose  of  all  its 
property,  compelled  Dr.  McLoughlin  to  pay  twenty-two  hundred  dollar's  to  the 
mission  for  the  land  he  had  given  the  mission  in  the  settlement  with  Waller.  In 
1841  several  of  the  missionaries  formed  a  company  called  the  Oregon  Milling 
Company,  which  succeeded  in  taking  Abernethy  Island  from  Dr.  McLoughlin. 
The  details  are  too  many  to  be  set  forth  in  this  article.  In  1842  Dr.  McLoughlin 
built  a  saw  mill  on  the  river  bank,  near  Abernethj^  island,  and  a  little  later  he 
established  a  flour  mill.  It  was  from  the  latter  that  the  first  shipment  of  flour 
was  made  from  the  Pacific  coast  to  the  Orient. 

Waller  and  others  who  took  part  in  trying  to  deprive  Dr.  ilcLoi^ghlin  of  his 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  311 

land  eudeavored  to  justify  themselves  by  the  L'aet  that  Dr.  McLoughlin  was  then 
a  British  subject,  and  was  not  entitled  to  hold  a  land  claim  in  Oregon.  But 
British  subjects  and  citizens  of  the  United  States  had  equal  rights  under  the 
conventions  of  joint  occupancy ;  and  the  boundary  treaty  of  June  15,  1846,  pro- 
vided that  the  possessory  rights  of  land  of  British  subjects  in  Oregon  should  be 
respected. 

In  1845  Dr.  McLoughlin  tried  to  be  naturalized  by  a  court  of  the  Oregon 
provisional  government,  but  he  was  informed  by  its  chief  justice  that  it  had  no 
jurisdiction  in  the  matter.  The  courts  of  Oregon  territory  were  established  in 
May,  1849.  In  that  month  Dr.  McLoughlin,  at  Oregon  City,  made  his  declara- 
tion to  become  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  as  required  by  its  naturalization 
laws.  He  became  an  American  citizen  in  1851,  which  was  as  soon  as  he  could 
do  so  by  law. 

While  small  parties  had  come  to  Oregon  from  the  United  States  prior  to 
1843,  and  some  of  the  persons  composing  these  parties  had  settled  in  the  Willam- 
ette Valley  with  the  assistance  of  Dr.  McLoughlin,  it  was  in  tliat  year  that 
the  first  true  home  building  immigration  came  to  Oregon.  It  left  Independence, 
Missouri,  May  20,  1843.  It  was  composed  of  about  eight  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  persons  of  whom  two  hundred  and  ninety -five  were  men  and  boys  over  six- 
teen j'ears  of  age.  They  were  the  first  persons  to  bring  loaded  wagons  west  of 
Fort  Hall,  now  in  Idaho.  After  great  hardships  they  arrived  at  The  Dalles  at 
the  beginning  of  the  winter  season.  There  was  then  no  way  to  take  wagons  fur- 
ther, except  by  water.  Their  supplies  were  nearly  exhausted,  their  clothing  was 
badly  worn ;  some  of  the  immigrants,  especially  children,  were  sick.  They  were 
threatened  with  massacre  by  the  Indians.  It  was  then  the  greatness  and  human- 
ity of  Dr.  ^IcLoughlin  was  best  shown.  He  prevented  the  assaults  of  the  Indians, 
provided  boats  to  carry  the  immigrants  to  Fort  Vancouver,  furnished  food  and 
clothing  to  all,  extended  credit  to  all  who  needed  it  without  collateral,  although 
selling  goods  on  credit  was  strictly  against  the  rules  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  com- 
pany. He  took  care  of  the  sick  at  the  company's  hospital  without  charge.  He 
provided  means  for  them  to  reach  the  Willamette  Valley,  and  supplied  them 
with  seed  wheat  to  be  returned  in  kind  the  next  season,  loaned  them  tools  to  cul- 
tivate with,  and  also  cattle.  Although  most  of  these  and  succeeding  immigrants 
repaid  for  these  advances,  it  is  to  be  greatlj-  regretted  that  a  number  did  not,  and 
thus  caused  Dr.  McLoughlin  great  trouble  and  loss,  and  were  one  of  the  causes 
which  led  to  his  resignation  from  the  Hudson's  Bay  company  in  1845,  which 
became  eti'ective  in  1846.  Without  these  aids,  most  of  these  immigrants  would 
have  suffered  greatly,  probably  many  would  have  died  from  privation,  exposure, 
and  some  possibly  from  starvation.  The  total  white  population,  men,  women 
and  children  in  Oregon,  outside  of  the  ofBcers  and  emplo.ves  of  the  Hudson's  Bay 
company,  prior  to  the  arrival  of  the  immigration  of  1843,  did  not  exceed  two 
luindred  persons. 

The  immigration  of  1844,  numbering  about  fourteen  hundred  persons,  and 
of  1845,  numbering  about  three  thousand  persons,  arrived  in  nearly  the  same 
destitute  conditions  as  the  immigration  of  1843.  They  were  protected,  aided 
and  supplied  on  credit  by  Dr.  McLoughlin,  as  w'ere  the  immigrants  of  1843. 

These  early  pioneers  of  Oregon  were  not  adventurers  nor  mendicants.  They 
were  courageous,  strong  and  forcible  men   and  women,   who   came  to  Oregon 


312  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

to  make  it  their  home.  They  had  confidence  in  their  ability  to  overcome  all 
difficulties.  A  majority  of  these  were  from  the  Southern  states.  Thej'  started 
without  full  kaowledge  of  the  trials  and  difficulties  of  the  journey,  many  without 
sufficient  equipment  or  supplies.  They  were  not  encouraged  nor  protected  by 
the  government  of  the  United  States.  They  came  of  their  own  initiative.  The 
assistance  Dr.  McLoughlin  extended  to  them  was  not  charity.  It  was  a  matter 
of  humanity. 

Sir  George  Simpson,  the  Governor-in-chief  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  company, 
severely  criticized  Dr.  McLoughliu  for  his  assistance  to  these  immigrants.  Fur- 
nishing goods  and  supplies  on  credit  was  against  the  rules  of  the  company,  and  it 
was  thought  that  by  so  doing  he  was  encouraging  a  settlement  of  the  country 
by  citizens  of  the  United  States  called  Americans,  as  distinguished  from  Cana- 
dians and  other  British  subjects.  In  1845,  Lieuts.  Warre  and  Vavasour  arrived 
at  Port  Vancouver  ostensibly  as  visitors,  but  they  came  as  officers  of  the  British 
army  to  report  on  the  condition  of  affairs  and  to  plan  for  forts  and  posts  in  .case 
of  war.  In  their  reports  they  severely  criticized  Dr.  McLoughlin.  The  result 
was  that  Dr.  McLoughlin,  in  1845,  resigned  from  the  company.  Under  its  rules, 
liis  resignation  did  not  take  effect  until  the  expiration  of  one  year. 

Dr.  McLoughlin 's  assistance  to  these  immigrants  was  not  only  humane,  but' 
it  was  necessary.  Had  he  not  done  so,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  Port  Vancouver 
would  have  been  captured  by  these  immigrants  and  a  war  between  the  two  coun- 
tries have  resulted.  This  result  Dr.  McLoughlin  with  rare  prescience  fully  ap- 
preciated and  stated  it  in  his  reply  to  the  criticisms  referred  to. 

Before  the  arrival  of  the  immigration  of  1846,  Dr.  McLoughlin 's  resignation 
had  taken  effect  and  he  had  established  in  addition  to  his  flour  mill,  a  sawmill 
and  a  store  for  himself  at  Oregon  City.  He  extended  similar  aids  to  that  and 
to  succeeding  immigrations  as  he  had  to  the  proceeding  ones.  By  the  time  the 
immigrants  of  1846  arrived  at  The  Dalles  the  Barlow  road  had  been  made  over 
the  Cascade  mountains  so  it  was  possible  to  bring  wagons  overland  from  The 
Dalles  to  Oregon  City.  But  the  Willamette  valley  was  so  new  and  so  lai'gely  un- 
settled, roads  were  to  be  built,  houses  constructed,  and  the  countiy  made  habit- 
able that  the  latter  immigrants  were  greatly  in  need  of  assistance.  This  Dr.  IMe- 
Loughlin  continued  to  render. 

In  this  sketch  I  cannot  go  into  the  matter  of  Dr.  McLoughlin  "s  part  in  the 
Oregon  provisional  government,  which  existed  from  May  2,  1843,  until  March  3, 
1849,  when  the  Oregon  territorial  government  was  established.  Nor  can  I  state 
many  unfriendly  actions  against  him  and  his  land  claim  by  Methodist  mission- 
aries and  their  followers.  These  missionaries  were  the  leaders  of  a  local  political 
party  known  as  the  mission  party.  Owing  to  the  absence  of  many  residents  in 
Oregon  in  the  newly-discovered  California  placer  mines,  this  party  succeeded  in 
1849  in  electing  Samuel  R.  Thurston,  a  new  arrival,  as  the  first  delegate  to  Con- 
gress from  the  territory  of  Oregon.  He  was  a  ready  speaker,  ambitious  and  not 
over  scrupulous.  George  Abernethy,  one  of  the  Lausanne  party,  a  lay  mission- 
ary who  had  been  steward  of  the  Methodist  mission,  had  charge  of  their  store 
and  of  their  secular  affairs,  and  who  had  been  made  governor  under  the  provi- 
sional government,  had  become  the  owner  of  the  Oregon  Milling  Company  and  he 
and  his  son  claimed  Abernethy  Island.  He  and  other  conspirators  against  Dr.  Mc- 
Loughlin, found  in  Thurston  a  willing  instrument  to  carry  out  their  nefarious 


THE  CENTKXNIAI.  IllSTOKV  OF  OKKOON  ;ji;3 

pla)i.s.  They  .snceeedod  tlirougli  false  anil  iiialiciuus  represciitaliou.s  by  'I'hiirstou 
to  Cougress,  in  having  a  clause  inserted  in  the  Oregon  donation  land  law  of  Sep- 
tember 27,  1850,  giving  Abernetliy  Island  to  Ahcrnethy  as  assignee  of  the  Ore- 
gon Milling  company,  but  under  another  name,  and  giving  to  the  territory  of 
Oregon  the  rest  of  Dr.  IMcLougiilin's  land  claim,  the  proceeds  from  its  disposal 
to  be  used  for  the  establishment  and  endowment  of  a  university.  Almost  all  of 
Dr.  :McLoughlin 's  wealth  was  iu  this  claim  and  in  the  mills  and  other  buildings 
situated  on  it.  Dr.  McLoughlin  sought  redress  from  CongTess,  but  he  was  un- 
successful. While  he  was  not  actually  ousted,  he  could  not  move  nor  sell  his 
mills  and  other  improvements.  It  resulted  in  his  practical  bankruptcy.  He  died 
at  Oregon  City,  September  3,  1S57,  a  broken-hearted  man,  the  victim  of  malice, 
mendacity  and  ingratitude.  He  was  buried  in  the  churchyard  of  St.  John's 
(Catholic)  church  at  Oregon  City,  where  his  body  has  lain  ever  since.  In  1862, 
the  legislature  of  the  state  of  Oregon  restored  to  Dr.  McLoughlin 's  heirs  all  of 
the  part  of  his  land  claim  given  to  it  by  the  donation  land  law. 

In  1S4G,  Pope  Gregory  XVI.,  in  appreciation  of  Dr.  ::\If-Loughliirs  liigh  <-iiar- 
acter  and  his  humanity,  made  him  a  knight  of  St.  Gregory  the  Great,  of  civil 
grade. 

It  is  one  test  of  Dr.  McLoughlin  "s  high  character  and  of  his  true  worth  that 
now,  fifty-three  years  after  his  death  his  name  is  venei-ated  in  Oregon  and  his 
memory  kept  alive,  not  only  by  Oregon  pioneers  and  their  descendants,  but  by 
the  people  of  Oregon  as  a  whole.  His  full  length  portrait  is  hung  in  the  place 
of  honor  in  the  senate  chamber  of  the  state  capitol  among  the  portraits  of  former 
governors  of  Oregon.  His  reputation  is  that  of  Oregon's  greatest  citizen,  its 
first  ruler  whose  autocracy  was  necessaiy,  but  kindly,  beneficent  and  efficient,  a 
friend  of  the  poor  and  distressed,  and  the  savior  of  the  early  Oregon  pioneers. 
By  common  consent,  without  dispute  and  without  jealousy,  he  is  known  as  "The 
Father  of  Oregon." 

FREDERICK   V.    HOLMAN. 


CHAl'TEK  XII 

1S44— 18-18. 

TUK  COLONIAL  PERIOD — WORKING  OF  THE  PROVISIONAL  GOVERNMENT — RI\AL  FACTIONS 

SILENCED   BY  LAND   CLAIMS TOMAHAWK  CLAIM   DESCRIPTIONS TITLES   TO   LAND 

CLAIMS — PRICES,  AND  COST  OF  LIVING FOUNDING  RIVAL  CITIES,  AND  HOW  THEV 

STARTED IMPORTATION  OF  HORSES,  CATTLE,  SHEEP  AND  GOATS — FOUNDATION  OF 

THE  FRUIT  GROWING  INTEREST ORGANIZATION  OF  AGRICULTURAL  SOCIETIES — COM- 
MENCEMENT OF  TRADE  AND  COMMERCE — DISCOVERY  OF  GOLD,  AND  THE  OREGON 
MINT — BRIEF  SKETCHES  OF  EARLY  PIONEERS. 

The  American  colonist  in  Oregon  started  with  their  little  Provisional  Gov- 
ernment in  1843,  under  the  specti-al  danger  of  seiious  trouble  from  two  different, 
and  to  them,  uncontrollable  sources.  If  the  British  occupation  of  the  region, 
in  the  guise  of  the  Hudson 's  Bay  company,  should  decide  to  starve  out  the  Ameri- 
cans, or  drive  them  out  through  control  of  the  Indians,  they  would  be  power- 
less to  offer  effective  opposition  until  succor  could  come  from  the  States — if,  in- 
deed, it  would  come  at  all.  Or  if  the  Indians  upon  their  own  initiative  should 
commence  a  war  of  extermination,  it  was  easil.y  possible  for  them  to  Mil  every 
American  before  help  could  reach  them  by  either  land  or  sea.  Entertaining 
the  opinions,  which  the  great  majority  of  the  Americans  did,  of  both  British  and 
Catholics,  it  is  not  surprising  that  great  danger  to  the  little  colony  was  generallj 
feared,  and  that  the  hostile  feelings  against  their  supposed  enemies  have  come 
down  to  us  in  the  writings  and  correspondence  of  the  Protestants  and  Pioneers. 
History  is  replete  with  vast  volumes  of  the  experience  of  mankind  showing  the 
bitterness,  malignancy  and  unreason  for  religious  contentions  and  persecution, 
so  that  no  apology  is  necessary  for  stating  frankly  that  the  progress  of  Oregon 
as  an  American  Colony  was  shadowed  by  two  ever-present  questions  of  vital 
import :  First,  and  greatest  of  all,  was  Oregon  to  be  American  or  British  terri- 
tory? Second,  the  fear  of  an  Indian  uprising  instigated  by  British,  or  British 
and  Catholic  influences.  On  the  first  question  all  the  Americans  wei*e  lined  up 
in  solid  colunm  to  fight  a  British  control  of  the  country..  On  the  second  question 
all  the  Americans  stood  solid  to  fight  the  Hudson's  Bay  Co.  and  the  Indians  as  a 
common  enemy ;  but  as  to  Catholic  influence  on  the  Indians,  the  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries alone,  feared  trouble  from  that  quarter.  The  mountaineers  and  old 
trappers  like  Joe  Meek  and  Dr.  Newell  among  the  Americans  did  not  take  mucli 
if  any  interest  in  the  fears  of  the  Protestant  missionaries ;  and  did  not  consider 
one  form  of  religion  better  than  the  other.  That  these  sentiments  of  nationality 
and  religion  had  a  large  influence,  and  did  color  the  thought  and  social  condi- 
tions of  the  early  colonists  cannot  be  doubted,  no  matter  how  hard  it  is  to  be 
believed  bj"  the  people  of  Oregon  in  1912.  The  correspondence,  books  and  litera- 
ture of  that  early  day,  and  of  the  pioneer  sm-vivors  of  later  times  clearlj-  show 

315 


316  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

those  feelings  and  ineradicable  prejudices.  And  it  was  the  greatest  good  for- 
tune, and  never  to  be  forgotten  by  the  Americans,  that  the  power  and  influence 
of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Companj'  was  at  that  time  exercised  in  Oregon  by  a  man  of 
the  highest  character  for  justice  and  humanity.  Had  John  McLoughlin  been 
anything  less  than  the  great  man  that  he  was,  the  American  colony  would  have 
been  starved  out,  if  not  otherwise  disposed  of  by  native  Indian  ferocity;  and 
England  would  have  owned  and  possessed  the  Oregon  Country  for  all  time. 
The  reports  of  the  British  Agents  Warre,  Vavasour,  and  others,  as  well  as  the 
forced  retirement  of  McLoughlin  from  the  control  of  the  H.  B.  Co.  in  Oregon, 
conclusively  show  that  McLoughlin  was  condemned  by  the  British  management 
of  the  Pur  Company  in  London,  and  by  the  British  Government  for  permitting 
and  aiding  the  destitute  American  immigrants  to  get  a  foothold  in  the  country 
and  organizing  the  Provisional  Government.  Under  such  clouds  and  conditions 
as  these  the  Americans  hopefully  organized  the  infant  state,  and  proceeded  to 
establish  their  homes  and  American  institutions  in  Oregon.  To  make  this  begin- 
ning at  all  in  the  face  of  all  the  doubts  and  uncertainties  that  surrounded  the 
pioneers,  required  an  amount  of  faith,  confidence  and  courage  that  the  Oregon 
citizen  of  1912  can  but  little  comprehend.  Yet  little  by  little,  step  by  step,  so 
small  they  would  not  be  counted  in  this  day,  the  great  work  of  founding  a  state 
and  establishing  civilization,  and  all  that  is  comprehended  in  the  term,  was  ac- 
complished. 

The  first  matter  that  engaged  the  attention  of  our  Oregon  Pioneers  was  the 
land — six  hundred  and  forty  acres  for  each  head  of  a  family,  or  for  the  man  able 
to  bear  arms  and  fight  Indians.  There  was  no  law  authorizing  it  but  the  law  of 
the  Provisional  Government,  and  that  had  no  more  authority  to  dispose  of  the 
land  than  it  had  to  send  senators  to  congress  or  make  treaties  with  foreign  na- 
tions. But  the  land  grant  was  proposed  in  Senator  Linn's  bill  before  Congress, 
and  they  expected  it  to  become  a  law  some  time.  The  Provisional  Government 
and  everything  else  was  founded  on  the  land.  If  there  had  been  no  chance  to  get 
a  tract  of  land  for  each  man  or  family,  the  whole  pioneer  movement  would  have 
failed.  And  the  bargain,  proposition,  or  law,  whatever  it  may  be  called,  of  those 
pioneers  to  grant  land  to  each  other  as  the  foundation  of  their  whole  scheme  for 
a  new  state,  stands  in  bold  relief  as  a  matter  of  the  most  intense  interest. 
The  following  extract  from  the  land  law  enacted  by  the  provisional  legislature 
was  the  statutory  authority  for  the  original  Oregon  land  titles: 

Art.  1.  Any  person  now  holding,  or  hereafter  wishing  to  establish  a  claim  to 
land  in  this  territory,  shall  designate  the  extent  of  his  claim  by  natural  bounda- 
ries, or  by  marks  at  the  corners,  and  on  the  lines  of  such  claim,  and  have  the  ex- 
tent and  boundaries  of  said  claim  recorded  in  the  office  of  the  territorial  re- 
corder, in  a  book  to  be  kept  by  him  for  that  purpose,  within  twenty  days  from  the 
time  of  making  said  claim — provided,  that  those  who  shall  already  be  in  posses- 
sion of  land,  shall  be  allowed  one  year  from  the  passage  of  this  act,  to  file  a  de- 
scription of  his  claim  in  the  recorder's  office. 

Art.  2.  No  individual  shall  be  allowed  to  hold  a  claim  of  more  than  one 
square  mile  of  six  hundred  and  forty  acres  in  a  square  or  oblong  form,  according 
to  the  natural  situation  of  the  premises;  nor  shall  any  individual  be  allowed  to 
hold  more  than  one  claim  at  the  same  time.     Any  person  complying  -^^ith  the  pro- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  317 

visions  of  these  ordinances,  shall  be  eiilith'il  lo  llic  same  i-iTniii'se  asiii'ist  tres- 
pass as  in  other  cases  by  law  provided. 

Art.  3.  No  person  shall  be  entitled  to  hold  such  a,  elaiiii  upon  eit\-  or  town 
sites,  extensive  water  privileges,  or  other  situations,  necessary  for  the  transaction 
of  mercantile  or  manufacturing  operations,  and  to  the  detriment  of  the  com- 
nninity — provided  that  nothing  in  these  laws  shall  be  so  constructed  as  to  affect 
any  claim  of  any  mission  of  a  religious  character,  made  previous  to  this  lime  1o 
extent  of  not  more  than  six  miles  square. 

Approved  by  the  people,  July  5,  1843. 

Under  this  law  was  taken  the  titles  to  the  land  on  which  Oregon  City,  and  the 
City  of  Portland  were  taken,  and  the  titles  thus  initiated  were  afterwards  by 
Chief  Justice  Williams  of  Oregon  Territory,  U.  S.  District  Justice  Deady,  and 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  affirmed  to  be  good  and  sufficient  titles 
to  the  land.  As  there  were  no  public  land  or  other  surveys  provided  for  at  that 
early  day,  the  settlers  had  to  take  and  describe  their  lands  just  as  the  earlj^  set- 
tlers in  Western  Virginia,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio  and  Kentucky,  took  up  their  lands ; 
that  is  by  "'Tomahawk''  claim  surveys.  When  a  man  went  out  and  selected  his 
land  he  took  a  light  axe.  or  the  Indian  ''tomahawk"  and  blazed  on  the  trees  a 
line  of  marks,  or  '"blazes."  around  his  land  claim.  In  the  prairie  lands'be  must 
plant  posts  at  the  corners  and  properly  mark  them.  And  these  descriptions  were 
recorded  in  the  Provisional  Government  land  records.  Some  of  them  are  inde- 
scribably non-descriptive.  Here  follows  a  description  of  one  of  these  original 
claims  in  AVashington  county  twelve  miles  from  the  City  of  Portland,  which  in- 
cludes a  tract  of  land  now  owned  by  the  author  of  this  history. 

Dfscription 

"■Begiiuiing  at  a  point  near  Reasoner's  old  blacksmith  shop  near  the  mouth 
of  a  small  kauyon,  thence  up  that  kanyon  to  the  head,  thence  to  an  oak  tree 
blaized  on  both  sides  with  a  T  cut  in  the  north  side  blaize,  thence  on  a  strate  line 
with  the  head  of  said  kanyon  an  oak  tree  to  a  point  intersecting  the  east  line  of 
George  Richardson  or  William  Grahams  land  claim  thence  south  to  a  point  due 
west  of  a  line  that  divides  the  land  claim  of  James  Hicklin  and  Darius  Taylor, 
thence  east  to  where  it  intersects  the  meridian  line  and  thence  to  mouth  of  said 
kanyon  to  place  of  beginning,  being  the  land  claim  of  Darius  Taylor." 

Settling  the  land  question  was  the  first  and  greatest  work  of  the  Provisional 
Government.  Then  everybody  went  to  work  upon  their  lands,  and  to  a  great 
extent  forgot  or  forgave  their  disputes  about  a  government.  The  land  law 
pioved  to  be  the  great  peace-maker  of  the  colony,  and  showed  that  the  state  buikl- 
ers  had  wi-ought  even  ^nser  than  thej'  knew.  For,  as  soon  as  this  law  M'as 
adopted,  every  Canadian  that  had  voted  against  any  kind  of  a  government 
rushed  to  the  Provisional  land  office  to  record  his  claim,  or  to  stake  out  a  new 
claim;  and  by  so  doing  he  recognized  the  Provisional  Government  and  from  this 
interest  in  the  land  became  a  supporter  of  the  government. 

HOW  THE  PEOPLE  LIVED 

The  land  law  having  practically,  for  the  present  at  least,  settled  and  (juieted 
political  discussion,  there  was  nothing  left  to  do  but  go  to  work,  and  this  the  im- 


318  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

migrants  did  with  a  hearty  good  will.  The  government  had  prohibited  slavery 
and  whisky,  had  resolved  to  treat  the  Indians  justly,  and  made  peace  with  the 
Canadian  settlers,  so  that  the  outlook  for  the  colony  was  full  of  hope  and  pros- 
perity. M.  M.  McCarver,  one  of  the  1843  immigrants,  writes  a  letter  under 
date  of  November  6,  1843,  from  "Tualitine  Plains,  Oregon  Territory"  to  the 
Iowa  Gazette,  and  among  other  things  says :  ' '  The  emigrants  are  all  as  far  as  I 
know  satisfied.  Wages  for  a  common  hand  is  from  one  dollar  and  a  half  per  day, 
and  mechanics  from  two  to  four  dollars.  Wheat  is  quite  abundant  and  sold  to 
ship  or  emigrants,  at  one  dollar  per  bushel.  Flour  is  from  nine  to  ten  dollars 
per  barrel;  potatoes  and  turnips  fifty  cents  per  bushel;  beef  from  six  to  eight 
cents  per  pound ;  American  cows  from  sixty  to  seventy  dollars,  California  ( Span- 
ish) fifteen  to  twenty  dollars.  Nothing  is  wanted  but  industry  to  make  this  one 
of  the  richest  little  countries  in  the  world. ' ' 

Another  letter  dated  1846  from  Tallmadge  B.  Wood  to  Isaac  II.  Nash  of  Sara- 
toga, New  York,  furnishes  the  following  extracts: 

' '  I  am  now  improving  me  a  farm  on  Clatsop  Plains.  I  have  a  splendid  claim 
of  six  hundred  and  forty  acres  of  land,  about  fifty  acres  timber,  the  rest  prairie — - 
laying  immediately  on  the  Pacific.  We  are  all  very  anxious  to  hear  the  result 
of  the  treaty  (if  one  is  made)  between  the  U.  S.  and  John  Bull.  AVe  are  very 
much  afraid  Uncle  will  fool  away  the  north  of  Columbia ;  if  he  does  we  shall  be 
Solux  (mad).  We  are  very  anxious  the  U.  S.  should  extend  her  .iurisdiction  over 
our  valuable  country,  and  we  are  nearly  out  of  patience  vnth  the  delay.  We  are 
not  all  thieves  and  runaways,  as  represented  by  the  Hon.  Mr.  J\IcDufSe,  nor  our 
country  a  booty.  Boy,  if  it  is,  it's  inferior  to  none  in  point  of  beauty,  pleasant 
climate,  natural  resources,  and  advantages  of  wealth;  and  if  the  settlers  were 
ever  thieves  they  have  wholly  reformed,  for  it  is  generally  believed  that  no  other 
colony  has  ever  equaled  this  in  point  of  braverj',  enterprise,  hospitality,  honesty, 
and  morality.  There  are  men  who  arrived  here  in  October  last  who  have  at  this 
time  one  hundred  acres  fenced  and  sown  to  wheat.  Now,  all  we  want  is  a  little 
of  Uncle  Sam's  care,  that,  capitalists  may  be  safe  in  investing  their  money. 

"Merchandise  is  generally  high  here,  owing  to  the  scarcity  and  great  demand 
Salt  $1  per  bush. ;  sugar  12^/20  per  lb. ;  coffee  25c  per  lb. ;  molasses  50e  per  gal. ; 
tea  50c  to  $1.50;  nails  18c;  window  glass  10  to  12c  per  light;  dry  goods  in  pro- 
portion ;  beef,  pork,  hides,  tallow,  and  most  kinds  of  produce  taken  in  payment ; 
beef  $6  per  h. ;  pork  $10 ;  hides  $2  apiece  by  the  lot ;  tallow  8  to  10  e  per  lb. ;  but- 
ter 20  to  25  c  per  lb. ;  wheat  75c  to  $1 ;  oats  75c ;  potatoes  50c  per  bu. ;  lumber  from 
15  to  $25  per  1,000  feet;  shingles  4  to  $5  per  1,000;  common  laborers  $1  per  day; 
and  mechanics  $2." 

William  L.  Smith  and  John  Holman  wrote  two  letters  to  friends  in  the  east  in 
1844,  from  which  the  St.  Louis  Reporter  printed  the  foUomng : 

' '  The  prospect  is  quite  good  for  a  young  man  to  make  a  fortune  in  this  coun- 
try, as  all  kinds  of  prodiice  are  high,  and  likely  to  remain  so  from  the  extensive 
demand.  The  Russian  settlements  in  Asia ;  the  Sandwich  Islands :  a  great  por- 
tion of  California,  and  the  whaling  vessels  of  the  Northwest  coast,  procure  their 
supplies  from  this  place. 

"There  is  as  yet  but  little  money  iu  the  country,  and  the  whole  trade  is  carried 
on  by  orders  on  an  agent  or  factor.  For  instance,  when  I  sell  my  crop  of  wheat, 
the  purchaser  asks  me  where  I  wish  to  receive  the  pay.     Vancouver  is  as  yet  the 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  ;119 

principal  i)oiiil,  aud  an  order  on  lliut  i)oint  enables  the  seller  to  procure  goods, 
or  cattle,  or  anything  else  for  it. 

"The  population  of  this  eounti'v  consists  of  French,  sailoi's,  mountain  traders, 
missionaries  and  emigrants  from  the  states.  The  French  population  consists  of 
old  worn-out  servants  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company;  they  universally  have  In- 
dian wives,  and  many  children,  some  of  whom  are  very  handsome ;  this  part  of  the 
population  are  Catholics.  The  sailors  are  those  who  deserted  from  vessels  while 
lying  on  the  coast,  and  have  also  intermarried  with  the  Indians,  and  but  few  of 
them  have  embraced  any  religion — they  are,  however,  generally  good  citizens. 
The  mountain  traders  are  similar  to  the  sailors,  except  that  they  have  nearly  all 
embraced  the  Methodist  or  Catholic  religion. ' ' 

Within  a  year  after  reaching  Oregon,  Peter  H.  Burnett,  one  of  the  leading 
men  of  the  immigration  of  1843,  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Washington  City  Globe, 
from  which  is  taken  the  following  extract : 

"LiNNTON,  Oregon,  July  25,  1844. 

"I  am  here  in  our  new  town,  which  we  have  named  as  above,  in  respect  for 
Dr.  Linn's  services  for  this  territory.  Gen.  il.  M.  McCarver  and  myself  have 
laid  out  the  tovm  together.  He  is  a  gentleman  from  Iowa  Territory,  and  laid 
out  Burlington,  the  seat  of  Government.  He  is  an  enterprising  man.  Our 
place  is  ten  miles  from  Vancouver,  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Willamette  river, 
at  the  head  of  navigation,  and  three  or  four  miles  above  the  mouth  of  the  Willam- 
ette, and  twenty-five  miles  below  the  Willamette  Falls.  I  have  no  doubt  but 
that  this  place  will  be  the  great  commercial  town  in  the  territory.  We  are 
selling  lots  at  $50  each,  and  sell  them  fast  at  that.  At  the  falls  there  is  quite 
a  town  already.  I  own  two  lots  in  Oregon  City  (the  town  at  the  falls).  They 
are  said  to  be  worth  $200  each.  I  got  them  of  Doctor  McLoughlin  for  two  lots 
here  in  Linnton. 

"It  costs  me  less  to  live  here  than  in  Weston.  ^lissouri.  I  paid  for  wood  the 
last  year  I  lived  at  Weston,  $75 ;  for  coi-n  and  fodder  $50.  all  of  which  is  saved 
here.  We  use  much  less  pork  here  than  in  Missouri.  The  salmon  are  running 
now  aud  will  continue  to  run  until  October  next.  They  generally  commence 
running  the  last  of  February  and  end  in  October.  I  have  had  several  messes 
of  fresh  salmon.  At  this  point  we  purchase  of  the  Indians  ducks,  geese,  swans, 
salmon,  potatoes,  feathers,  and  venison,  for  little  or  nothing.  Ducks,  four  loads; 
Feathers  cost  about  twelve  and  a  half  cents  a  pound.  There  are  more  ducks, 
etc.,  here  than  you  ever  saw;  also  pheasants  in  great  numbers.  They  remain 
here  all  the  winter.  I  have  hunted  very  little,  being  too  busy.  We  find  it  very 
profitable  to  get  of  the  Indians,  to  whom  we  trade  old  shirts,  pantaloons,  vests, 
and  all  sorts  of  clothing.  They  are  more  anxious  to  purchase  clothes  than  any 
people  you  ever  saw.  You  can  sell  anything  here  that  ever  was  sold.  Stocking 
Gary  ploughs,  $5  each.  We  had  an  excellent  blacksmith  living  in  our  place  who 
makes  first  rate  Gary  ploughs  at  thirty-one  and  a  quarter  cents  a  pound,  he 
finding  the  iron." 

These  letters  show  how  the  people  found  things  in  Oregon  sixty-eight  years 
ago,  and  how  they  commenced  life  in  Oregon.  Burnett's  prediction  that  Linn- 
ton would  be  the  great  city  of  this  country  did  not  come  true,  although  it  is 
now  a  busy  little  hunbering  suliurl)  of  Portland. 


320  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

FOUNDING  THE  GREAT  COMMERCIAL  TOWN 

While  Burnett  and  McCarver  did  not  succeed  in  picking  out  the  site  of  Ore- 
gon's great  commercial  town,  they  came  very  near  to  it.  On  account  of  the 
great  water  power  it  was  at  the  beginning  believed  by  the  first  settlers  that 
Oregon  City  would  be  the  chief  city  in  Oregon.  There  were  not  less  than  eleven 
locations  for  the  site  of  the  great  city  to  be,  a  map  of  which  is  herein  given,  Van- 
couver being  the  first  and  Portland  being  nearly  the  last  in  the  order  of  the 
several  locations. 

The  first  settlement  in  the  district  covered  by  this  history  was  made  at 
Vancouver  in  1825,  by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company.  The  next  within  this  district 
was  also  by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  at  Oregon  City  in  1829.  In  1832,  Dr. 
John  McLoughlin,  chief  factor  for  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  blasted  out  and 
constructed  a  mill  race  to  conduct  the  water  from  above  the  Willamette  falls 
to  a  point  below  the  waterfall,  to  be  used  in  a  mill  to  grind  wheat  into  flour. 
This  was  the  first  work  to  start  a  business  and  manufacturing  enterprise  in 
this  district.  In  1838,  McLoughlin  had  timbers  cut  and  squared  and  hauled  to 
the  ground  for  the  mill,  and  built  a  house  at  the  "Falls."  Several  families 
settled  at  the  "Falls"  in  1841  and  18-42,  and  in  1843,  Dr.  McLoughlin  surveyed 
oAl  a  mile  square  of  land,  and  platted  the  town  of  Oregon  City.  This  was  the 
first  town  in  Oregon,  and  the  original  rival  to  Portland. 

Another  location  for  a  city,  made  in  some  respects  anterior  to  Oregon  City, 
was  that  of  Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth  at  the  lower  end  of  Sauvie's  Island,  known 
in  1835  as  Wapato  Island.  Wyeth  was  an  enterprising  young  business  man 
of  Boston  with  considerable  capital,  and  had  been  induced  to  launch  a  great 
trading  and  colonizing  scheme  to  Oregon  by  the  writings  of  Hall  J.  Kelley. 
Wyeth  arrived  in  Oregon  in  September,  1834,  having  left  Fort  Hall  on  August 
6th  with  a  party  of  thirty  men,  some  Indian  women  and  one  hundred  and 
sixteen  horses.  On  reaching  Foi-t  Vancouver,  with  Jason  Lee,  and  others, 
the  first  Protestant  religious  services  in  Oregon  or  west  of  the  Rock.y  mountains 
were  celebrated.  Wj'eth  took  two  of  his  scientific  men  in  a  small  boat  and 
started  down  the  Columbia  to  find  a  good  location  to  build  a  city.  The  party 
passed  down  and  around  Wapato  Island,  and  finally  decided  to  locate  the 
future  great  city  of  the  Pacific  at  the  lower  end  of  the  island  where  his  ship, 
the  May  Dacre,  had  tied  up  after  reaching  the  Columbia  and  sailing  up  the  river. 
This  spot  is  just  above  where  the  government  lighthouse  on  the  lower  end  of 
the  island  is  located.  Here  Wyeth  assembled  all  this  men,  both  from  the  over- 
land party  and  from  the  ship,  and  all  hands  went  to  work  laying  the 
foundations  of  the  city.  A  temporary  storehouse  was  erected,  the  livestock  was 
landed  from  the  ship,  and  then  the  goods  landed  and  stored.  Ground  was 
cleared,  streets  were  laid  out  and  a  row  of  huts  built  for  quarters  for  the  men; 
and  the  pigs,  poultry,  sheep  and  goats  that  had  successfully  made  the  trip 
from  Boston,  Mass.,  to  old  Oregon,  were  turned  loose  in  the  streets  of  "Fort 
William" — the  name  given  b.v  Wj-eth  to  his  great  western  eit.y;  and  logs  and 
boards  were  cut  and  sawed  for  permanent  structures.  Wyeth  set  up  a  cooper 
shop  and  set  his  coopers  at  work  making  barrels,  into  which  he  could  pack  the 
salmon  they  would  catch  in  the  Columbia  to  send  back  to  Boston  on  the  ship. 
And  some  salmon  were  caught,  packed  and  actually  shipped  back  to  Boston. 


5/  JXcCz*,. 


?or^- 


Lf  <i^i\To 


U  i  v  rt  Ci 


Th.iiu^iui.lcie 


C>r«<ier». 


5    f  ^^^ 


GUESSING   ON   THE   METROPOLIS,   AND   STARTING    RIVAL   CITIES 


PHE  NEW  YORK 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  321 

Tliis  was  the  bugiimiiig  oi'  the  great  sahiioii  industry  of  tlie  (Joluiiibia  river, 
antedating  Hume,  Kinney,  Cook  and  others,  thirty-five  or  forty  years — but  it 
was  the  last  of  AVyeth's  city — the  ship  got  about  half  a  eargo  of  fish  under 
great  diftieulties;  MeLoughlin  discouraged  trading  with  Wyeth,  as  he  was  com- 
l>elled  to  do  by  his  company,  and  the  whole  scheme  proved  a  failure.  After 
the  island  was  abandoned  by  Wyeth,  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  established 
a  dairy  down  there  under  the  care  of  a  French  Canadian  named  Jean  Baptist 
Sauvie,  which  gave  the  modern  name  to  the  island,  and  started  the  dairy  indus- 
try where  it  has  flourished  ever  since. 

Another  city  was  platted  opposite  Oregon  City  in  1843,  by  Robert  Moore 
who  came  to  Oregon  from  Pennsylvania.  J\Ioore  named  his  city  "Linn,"  in 
lionor  of  Senator  Linn  of  Missouri,  the  friend  of  Oregon.  A  few  substantial 
buildings  were  erected  ou  that  side  of  the  river  and  maintained  a  precarious 
existence  until  December,  1861.  when  they  were  all  washed  away  by  the  great 
tiood  in  the  Willamette. 

But  Moore  was  not  to  enjoy  a  monopoly  of  townsite  advantages  opposite 
the  original  Falls  City,  for  one.  Hugh  Burns,  proceeded  to  lay  out  another  city 
below  that  of  Moore's  which  he  named  Multnomah  City,  and  commenced  to 
build  it  up  by  starting  a  blacksmith  shop  and  operating  it  himself. 

Four  years  after  Moore's  venture.  Lot  Whitcomb,  a  man  of  push  and  enter- 
prise, from  the  state  of  Illinois,  who  built  the  first  steamboat  in  Oregon,  uniting 
with  Henderson  Luelling,  a  founder  of  the  fruit  industry  in  Oregon,  and  Captain 
Joseph  Kellogg,  a  prominent  steamboat  man  of  later  days,  united  their  capital 
and  enterprise  to  build  a  city  that  should  eclipse  all  others,  and  founded  the 
town  of  ]\lilwaukie — which  is  still  prospering. 

And  as  we  float  down  the  Willamette  in  our  townsite  canoe,  we  come  to 
the  town  of  St.  Johns,  laid  out  in  about  1850  by  James  John,  where  he  erected 
and  operated  in  a  very  quiet  way  a  country  store  for  many  years.  But  the  tide 
of  prosperity  finally  swung  around  to  St.  Johns  but  not  until  after  its  founder 
had  passed  on  to  the  city  beyond  this  life,  and  now  St.  Johns  is  the  most  pros- 
perous suburb  of  Portland. 

And  across  the  river,  a  little  below  St.  Johns,  we  find  the  towns  of  Linnton 
and  Springville ;  Linnton  being  planned  and  platted  in  1843  by  M.  M.  McCarver 
and  Peter  H.  Burnett.  JlcCarver  was  a  city  builder,  somewhat  of  the  air  castle 
style.  He  was  so  sure  that  Linnton  would  be  the  great  city  of  the  Pacific 
Coast,  that  he  declared  the  only  thing  in  the  way  of  that  result  would  be  the 
difficulty  in  getting  enough  nails  to  the  townsite  in  good  season.  McCarver 
made  nothing  of  Linnton ;  and  then  went  over  to  Puget  Sound,  and  along  with 
Pettygrove,  one  of  the  founders  of  Portland,  laid  out  the  city  of  Port  Townsend, 
and  early  pulling  up  his  stakes  there,  went  to  old  Tacoma  and  made  his  final 
effort  in  city  building. 

Continuing  on  down  the  Willamette  slough,  our  townsite  canoe  pulls  up  to 
the  south  bank  of  the  river  near  the  mouth  of  Milton  creek,  where  we  find  the  re- 
mains of  a  city  started  there  in  the  year  1846,  by  Captain  Nathaniel 
Crosby,  and  named  Milton.  But  whether  the  creek  gave  the  name  to  the  town 
or  the  town  named  the  creek.  Captain  Crosby  left  no  clue.  It  had  a  saw  mill 
and  a  small  population,  and  a  convenient  boat  landing,  but  was  finally  over- 


322  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

shadowed  by  the  next  city  below — St.  Helens — which  was  founded  by  Captain 
Knighton  and  others  in  1845. 

It  is  not  hard  to  understand  the  fact  of  so  many  townsite  locations  having 
been  made  in  the  vicinity  of  Portland.  Everybody  in  the  country  in  those  pio- 
neer days,  could  see  as  well  as  we  can  now,  that  there  would  be  somewhere 
above  the  Columbia  river  bar  a  town  started,  which  would  grow  into  a  great 
city,  and  make  fortune  or  fortunes  for  the  lucky  proprietors.  Every  man  had 
his  individual  ideas  of  the  proposition.  The  city  would  either  be  at  Astoria, 
where  Astor  located,  or  it  would  be  up  near  the  mouth  of  the  Willamette  river. 
It  would  be  wherever  the  ships  cast  anchor  to  discharge  cargo.  If  they  did 
not  stop  at  Astoria,  they  would  sail  on  up  the  river  until  they  reached  the 
outlet  of  the  Willamette  Valley.  And  every  man  of  much  prominence  was 
busily  engaged  in  trying  to  find  the  favored  spot.  It  was  not  even  a  question 
of  buj'iug  the  townsite.  The  whole  country  was  open  to  location.  The  land 
was  free.  No  one  knew  whether  it  would  be  English  or  American.  But  it  did 
not  cost  any  money  to  claim  it  if  the  true  location  could  be  determined.  And 
so  there  were,  counting  in  Portland,  the  ten  locations  we  have  named ;  and  the 
result  was  a  contest  for  the  survival  of  the  fittest;  a  purely  evolutionary  move- 
ment in  a  commercial  development. 

Every  townsite  proprietor  had  his  unanswerable  reasons  why  his  town  was 
the  right  place  for  the  great  city,  but  not  one  of  them,  except  Hall  J.  Kelley, 
who  has  not  been  counted  among  the  competitors,  ever  supposed  there  would 
be  a  town  of  more  than  twenty  thousand  people.  The  Oregon  City  lot  holders 
with  Dr.  McLoughlin  at  their  head,  believed  that  the  great  water  power  for 
manufacturers  at  that  point,  and  the  head  of  navigation  for  ocean  vessels,  would 
build  the  city  at  the  falls.  i\Ioore  and  Bums  argued  that  as  their  side  of  the 
river  was  the  best  place  for  the  canal  and  locks  and  nearer  to  the  Tualatin  county 
farms  by  a  ferry  charge,  therefore  the  city  would  be  on  the  west  side  of  the 
river  opposite  Oregon  City.  They  guessed  right  as  to  the  canal  and  locks,  but 
missed  on  the  farmers. 

The  Milwaukie  ownei's  claimed  that  Oregon  City  was  not  the  head  of  naviga- 
tion, because  the  Clackamas  river  had  dumped  a  pile  of  gravel  into  the  Willam- 
ette, that  ships  could  not  get  over,  although  Captain  Couch  had  once  got  his 
ship  clear  up  to  the  falls  on  the  June  freshet.  But  the  gravel  argument  did 
finally  "sand-bag"  the  hopes  of  all  the  falls  people  on  both  sides  of  the  river. 
But  while  it  shut  out  the  two  falls  towns,  it  did  not  help  out  ililwaukie  to  any 
appreciable  extent.  Milwaukie  had  its  days  for  several  years,  and  then,  had 
to  yield  to  Portland. 

St.  Johns  and  Linnton  united  to  decry  Portland  as  the  head  of  navigation, 
just  as  JMilwaukie  had  cried  down  the  Willamette  falls  towns.  They  pointed  out 
that  Swan  Island  was  an  impossible  barrier  to  ships  from  the  ocean,  and  that 
while  they  could  easily  sail  in  over  the  Columbia  river  bar,  and  along  up  the 
Columbia  to  their  towns,  the  ships  could  never  do  any  business  at  Vancouver  or 
Portland.  And  Linnton  pointed  with  pride  to  the  fact  that  it  had  three  rivers 
to  support  its  hopes  and  make  sure  its  prosperity — the  Columbia,  the  Willamette 
and  Willamette  slough. 

Wyeth's  townsite  on  the  end  of  the  nose  of  Sauvie's  Island,  was  the  first 
aspirant  to  the  honor  and  profit  of  the  great  city ;  and  also  the  first  failure  in 


TEE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  323 

the  race  fox'  fame  aud  prosperity.  Aud  for  the  reason  that  Dr.  McLoughlin  had 
apparently  transferred  all  his  hopes  to  Oregon  City  while  still  holding  Van- 
eouver  as  a  vassal  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  and  the  occupier  of  the  most- 
beautiful  townsite  on  the  great  river.  Vancouver  was  thus  practically  shut  out 
from  any  chance  to  grow  as  a  trade  center,  until  after  Portland  got  such  a  sub- 
stantial foothokl  that  its  future  could  not  be  shaken.  This  left  only  Milton  and 
St.  Helens  to  contest  supremacy  with  Portland's  ambition. 

It  was  soon  shown  that  Milton,  notwithstanding  that  it  was  boomed  by  a 
ship  and  a  successful  shipmaster,  was  too  close  to  St.  Helens  ever  to  become  a 
great  city,  just  as  Oregon  City  had  conclusively  shown  that  Portland  was  too 
close  to  Oregon  City  ever  to  achieve  greatness.  But  St.  Helens  was  the  only 
town  that  ever  gave  Portland  anything  of  a  contest  for  the  metropolis.  Prior 
to  the  location  of  Portland,  nearly  all  the  ocean  transportation  came  to  and 
sailed  from  Vancouver,  being  almost  wholly  in  the  hands  of  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company. 

Lewis  and  Clark  had  given  the  world  the  idea  that  large  ships  could  not 
come  into  the  Willamette  river.  On  their  report  to  the  President  they  say, 
speaking  of  what  a  great  harbor  the  Columbia  river  might  be:  "The  large 
sloops  could  come  up  as  high  as  the  tide  water  and  vessels  of  three  hundred  tons 
burden  could  reach  the  entrance  of  the  Multnomah  (Willamette)  river."  At 
that  time  (1806)  the  largest  vessel  afloat  did  not  carry  more  than  a  thousand 
tons,  but  the  thousand-ton  vessel  could  have  come  to  Portland  townsite  as  easily 
as  it  got  over  the  Columbia  bar.  But  everybody  understood  then  that  it  would 
be  in  the  end  the  ocean  transportation  that  would  locate  the  city.  To  secure 
that  was  to  secure  the  city.  Captain  Couch  and  others,  with  little  sailing  ves- 
sels, had  worked  their  way  up  to  Portland  without  tugboats  to  tow  them,  for 
there  were  no  such  helpers  in  those  days.  But  that  was  not  decisive.  Would  the 
ocean  steamers  come  to  Portland?  That  was  put  to  the  test  when  the  Pacific 
Mail  Steamship  Company,  the  first  proprietors  of  steamships  regularly  running 
to  the  Columbia  river,  bought  a  tract  of  land  at  St.  Helens,  erected  a  dock  and 
warehouse  and  stopped  all  their  steamers  at  that  point.  One  of  the  most  enter- 
prising men  in  Oregon  at  that  time,  or  even  since,  was  Whitcomb,  who  was 
energetically  pushing  the  fortunes  of  his  town  of  Milwaukie.  He  had  town  lots 
to  sell;  he  soon  had  a  steamboat;  and  he  had  a  sawmill  at  ^Milwaukie  that  was 
making  and  shipping  to  the  then  mushroom  gold  diggers'  town  of  San  Francisco 
the  very  first  lumber  shipped  from  Oregon  by  an  American — and  he  was  making 
a  pile  of  money.  And  so  he  pushed  his  town.  The  steani.ship  company  was 
pushing  St.  Helens,  and  sending  freight  up  the  river  in  little  boats  of  all  sorts — 
and  Portland  was  practically  between  the  Whitcomb  devil  and  the  deeji  sea. 

But  Portland  had  some  energetic  men.  The  townsite  proprietors,  Stephen 
CofSn,  W.  W.  Chapman  and  Daniel  H.  Lownsdale,  were  not  only  enterprising  and 
energetic  men,  but  they  were  able  to  see  further  into  the  future  and  make  more 
of  their  opportunities  than  others.  They  saw  their  opportunity ;  the  opportunity 
that  is 

"Master  of  Human  destinies." 

And  they  lost  no  time  in  purchasing  an  ocean  steamship  that  should  ply 
between  Portland  and  San  Francisco.  This  vessel,  the  Gold  Hunter,  was  kept 
on  the  San  Francisco  route  until  both  Whitcomb  of  Milwaukie,  and  the  Pacific 


324  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Mail  Steamship  Company  abandoned  their  opposition  to  Portland;  the  steam- 
ship company  running  all  their  ships  to  Portland,  and  WhitcomD  running  his 
steamboat  from  Portland  to  other  points.  It  cost  Coffin,  Chapman  and  Lowns- 
dale  in  immense  sacrifice  in  town  lots  to  purchase  the  Gold  Hunter  and  run 
her  until  the  contest  was  decided.  But  they  were  equal  to  the  occasion,  and  if 
their  successors  in  real  estate  holding  and  business  at  Portland  had  possessed 
one-tenth  of  the  energy  and  public  spirit  of  these  founders  of  the  city,  Portland 
would  have  been  larger  today  than  all  the  Puget  Sound  towns  and  cities  com- 
bined. 

In  guessing  at  the  location  of  the  chief  city  of  Oregon  a  lot  of  men  missed 
their  chance  to  get  into  the  millionaire  class.  F.  W.  Pettygrove  sold  out  a  half 
interest  in  the  Portland  townsite  for  $5,000  worth  of  leather  not  then  tanned, 
and  went  to  Port  Townsend  on  Puget  Sound  and  died  a  poor  man.  Each  of  the 
townsite  men  had  inflated  ideas  about  city  values,  when  only  one  guess  could 
prove  correct.    They  all  saw  the  vision  of  vast  wealth  foreshadowed  in  the  lines : 

"Behind  the  red  squaw's  birch  canoe 

The  steamer  smokes  and  waves. 
And  city  lots  are  staked  for  sale. 

Above  old  Indian  graves; 
I  hear  the  tramp  of  pioneers. 

Of  nations  yet  to  be ; 
The  first  low  wash  of  waves  which  soon 

Shall  roll  a  human  sea. ' ' 

Two  important  facts  combined  to  locate  the  principal  city  of  the  North 
Pacific  coast  at  Portland.  The  first  in  importance  was  that  of  a  ship  channel 
from  the  Pacific  ocean  to  tliis  townsite;  the  second  point  was  the  farmer's  prod- 
uce. Without  that  there  would  have  been  no  city  here.  Fort  William,  St. 
Helens,  St.  Johns,  and  Linnton  each  had  the  first  advantage  equally  with  Port- 
land, but  they  were  left  behind  in  the  race  because  they  lacked  the  other  advan- 
tage. The  other  point  was  equally  vital  when  the  race  for  commerce  com- 
menced, for  no  matter  how  many  ships  could  come  in  over  the  Columbia  bar 
and  come  up  the  river,  they  must  have  some  cargo  to  carry  away.  And  they 
could  only  get  that  at  a  point  where  the  farmer  could  come  with  his  produce, 
and  it  must  be  the  shortest  practicable  haul  between  the  farm  and  the  ship ;  and 
Portland  alone  of  all  the  other  points  offered  that  advantage.  Portland  alone 
of  all  the  other  points  could  complement  the  end  of  the  ship  channel  with  the 
shortest  wagon  haul  to  the  farm  and  could  thus  halt  the  ship  where  the  wagon 
unloaded.  In  these  days  of  railroads  wagon  transportation  would  cut  no  figure. 
But  in  1845,  when  the  railroads  had  not  even  then  reached  the  Alleghany 
Mountains  from  Atlantic  tide  water,  the  city  must  -be  where  the  wagons 
and  ships  could  meet.  The  scattered  farmers  of  the  Tualatin  Plains  of 
Washington  county,  hauling  in  their  produce  and  hauling  out  their  supplies 
through  the  old  Canyon  road,  was  a  mighty  factor  in  locating  Portland  as  the 
chief  city.  And  it  is  a  notable  fact  that  for  more  than  half  a  century  the  people 
of  Portland  and  the  people  of  Washington  county  have  always  stood  shoulder  to 
shoulder  in  all  enterprises  to  promote  each  other's  welfare.  When  it  was  pro- 
posed to  build  railroads  up  the  Willamette  valley  more  than  forty  years  ago. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  325 

Portland  gave  its  support  to  the  road  that  vviis  to  run  west  into  Washington 
county,  and  gave  notliing  to  the  road  that  was  to  run  south  along-  the  Willamette 
river.  And  years  ago  Portland  built  superb  nuieadam  wagon  roads  out  to  the 
Washington  eounty  line,  and  would  have  gone  further  west  with  them  if  the 
county  line  could  have  been  pushed  back. 

now  THE  FARMEltS  ST.VRTED 

The  settlers  at  the  little  river  cities  got  comfortably  started  sooner  than  the 
farmers  in  the  interior,  for  there  was  a  sawmill  at  Oregon  City,  another  at  Mil- 
waukie,  and  still  another  at  Vancouver  before  the  country  people  could  get  any 
building  materials,  except  what  they  hewed  and  sawed  out  by  hand  labor.  The 
following  description  of  the  home  of  Joseph  Gervais  which  was  near  where  the 
town  of  Gervais  is  located,  gives  a  good  idea  of  the  shifts  and  contrivances  of 
the  early  settlers. 

Gervais  had  substantial  buildings,  and  LaBonte's  description  of  his  house 
and  bam  is  very  interesting.  The  house  was  about  18  by  24,  on  the  ground,  and 
was  constructed  of  square  hewed  logs,  of  rather  large  size.  There  were  two 
floors,  one  below,  and  one  above,  both  of  which  were  laid  with  long  planks  or 
puncheons  of  white  fir,  and  probably  adzed  otf  to  a  proper  level.  The  roof  was 
made  of  poles  as  rafters,  and  the  shingling  was  of  carefully  laid  strips  or  sheets 
of  ash  bark,  imbricated.  Upon  these  were  cross  planks  to  hold  them  in  place. 
There  were  three  windows  on  the  lower  floor  of  about  30  by  36  inches  in  dimen- 
sion, and  for  lights  were  covered  with  fine  thinly  dressed  deer  skins.  There  was 
also  a  large  fireplace,  built  of  sticks  tied  together  with  buckskin  thongs,  and 
covered  with  a  stiff  plaster  made  of  clay  and  grass.  The  barn  was  of  good  size, 
being  about  40  by  50  feet  on  the  ground,  and  was  of  the  peculiar  construction 
of  a  number  of  buildings  on  early  French  Prairie.  There  were  posts  set  up  at 
the  corners  and  at  the  requisite  intervals  between  in  which  tenon  grooves  had 
been  run  by  use  of  an  augur  and  chisel,  and  into  these  were  let  white  fir  split 
planks  about  three  inches  thick  to  compose  the  walls.  The  roof  was  shingled 
in  the  same  manner  as  the  house,  with  pieces  of  ash  bark.  There  was  a  young 
orchard  upon  the  place  of  small  apple  trees  obtained  from  Fort  Vancouver. 

The  orchard  mentioned  here  was  the  first  in  Oregon;  but  the  trees  were 
seedlings,  and  from  seedlings  at  Vancouver  where  trees  had  been  grown  from 
apple  seed  brought  out  by  Hudson's  Bay  Company  clerks  from  London.  The 
Gervais  farm  was  the  first  in  the  Willamette  valley  proper.  Prior  to  the  Ger- 
vais location,  Ettienne  Lucier  had  cultivated  a  tract  of  land  where  East  Port- 
land is  built;  and  prior  to  that,  Nathan  Winship  of  Boston  had  attempted  a 
location  at  Oak  Point  on  the  south  side  of  the  Columbia  river  about  forty  miles 
above  Astoria  in  1810,  and  had  cleared  and  spaded  up  a  tract  of  land  for  a 
garden  and  planted  the  seeds;  and  this  was  the  very  first  attempt  to  cultivate 
the  soil  for  any  purpose  in  all  the  territory  of  Old  Oregon.  The  next  year,  1811, 
Gabrielle  Franchere  in  the  month  of  May  planted  twelve  shriveled  up  potatoes 
that  had  come  out  to  Oregon  from  New  York  in  a  ship  around  Cape  Horn,  and 
from  which  he  raised  119  good  potatoes,  and  from  this  start  fifty  bushels  of 
potatoes  were  produced  in  1813,  thus  giving  Old  Astoria  the  honor  of  starting 
the  potato  business  in  Oregon.     In  the  year  1826,  John  McLoughlin  planted  at 


326  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Vancouver  a  bushel  of  spring  wheat,  a  bushel  of  oats,  a  bushel  of  barley  a 
bushel  of  corn  and  a  quart  of  timothy  seed,  all  of  which  had  been  packed  on 
ponies  from  York  Factory  on  the  east  side  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  From  this 
start  in  grain  there  was  enough  wheat  to  supply  the  H.  B.  Co.  and  succeeding 
settlers  with  flour  after  the  year  1828.  Flax  was  cultivated  first  in  Oregon  in 
Yamhill  county  in  1845,  in  Clatsop  county  in  1847,  and  in  the  vicinity  of  Salem, 
about  the  year  1866,  for  the  purpose  of  producing  paint  oil  from  the  seed ;  and 
a  linseed  oil  mill  and  presses  were  erected  not  far  from  the  Southern  Pacific 
station  at  Salem  in  1866. 

The  importation  of  live  stock  was  commenced  by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Co.,  in 
1830,  so  that  they  had  cattle,  sheep  and  hogs  for  their  own  use,  and  was  using  rape 
for  feed  as  early  as  1832.  The  first  large  importation  of  cattle  for  general  supply 
and  sale  was  made  by  the  Willamette  Cattle  Company  organized  by  Jason  Lee 
and  others  in  1836.  Of  this  company  Lee  was  financial  agent,  P.  L.  Edwards, 
treasurer,  and  Ewing  Young  (who  had  been  denounced  when  he  came  to  the 
country  as  a  horse-thief)  was  made  superintendent  and  sent  to  California  to  buy 
the  cattle.  Dr.  McLoughlin  took  one-half  the  stock  in  the  Company,  Jason  Lee 
and  the  settlers  raised  $1600,  U.  S.  Naval  Agent  Slacum  put  in  $500,  and  Mc- 
Loughlin the  balance  of  about  $900.  "With  that  sum,  after  deducting  expenses 
of  getting  and  driving  the  cattle  from  the  Sacramento  valley  to  Oregon,  Young 
purchased  about  seven  hundred  head  of  long  horn  Spanish  cattle  at  three  dollars 
a  head,  and  forty  horses  at  twelve  dollars  a  head.  The  drivers  got  free  trans- 
portation to  Monterey  on  the  government  ship,  and  had  to  drive  cattle  and  fight 
Indians  through  Northern  California  and  Southern  Oregon  and  take  their  pay 
in  cattle  at  actual  cost. 

The  importation  of  sheep  for  the  production  of  wool  commenced  in  1842,  when 
Joseph  Gale  of  Oregon  and  his  associates  bought  up  1250  head  of  cattle  and  600 
head  of  horses  and  drove  them  to  Oregon  for  sale.  That  cattle  drive  broke  up 
the  cattle  monopoly  in  Oregon ;  and  strange  as  it  may  seem  there  was  a  monopoly 
in  Oregon  in  those  Arcadian  days.  And  along  with  and  in  the  wake  of  Gale 
droves  of  cattle  and  horses  came  the  first  sheep  for  sale  to  Oregon  settlers.  On 
account  of  the  wolves  and  other  predacious  animals,  this  first  large  flock  of  sheep 
was  a  great  venture  by  a  very  venturesome  man.  Jacob  P.  Leese  got  his  start 
in  Belmont  County,  Ohio,  a  few  years  before  the  writer  of  this  book  got  through 
the  log  school-house  college  in  the  same  county.  Leese  conceived  the  idea  while 
yet  a  young  man,  that  if  he  could  get  a  small  ship  by  hook  or  crook,  he  could  en- 
list a  company  of  congenial  spirits,  and  sailing  from  New  Orleans  around  th( 
south  end  of  South  America  they  could  land  on  the  coast  of  California,  capture 
the  Mexican  government,  and  set  up  an  independent  republic  after  the  manner 
of  Sam  Houston  in  Texas.  He  was  successful  in  recruiting  his  company,  but  he 
was  unable  to  raise  the  money  to  buy  a  ship,  and  finally  gave  up  the  idea  of  eon- 
quest  and  fame  as  an  empire  builder.  But  he  was  so  infatuated  with  the  ac- 
counts he  had  read  of  the  California  Eden  that  he  came  out  to  that  Mexican  prov- 
ince in  1840  in  a  trading  vessel  and  went  into  sheep  industry  among  the  Mexi- 
cans. This  first  flock  of  sheep — 900  head — was  brought  to  Oregon  by  this  man 
Leese,  and  was,  according  to  John  IMinto — a  good  jiidge — of  very  poor  quality, 
being  thin  and  light  of  bone  and  body,  coarse  wool  of  all  graduations  of  color 
from  white  to  black.     One  of  the  drivers  of  that  flock  told  Mr.  Minto,  that  al- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  327 

though  there  were  only  seven  guns  in  tlie  party  they  had  to  tight  Indians  every 
day  until  they  crossed  Rogue  River;  they  lost  twenty  sheep  crossing  Klamath 
river,  but  that  loss  was  made  up  by  lamb  increase  on  the  way,  requiring  from 
four  to  eight  pack  horses  to  carry  lambs  along  in  panniers. 

The  first  sheep  brought  across  the  plains  to  Oregon  were  driven  over  by 
Joshua  Shaw  and  son  in  1844.  They  were  put  into  the  cattle  train  to  be  used  as 
mutton  along  the  way,  and  those  not  so  used  reached  Oregon  in  good  shape, 
and  proved  a  source  of  profit.  The  next  flock  from  Missouri  was  driven  over  by 
Hugh  Fields  in  1847;  and  were  a  fine  lot  of  all  pnrjiose  sheep,  and  was  sold  out 
to  various  parties  in  Marion,  Benton  and  Yamhill  counties.  And  as  an  inter- 
esting part  of  this  history,  it  is  to  be  recorded  here,  that  St.  Michael  Fackler, 
the  first  Episcopalian  minister  to  Oregon,  drove  this  Fields'  fiock  of  sheep  all  the 
way  across  the  plains  to  distant  Oregon,  and  literally  complied  with  the  Scrip- 
tural command,  "to  feed  my  sheep."  Mr.  Fackler  has  been  commended  by  all 
histories  of  Oregon  in  the  highest  terms  as  a  noble  good  man.  The  next  sheep 
coming  across  the  plains  to  Oregon  was  a  flock  of  330  head  of  fine  wool  sheep, 
brought  across  by  Joseph  Watt  in  1848,  some  of  them  of  Saxon,  and  others  of 
Spanish  Merino  blood.  Subsequent  to  the  above  importations  of  sheep,  and  for 
the  purpose  of  improving  these  original  flocks,  the  principal  importers  have  been 
John  Minto  and  Ralph  C.  Geer,  of  ilarion  county,  John  Cogswell  of  Lane,  Martin 
Jesse  of  Yamhill,  and  Jones  &  Rockwell,  who  imported  from  Vermont,  American 
Merinos. 

The  first  machinery  for  working  wool  was  a  carding  mill  brought  to  Oregon 
across  the  plains  by  Joseph  Watt  along  with  his  sheep  in  1848.  And  that  was 
even  a  greater  curiosity  to  the  settlers  than  the  sheep.  It  carded  the  wool  ready 
for  the  farmei-s'  wives  to  spin  into  yarn  for  stockings,  and  the  domestic  loom 
which  could  produce  good  flannel  and  the  ' '  Kentucky  Jeans ' '  ready  for  comfort- 
able clothing.  And  with  this  limited  machinery  the  people  got  along  until  the 
first  woolen  mill  was  erected  at  Salem  in  1857.  The  Woolen  Mill  Company  was 
organized  in  1856  by  George  H.  Williams,  Alfred  Stanton,  Joseph  Watt,  W.  H. 
Rector,  Joseph  Holman,  E.  M.  Barnum  and  L.  F.  Grover — Williams,  president, 
J.  G.  Wilson,  secretary,  and  John  D.  Boon,  treasurer.  They  managed  to  scrape 
up  $2,500  in  cash  and  then  sent  Rector  to  tlie  East  to  purchase  the  looms  and  other 
machinery,  that  would  cost  $12,000.  And  when  Rector  told  the  machinery  men 
he  had  only  $2,500,  they  were  somewhat  paralyzed,  and  wanted  to  know  how  he  ex- 
pected them  to  send  their  goods  away  out  to  Oregon  20,000  miles  around  Cape 
Horn  without  security  for  their  money.  It  is  said  "Uncle  Billy"  Rector  re- 
plied to  that  stunner  by  saying:  "Look  into  my  face,  gentlemen.  If  you  cannot 
trust  me  when  I  say  you  shall  have  your  pay,  my  trip  is  a  failure."  "Uncle 
Billy"  got  the  machinery  and  the  manufacturer  got  his  mone.y;  showing  that  the 
trust  in  mankind  was  nuich  greater  fifty-five  years  ago  than  it  is  in  1912. 

Although  the  goat  and  mohair  interest  in  live  stock  did  not  take  root  in  Ore- 
gon in  the  same  era  with  horses,  cattle  and  sheep,  yet  it  is  so  intimately  con- 
nected with  these  interests  that  it  may  as  well  be  noticed  in  this  connection.  The 
goat  took  an  early  start  along  with  man  and  sheep  in  the  tedious  uplift  from  bar- 
barism to  civilization.  From  its  more  timid  and  gentle  nature  it  is  probable 
that  the  sheep  was  domesticated  b.v  man  liefore  the  goat.  But  as  man  increased 
in  knowledge  and  wickedness  it  was  concluded  by  the  learned  barbarian  of  ancient 


328  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

times,  that  it  was  necessary  to  unload  his  sins  upon  some  dumb  animal  in  order  to 
get  a  clean  bill  of  moral  health  and  take  a  fresh  start  in  the  world.  And  looking 
around  among  the  beasts  that  had  been  tamed  "Billy  Goat"  was  selected  as  the 
"Scape  Goat."  That  was  probably  the  first  honor  the  unfortunate  wild  goat 
was  elected  to  by  the  Levites  2,500  years  ago.  And  considering  the  humility  and 
utility  of  the  poor  goat,  and  the  meanness  and  worthlessness  of  the  sinners, 
whose  sins,  crimes  and  shortcomings  the  goat  was  compelled  to  bear  away  into 
the  wilderness,  the  verdict  of  history  must  be  in  favor  of  the  goat. 

The  Angora  breed  of  goats,  now  bred  in  Oregon  originated  in  the  vilayet  of 
Angora,  in  Asia  Minor,  but  it  is  not  known  when  that  was.  Some  have  ventured 
to  say  that  it  was  2,400  years  ago.  There  is  evidence  that  goes  to  show  that  they 
were  a  distinctive  breed  when  Moses  was  leading  the  Israelites  out  of  Egypt. 
Goat's  hair  was  spun  by  the  Israelites  for  curtains  and  other  purposes  for  use  in 
the  temple. 

The  city  Angora,  the  capital  city  of  the  vilayet  Angora  is  the  ancient  Ancyra, 
and  is  located  about  220  miles  southeast  of  Constantinople.  Angora  was  the  seat 
of  one  of  the  earliest  Christian  churches,  which  was  probably  established  by  the 
Apostle  Paul.  The  province  is  mountainous,  furrowed  by  deep  valleys,  and 
about  2,900  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea. 

It  was  here  that  this  famous  goat  reached  its  perfection.  That  the  altitude, 
the  soil,  or  the  climate,  or  all  of  them  together,  had  much  influence  in  producing 
this  fleece-bearing  goat,  is  supported  by  strong  evidence.  Dr.  John  Cachman 
and  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica  both  state  that  the  fineness  of  the  hair  of  the 
Angora  goat  may  perhaps  be  ascribed  to  some  peculiarity  in  the  atmosphere 
' '  for  it  is  remarkable  that  the  cats,  dogs  and  sheep  and  other  animals  of  the  coun- 
try are  to  a  certain  extent  affected  in  the  same  way  as  the  goats. ' ' 

For  much  of  the  history  of  the  Angora  goat  in  the  United  States  which  dates 
from  1849,  this  work  is  indebted  to  the  Oregon  Goat  Breeders'  Association.  Dr. 
James  B.  Davis  of  Columbia,  South  Carolina,  was  presented  with  nine  choice 
animals  by  the  Sultan  of  Turkey.  The  Sultan  had  requested  President  Polk  to 
send  a  man  to  Turkey  who  understood  the  culture  of  cotton.  Dr.  Davis  was  ap- 
pointed, and  upon  his  return  to  America,  as  a  courtesy,  the  Sultan  presented  him 
with  the  goats. 

Col.  Richard  Peters,  of  Atlanta,  Georgia,  in  1854,  secured  most  of  these  goats 
and  in  1885  made  an  exhibit  of  their  progeny  at  the  New  Orleans  World's  Fair. 
These  were  followed  by  the  Chanery  importation  in  1861,  the  Bro-^vn  &  Diehl 
in  1861,  and  it  was  from  some  of  these  that  the  flock  of  C.  P.  Bailey  &  Sons  was 
started. 

Then  followed  the  Eutichides  importations  of  1873,  the  Hall  &  Harris  of  1878, 
the  Jenks  in  1880,  and  the  Bailey  importation  of  1893.  In  1901  W.  C.  Bailey  im- 
ported two  bucks  and  two  does  from  Asia  Minor  direct,  and  in  1901  Wm.  Landrum 
imported  two  bucks  from  South  Africa,  and  Hoerle  in  1904  imported  130  head 
from  South  Africa. 

At  the  present  time  it  is  improbable  that  any  more  importations  can  be  made, 
as  a  royal  decree  prohibits  exports  from  Asia  Minor,  and  a  prohibitive  duty  in 
South  Africa  of  .$486.00  per  head  has  destroyed  any  hope  of  a  successful  importa- 
tion from  that  countrv. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  ;r29 

Ifowovi'i-,  ;is  it  is  now  <;cii('raiiy  coiiceiled  our  flocks  arc  oi'  as  high  (|iiaiity  as 
aii.\   in  the  wiirld,  we  ha\r  iiothiiiii-  much  to  lose  by  these  restrictions. 

'I'iie  Angora  goats  of  Oregon  are  of  a  good  type,  the  foundation  stock  l)eiiig 
the  higli  grade  Angoras  introduced  fifty  years  ago. 

In  1872  or  7;^  Mr.  Lantlrum  exhibited  a  small  flock  of  Angoras  at  the  Oregon 
State  Fair  at  Salem,  and  the  following  year  brought  an  additional  ten  animals 
for  exhibition.  His  first  flock  pastured  in  a  brush  enclosure  near  Salem,  having 
created  a  great  interest  in  Angoras  throughout  that  section,  a  large  sale  flock  was 
brought  into  the  Willamette  Valley  by  him  in  1874  or  '75. 

According  to  Mr.  George  Houck,  writing  in  the  Oregon  Agriculturist  and 
Rural  Northwest  (November  1,  1897),  the  first  Angora  goats  brought  to  Oregon 
came  from  California  about  1867.  The  band,  consisting  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty-two  animals,  was  from  the  flock  of  Thomas  Butterfield,  a  former  associate 
of  William  M.  Landrum,  the  pioneer  In-eeder,  who  first  introduced  Angora  goats 
in  California. 

These  were  brought  here  l)y  Mr.  A.  Cantral,  and  he  was  one  of  the  first,  if 
not  the  first,  to  introduce  them  into  the  Willamette  Valley.  They  were  fifteen- 
sixteenths  and  thirty-one  thirty-seconds  Angoras.  There  were  150  ewes,  which 
cost  Mr.  Cantral  $12.50  each,  and  a  pure-blooded  buck  and  one  pure-blooded 
ewe.  For  these  two  he  paid  Mr.  Buttei'field  .$1,500,  this  being  the  highest  price 
for  two  Angoras  by  an  Oregon  breeder  at  that  time  of  which  there  is  any  record. 

Mr.  Cantral  located  near  Corvallis.  Some  of  the  older  Angora  breeders 
still  remember  when  he  made  an  exhibit  at  the  Oregon  State  Fair. 

Most  of  the  goats  of  the  state  of  Oregon  are  descendants  from  this  Landrum 
stock,  their  record  of  breeding  being  traceable  through  the  Peters  flock  to  the 
animals  of  the  original  Davis  importation  from  Turkey.  Many  other  flocks 
have  since  been  brought  into  the  state,  notably  that  of  John  S.  Harris,  a  late  im- 
porter of  Angoras  from  Turkey,  until  today,  as  the  outcome  of  forty  years  ex- 
perience with  this  class  of  stock,  the  Oregon  breeders  have  developed  a  very  fine 
type  of  Angora  goats — rugged,  robust  animals,  of  large  size  and  densely  covered 
with  mohair  of  good  quality. 

With  such  stock  for  foundation,  our  present' breeders  have  from  year  to  year 
by  intelligent  breeding  and  patient  care,  combined  with  a  knowledge  of  climate 
and  local  conditions,  developed  a  quality  that  is  the  envy  of  the  world  and  a 
source  of  pride  to  the  state. 

We  have  today  men  who  have  achieved  a  national  reputation  through  their 
interest  and  development  of  the  Angora  and  mohair  industry.  Men  like  Wm. 
Riddell  &  Sons,  of  Monmouth,  Oregon;  U.  S.  Grant,  of  Dallas,  Oregon;  J.  B. 
Stump,  of  Monmouth,  Oregon,  and  E.  L.  Naylor,  of  Forest  Grove,  Oregon,  are 
known  from  coast  to  coast  and  are  entitled  to  the  gratitude  of  the  public  for 
the  incalculable  good  done  by  the  exploitation  of  an  industry  that  has  added 
millions  to  the  wealth  of  the  state. 

From  the' initial  importation  fifty  years  ago  the  industry  has  flourished  and 
broadened  out  until  there  is  scarcely  a  county  in  the  state  in  Oregon  where  they 
may  not  be  found ;  and  the  State  of  Washington  is  taking  thousands  there  to 
put  to  work  on  her  waste  lands.  Polk  county.  Oregon,  has  been  and  is  still  the 
"Blue  Ribbon"  county  for  Angoras.  There  will  be  found  the  famous  flocks  of 
Grant,  Farley,  (iuthrie  Bros..  Riddell  &  Sons.  Stump,  McBee,  and  others,  and 


330  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

for  years  the  sale  of  bucks  has  been  a  source  of  profit  to  the  owners,  aside  from 
the  annual  sale  of  the  mohair,  which  averages  about  150,000  pounds  for  Polk 
county. 

Angora  husbandry  in  Oregon  now  ranks  well  in  importance  with  the  live- 
stock pursuits  of  the  State.  Oregon  is  second,  if  not  first  in  number  o£  Angora 
goats  and  production  of  mohair  in  the  United  States,  the  annual  clip  from  its 
flocks  of  Angoras  running  in  value  well  toward  $50,000,  while  the  value  of  their 
yearly  increase  approximates  $400,000.  More  than  half  a  million  dollars  of  new 
wealth  is  added  annually  to  the  yield  of  Oregon  farms  from  Angora  goats.  Ore- 
gon mohair  ranks  with  the  best  in  the  eastern  markets  and  commands  the  high- 
est market  prices. 

FOUNDING   THE    FRUIT   INTERESTS 

As  "Johnny  ApjDleseed"  (whose  real  name  was  Jonathan  Chapman)  was 
the  fore-runner  and  fore-planter  of  apple  trees  in  the  Ohio  valley  in  1805,  so  also 
was  Henderson  Luelling  in  like  manner  the  good  missionary  of  all  fruits  to 
the  region  of  Old  Oregon  in  1847.  Johnny  "Appleseed,"  so  called  by  the  first 
settlers  in  Ohio,  came  over  the  Alleghany  Mountains  through  the  pass  that  Gen- 
eral Braddoek  followed  on  his  ill-fated  expedition  against  the  French  at  old  Port 
Du  Quesne  (later  Pittsburgh)  in  1755.  But  "Appleseed"  passed  through  about 
fifty  years  afterwards  carrying  with  him  a  paekhorse  load  of  apple  seed  and 
seedling  trees  which  he  planted  in  the  settled  places  of  Central  Ohio.  And  forty- 
two  years  after  "Appleseed"  commenced  planting  nurseries  on  Licking  river, 
Ohio,  Luelling  took  up  his  line  of  march  carying  his  precious  load  of  grafted 
apple  sprouts  twenty-five  hundred  miles  from  Salem,  Iowa,  to  Oregon.  Thus 
it  is  seen  by  the  unselfish  labora  of  these  two  men,  and  by  two  long  strides,  apple 
trees  were  transplanted  from  Eastern  Pennsylvania  to  the  wilds  of  Western 
Oregon.  "Appleseed"  transported  his  cargo  on  a  paekhorse,  while  Luelling 
planted  his  700  little  trees  in  boxes  twelve  inches  deep  and  wide  enough  to  fit 
snugly  in  the  bed  of  the  wagon ;  and  thus  day  after  day  watering  the  precious 
young  scions  he  safely  landed  them  after  six  months  of  watchful  care  on  the  banks 
of  the  Willamette  river  at  the  place  where  the  town  of  Milwaukie  now  stands, 
and  there  about  half  a  mile  north  of  the  townsite  started  the  first  tree  nursery 
in  1847,  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

Luelling 's  trees  were  not  the  first  fruit  trees  in  Oregon;  but  they  were  the 
first  grafted  trees,  trees  that  bear  improved  fruit  true  to  name.  The  Hudson's 
Bay  Company  had  fruit  at  Port  Vancouver ;  but  it  was  all  the  produce  of  seeds 
and  pits  of  stone  fruits  brought  out  from  England  in  1825,  and  from  its  variety 
was  at  that  time  considered  very  fine. 

Narcissa  Prentiss  Whitman,  one  of  the  first  two  white  women  to  cross  the 
plains  from  "The  States"  to  Oregon  arriving  at  Port  Vancouver  on  September 
12,  1836,  made  the  following  entry  in  her  diary  under  that  date:  "What  a  de- 
lightful place  this  is ;  what  a  contrast  to  the  rough,  barren  sand  plain  through 
which  we  have  so  recently  passed. '  Here  we  find  fruit  of  every  description — 
apples,  peaches,  grapes,  pears,  plums  and  fig  trees  in  abundance ;  also,  cucumbers, 
melons,  beans,  peas,  beets,  cabbage,  tomatoes,  and  every  kind  of  vegetable,  too 
numerous  to  be  mentioned.    Every  part  of  the  garden  is  very  neatly  and  taste- 


HENDERSON    LUEIXING 
Founder  of  Fruit  Business 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  ;J81 

fully  arrauged,  with  fine  walks,  lineil  on  i;ai/li  side  with  sti-awbiTry  vines.  At 
the  opposite  end  of  the  garden  is  a  good  house  covered  with  grape  vines.  Here 
I  must  mention  the  origin  of  these  gi-apes  and  apples.  A  gentleman,  twelve  years 
ago  while  at  a  party  in  London,  put  the  seeds  of  the  grapes  and  apples  which 
he  ate,  into  his  vest  pocket,  soon  afterwards  he  took  a  voyage  to  this  country  and 
left  them  here,  and  now  they  are  greatly  multiplied." 

One  of  these  old  Fort  Vancouver  apple  trees  is  still  (1912)  standing  at  the 
southwest  corner  of  the  U.  S.  Military  Reservation  in  front  of  the  Chief  Commis- 
sary's office  at  Vancouver,  in  apparent  good  health  after  having  borne  crops  of 
fruit  annually  for  more  than  eighty  years. 

Subsequent  to  Luelling's  other  nurseries  were  founded;  but  Luelling's  was 
substantially  the  foundation  of  all  the  good  orchards  started  in  the  pioneer  era 
of  Oregon.  In  four  years  from  planting  these  young  trees  Luelling  had  a  few 
apples  to  sell,  and  sending  a  few  boxes  down  to  California,  sold  them  out  to  the 
gold  miners  for  a  dollar  for  each  apple.  The  trees  soon  came  into  bearing  and 
apples  were  plentiful — so  plentiful,  that  in  less  than  fifteen  years  after  Luelling 
sold  apples  for  a  dollar  apiece,  thousands  of  bushels  rotted  on  the  ground  and 
the  farmers  were  feeding  them  to  their  hogs  to  get  rid  of  them.  The  fruit  indus- 
try is  now  a  great  source  of  wealth  to  Oregon,  and  apples  are  shipped  away  to 
New  York  and  for  the  European  market  by  the  train  load ;  and  it  is  in  point  of 
importance  as  well  as  years,  as  far  back  to  Luelling's  little  grafts,  and  later  on  to 
the  labors  of  Joseph  A.  Strowbridge  traveling  around  over  Multnomah,  Clacka- 
mas, Yamhill  and  Marion  Counties,  gathering  up  little  lots  here  and  there  to  ship 
l)y  steamship  to  San  Francisco.  Mr.  Strowbridge  did  for  the  apple  trade  what 
Luelling  had  done  for  the  orchardist — he  pioneered  the  business,  and  on  Novem- 
ber 18th,  1S54,  the  (Portland)  Oregon  Weekly  Times  newspaper  gives  his  busi- 
ness the  following  notice : 

"We  were  shown  by  our  friend  Jos.  A.  Strowbridge  the  largest  quantity,  and 
the  best  quality  of  apples  we  have  ever  seen  in  Oregon.  He  had  some  300  bushels, 
comprising  almost  every  desirable  variety  of  grafts  gathered  from  the  orchards 
of  the  valley.  It  was  a  pleasant  sight  to  the  eye,  and  equally  pleasant  to  the 
taste.    Indeed,  our  visit  to  his  storehouse  was  a  tasty  treat." 

In  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1857,  ten  years  after  Luelling's  planting,  the 
fruit  interest  had  so  increased  that  the  enthusiastic  fruit  growers  commenced  to 
hold  meetings  and  exhibit  their  choice  fruit,  making  fine  displays  of  apples, 
cherries,  blackberries,  strawberries,  gooseberries,  plums  and  pears,  which  were 
clean  of  all  pests  and  fruit  diseases.  Among  the  growers  of  fruit  attending  those 
meetings  were  George  Walling,  Albert  G.  Walling,  Morton  M.  McCarver, 
J.  H.  Lambert,  Henry  Miller,  Thomas  Frazar,  James  B.  Stephens,  Dr. 
Perry  Prettyman,  J.  H.  Settlemier,  Seth  Luelling,  A.  R.  Shipley,  and  Dr. 
J.  R.  Cardwell,  all  of  whom  have  passed  on  except  Dr.  Cardwell.  Monthly 
meetings  were  held  for  several  months,  and  called  meetings  were  held  two  or 
three  times  in  the  summer  and  fall  of  1858. 

Counties  in  the  Willamette  valley  began  organizing  agricultural  societies  in 
the  following  order :  Yamhill  county,  October  22,  1853 ;  first  fair  held  October 
7,  1854,  at  Lafayette ;   F.  B.  Martin,  president ;   Ahio  S.  Watt,  secretary. 

Marion  county,  April  6,  1854;  first  fair  held  in  Salem,  October  11,  1854; 
Nicholas  Shrum,  president;   Joseph  G.  Wilson,  secretary. 


332  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

Polk  county,  April  3,  1854;  first  fair,  Dallas,  October  12,  1854;  James  M. 
Fulkersou,  president ;   John  E.  Lyle,  secretary. 

Washington  county.  May  25,  1854;  first  fair,  West  Tualatin  (Forest  Grove),. 
October  5,  1854 ;   Thomasi  G.  Naylor,  president ;  J.  M.  Keeler,  secretary. 

Linn  county,  May  3,  1856 ;  first  fair  Albany,  October  10,  1856 ;  Delazon. 
Smith,  president ;    D.  H.  Bodine,  secretary. 

Lane  county,  April  7,  1859 ;  first  fair,  Eugene  City,  October  11-12,  1859 ; 
Avery  A.  Smith,  president;  Stukeley  Ellsworth,  recording  secretary;  E.  E. 
Haft,  corresponding  secretary. 

Jackson  county,  February  8,  1859;  first  fair,  Jacksonville,  October  4-5, 
1859 ;  W.  C.  Myer,  president ;  J.  H.  Reed,  secretary. 

Benton  county,  August  2,  1859;  first  fair,  Corvallis,  October  13;  A.  G. 
Hovey,  president;    E.  M.  Waite,  secretar}^ 

Multnomah  county,  November  19,  1859 ;  first  fair,  Portland,  October  2-3, 
1860 ;    Thomas  Frazar,  president ;    Albert  G.  Walling,  secretary. 

Clackamas  county,  April  28,  I860;  first  fair,  Oregon  City,  September  27-28, 
I860;   A.  L.  Lovejoy,  president;   William  Abernethy,  secretary. 

The  Umpqua  Valley  Agricultural  Society  was  organized  late  in  the  summer 
of  1860;  first  fair,  Oakland,  November  2,  1860;  R.  M.  Hutchinson,  president; 
J.  R.  Ellison,  secretary  pro  tem. 

A  pomological  convention  was  held  in  Salem,  October  20,  1858,  as  the 
result  of  a  call  by  fruit-growers  from  Clackamas,  Marion,  Multnomah,  Polk, 
Washington  and  Yamhill  counties,  and  the  "Fruit-Growers'  Association  of 
Oregon"  was  organized,  with  Amos  Harvey,  Polk  county,  president,  and  Chester 
N.  Terry,  Salem,  secretary.  The  meeting  was  a  successful  one  and  thirty-one 
exhibitors  were  present. 

The  original  members  of  this  association  were  as  follows: 

Barnhart,  C.  Harvey,  A.  Stanton,   Alfred 

Brock,  D.  Howell,  Joseph  Stone,  E.  G. 

Cox,  Joseph  Jones,  George  M.  Ruble,  William 

Cornelius,  G.  Ladd,  J.  W.  Taylor,  William  B. 

Davenport,  T.  W.  Lewelling,  Seth  Terry,  Chester  N. 

Gilbert,  I.  N.  Pearce,  Ashby  Walling,  J.  D. 

Cox,  William  Prettyman,  Perry  Woodsides,  J. 

Gilmore,  S.  M.  Schnebley,  D.  J. 

By  concert  of  action  all  the  county  fairs  in  the  year  1859  sent  delegates  to  a 
convention  appointed  for  February  22,  1860,  in  Salem.  Nine  counties  were 
represented  in  the  convention,  of  which  J.  Quinn  Thornton  was  president,  and 
Joseph  G.  Wilson,  secretary.  After  discussion,  the  "Oregon  State  Agricultural 
Society"  was  organized,  with  William  H.  Rector,  president,  vice-presidents 
to  represent  every  county;  Samuel  E.  May,  corresponding  secretary;  Lueien 
Heath,  recording  secretary;  John  H.  Moores,  treasurer — all  of  Marion  county. 
An  invitation  was  extended  to  the  representatives  of  the  "Oregon  Fruit  Grow- 
ers '  Association ' '  to  merge  that  body  with  the  Agricultural  Society,  and  on  Sep- 
tember 10,  following  the  necessary  action  to  that  end  was  taken.  On  that  day 
George  Collier  Robbins,  Portland,  was  elected  president.     It  being  found  im- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  333 

practiciii)!!'  to  liold  the  first  state  luir  on  the  Linn  county  fair  grounds,  as 
phinned  in  tlie  spring,  it  was  decided  to  postpone  the  matter  for  a  year  and 
hokl  llic  fair  in  (Mackainas  county  on  October  1-4.  The  site  of  the  fair  was 
on  tlie  mirlli  hank  of  the  (Tackamas  river,  about  lialf  a  mile  cast  IVoiii  its  junc- 
tion with  the  Wilhinu'tte  river,  near  the  present  town  of  Ghidstone.  The 
area  occupied  was  four  acres,  and  was  upon  thi'  tlonation  ehiim  of  Peter  M. 
Rinear.son,  a  pioneer  of  1>S45.  'I'hc  day  Ix'forc  the  fair  was  opened  Robbins 
resigned  as  president,  and  Simeon  Francis,  then  cditoi'  of  tiie  Oregonian,  was 
elected,  and  made  tlie  annual  address.  There  were  one  hundred  and  forty-two 
exhibitors  and  two  hundred  and  sixty-two  premiums  were  awarded.  The 
receipts  were  $1,446.17  and  expenditures  $1,200.67,  leaving  a  balance  of  .$245.50. 
In  closing  up  the  business  of  this  first  state  fair  in  Oregon  the  board  of 
directors  decided  that  the  site  used  was  not  satisfactory,  and  advertised  for 
proposals  for  a  place  to  hold  the  second  state  fair.  In  response  four  counties 
responded — Lane,  Linn,  Marion  and  Yamhill — and  the  proposal  from  Marion 
county  was  accepted  as  being  the  most  favorable,  and  the  date  of  the  second 
fair  was  fixed  on  September  30,  1862,  to  continue  four  days.  At  a  meeting 
of  the  Oregon  Agricultural  Society  on  September  18,  1862,  the  vote  of  the  stock- 
holders was  taken  to  settle  the  cpiestion  of  permanent  location,  and  resulted 
as  follows:    Corvallis,  1;    Eugene,  1;    Salem,  65;    Oregon  City,  2. 

COMMENCEMENT  OP  TRADE  AND  COMMERCE 

While  the  coming  of  ships  into  the  Columbia  river  from  Capt.  Gray's  discov- 
ery in  1792  down  to  the  first  steamship — the  Beaver,  in  1836,  are  matters  of 
great  historical  interest,  and  noticed  herein  in  other  chapters,  yet  no  one  of  them 
or  all  of  them  together,  constitute  the  commencement  of  foreign  commerce  with 
Oregon.  Gray's  ship,  and  all  the  shipping  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Co.,  down  to 
and  including  the  first  steamship,  the  Beaver,  were  strictly  fur  trading  propo- 
sitions limited  to  a  special  interest  and  coming  for  a  single  purpose,  and  not 
for  trade  in  general.  Winship's  and  Wyeth's  ventures,  if  successful,  would 
doubtless  have  grown  into  a  general  business  and  served  all  interests  and  per- 
sons without  discrimination.  The  mistake  of  these  two  American  traders  was 
that  they  anticipated  the  prospects  in  Oregon  by  a  dozen  years  or  more.  The 
timber  was  here  and  to  be  cut  without  leave  or  license  from  any  one ;  but  there 
was  no  market  for  it  to  be  reached  l)y  either  Winship  or  Wyeth.  The  fish  was 
here  without  limit,  but  modern  methods  of  taking  and  curing  them  had  not  been 
discovered,  and  Indian  labor  was  inadequate  to  the  undertaking;  and  so  Wyeth's 
efforts  were  fruitless  at  his  fishery.  Capt.  John  H.  Couch  who  came  out  with 
the  ship  Maryland  in  1840,  made  the  same  mistake  that  Winship  and  Wyeth  did. 
But  it  was  not  his  mistake,  but  the  mistake  of  the  owners  of  the  ship — the  Cush- 
ings  of  Newburyport,  Mass.  Couch  quickly  discovered  that  the  Indians  could  not 
be  relied  on  to  load  a  ship  with  dried  or  salted  salmon.  It  is  generally  believed 
that  Jason  Lee  inspired  the  Cushings  to  make  this  venture.  But  Capt.  Couch 
being  a  practical  man,  measured  up  the  prospects  and  advantages  of  this  country 
and  returned  to  the  Columbia  river  w'ith  another  ship  in  1842,  and  a  stock  of 
general  merchandise  suitable  for  a  new  country;  and  with  this  merchandise 
opened  a  store  at  Oregon  City  and  placed  it  in  the  hands  of  George  W.  Le  Breton 


334  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

and  Albert  E.  Wilson  to  dispose  of  for  trade  with  the  few  settlers  in  the  country. 
It  proved  a  success,  and  Couch  was  enabled  by  the  trade  started  in  this  way  to 
keep  his  ship  employed  between  the  Columbia  river  and  the  Sandwich  Islands 
until  the  year  1847,  when  he  returned  home  to  Newburyport  by  way  of  China.  In 
the  following  year  Couch  engaged  with  merchants  in  New  York  to  bring  a  cargo 
of  goods  to  Oregon  on  the  bark  Madonna,  Couch's  brother-in-law,  Capt.  George 
H.  Flanders,  coming  along  as  second  officer  of  the  ship.  This  ship  tied  up  to 
an  oak  tree  on  the  bank  of  the  river  at  the  new  town  of  Portland.  This  cargo  of 
goods,  the  first  ever  landed  at  Portland,  was  stored  and  sold  out  at  Portland. 
These  two  men,  Couch  and  Flanders,  went  into  business  together,  set  their  stakes 
at  Portland,  and  remained  here  as  their  home  port  for  the  rest  of  their  lives; 
Couch  taking  up  640  acres  of  land  as  a  donation,  which  is  now  all  covered  with 
Portland  business  houses  and  homes.  It  was  John  H.  Couch  that  opened  the 
commerce  of  Oregon  with  the  world ;  and  it  was  John  H.  Couch  who  settled  the 
future  of  Portland  as  the  commercial  center  of  the  Columbia  river  valley.  Capt. 
Couch  had  a  wide  acquaintance  with  ship  captains  on  both  the  Pacific  and  At- 
lantic oceans ;  and  he  informed  them  that  they  could  bring  their  ships  safely  in 
over  the  Columbia  river  bar,  and  safely  take  them  up  to  the  town  of  Portland, 
but  no  higher  up ;  and  all  ships  to  Oregon  after  that  followed  his  suggestions. 
And  thus  was  commerce  opened  between  Oregon  and  all  the  world.  These  first 
ships  did  not  get  much  freight  to  carry  away ;  and  what  little  they  did  get,  was 
made  up  of  hides,  furs,  salted  salmon,  wheat  and  lumber.  As  soon  as  Whitcomb 
got  his  saw  mill  in  operation  in  Milwaukie  in  1848,  he  always  had  a  little  lumber 
to  ship. 

THE  DISCOVERY  OF   GOLD 

The  greatest  economic  event  in  the  first  one  hundred  years  after  the  American 
revolution  was  the  discovery  of  gold  in  California.  At  first  thought  this  seems 
to  be  a  very  unfounded  statement.  But  a  careful  survey  of  the  whole  field  of 
enterprise,  the  commerce  of  the  world,  and  the  standard  of  living  throughout 
the  United  States,  will  show  that  the  discovery  of  gold  wrought  a  greater  change 
in  the  United  States  and  the  financial  relations  of  this  country  to  other  nations, 
than  any  other  one  fact,  or  any  other  one  hundred  facts,  subsequent  to  the  inde- 
pendence of  these  states. 

Up  to  the  year  1848  the  United  States  had  possessed  a  very  narrow  metallic 
base  for  a  circulating  medium.  And  what  the  country  did  possess  was  mostly 
silver  coin.  Gold  coin,  the  delight  of  kings  and  the  sceptre  of  millionaires,  was 
exceedingly  scarce  in  the  United  States ;  and  on  this  account  the  financial  stand- 
ing of  this  country  and  the  rating  of  its  securities  were  practically  at  the  mercy 
of  the  Bank  of  England,  and  the  house  of  Rothchilds,  which  financial  institutions 
either  possessed  or  controlled  the  great  bulk  of  the  gold  coin  of  the  world.  When 
the  mines  of  California  commenced  to  pour  out  their  great  flood  of  gold,  every 
line  of  business  in  the  whole  of  the  United  States  took  on  new  life.  And  within 
five  years  after  this  great  discovery,  there  were  more  manufacturing  establish- 
ments started  in  the  United  States  than  had  been  for  a  generation  before  that 
event.  The  banking  institutions  took  on  a  new  phase  altogether.  From  securing 
circulating  notes  with  deposits  of  State's  bonds,  which  were  not  payable  in  gold, 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  335 

and  of  doubtful  specie  value  on  any  liquidation  of  assets,  tlie  banks  began  to 
accumulate  gold.  Gold  begot  confidence  as  nothing  else  ever  had  before,  and 
people  more  treely  deposited  their  savings  in  banks.  From  a  starving  little 
near-to-shore  business,  the  banks  were  enabled  to  extend  accommodations  to  man- 
ufacturers and  producers  of  wealth.  And  railroads  that  had  been  for  twenty 
years  creeping  out  slowly  from  Atlantic  seaports  to  the  Alleghany  mountains, 
found  sale  for  their  securities,  pulled  on  over  the  mountains  and  out  into  the 
great  IMississippi  valley,  and  on  across  the  continent,  reaching  Portland,  Oregon, 
a  quarter  of  a  century  before  they  had  expected  to  get  to  Chicago  under  the 
old  paper  money  financiering  days  before  the  discovery  of  the  gold.  The  flood 
of  gold  changed  the  whole  face  of  affairs,  put  new  life  into  all  business  and  com- 
mercial undertakings,  brought  all  the  States  and  communities  together  under 
one  single  standard  of  values,  and  pushed  the  United  States  to  the  front  as  tlie 
greatest  wealth-producing  nation  on  the  fact  of  the  earth. 

And  here  Oregon  comes  to  the  front  again.  The  discovery  which  lifted  Amer- 
ica above  all  the  nations  was  made  by  an  Oregonian.  James  W.  Marshall,  the 
discoverer  of  gold  in  California,  was  an  Oregonian.  He  came  to  Oregon  in  the 
immigration  of  184-4,  and  not  finding  much  to  do  here,  went  down  to  California 
the  next  year.  He  was  a  handy  sort  of  a  man,  could  build  a  house,  run  a  saw- 
mill, or  keep  store.  In  California  he  made  himself  useful  to  the  old  pioneer, 
Capt.  Sutter  and  was  taken  into  Sutter's  business  as  a  partner,  and  sent  up 
from  Sacramento  into  the  Sierra  Nevada  mountains  to  select  a  site  and  build  a 
sawmill.  He  selected  the  point  at  Coloma,  on  the  south  fork  of  the  American 
river  and  built  the  mill.  After  turning  the  water  on  his  mill  wheel,  he  had 
occasion  to  go  and  look  at  the  tailrace,  and  there  on  the  19th  of  January,  1848, 
discovered  the  shining  particles  of  gold  in  the  tailrace  where  the  water  had 
washed  the  sand  from  the  gold.  Two  other  Oregonians  who  liad  been  employed 
by  Marshall  to  help  biiild  the  mill — Charles  Bennett,  of  Salem,  Marion  county, 
and  Stephen  Staats  of  Polk  county — were  there  at  the  mill  at  the  time,  and  were 
called  to  look  at  the  gold  in  the  water  and  confirm  the  discovery.  Bennett, 
having  mined  gold  in  Georgia  and  North  Carolina  in  1835-36,  was  the  only 
one  who  knew  what  native  gold  looked  like,  and  it  was  his  decision  that  settled 
the  question. 

The  discovery  spread  like  wildfire,  and  Californians  rushed  in  from  all  quar- 
ters. But  it  was  not  known  in  Oregon  until  five  months  after  the  discovery. 
And  then  the  Oregonians  went  wild.  Everybody  that  could  get  away,  rushed 
to  California,  and  nobody  was  left  but  old  men,  boys  and  women  folks.  Two- 
thirds  of  the  Oregon  men  started  for  California.  Only  five  men  were  left  in 
Salem,  and  only  a  few  women,  children  and  some  Indians  were  left  at  Oregon 
City.  Pack  trains  were  the  first  means  to  get  to  the  gold  fields;  and  after  that 
a  train  of  fift.y  wagons  started.  The  first  account  of  the  gold  received  in  Oregon 
was  on  July  31,  1848.  The  little  schooner  Honolulu  from  San  Francisco  sailed 
in  over  the  Columbia  bar  and  slowly  beat  her  way  up  the  river,  and  finally  tied 
up  to  an  oak  tree  where  the  west  end  of  the  steel  railroad  bridge  in  Portland 
now  stands.  The  captain  of  the  schooner  was  in  a  hurry  to  discharge  cargo  and 
get  away.  He  made  haste  to  load  up  with  all  the  meat  and  flour  his  ship  could 
carry,  and  then  bought  up  all  the  picks,  pans  and  shovels  he  could  find  in  town. 


336  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

And  when  he  got  everything  aboard,  he  made  known  the  news,  and  it  spread 
as  if  by  the  wireless  telegraph  of  sixty  years  later. 

THE  OREGON   MINT  AND  BEAVEE  MONEY 

The  Oregon  rush  to  California  for  gold  resulted  in  bringing  back  within  a 
year  unimaginable  wealth.  From  poverty  the  Oregonians  had  leaped  to  great 
riches  at  a  single  bound.  The  miners  not  only  returned  loaded  down  with  gold 
dust,  but  the  few  people  that  had  remained  in  Oregon  had  got  rich  in  shipping 
down  to  the  mines  their  flour,  beans,  bacon  and  lumber.  From  a  legal  tender 
currency  of  beaver  skins  and  bacon  sides,  Oregonians  were  struggling  with  a  cur- 
rency of  gold  dust.  An  ounce  of  gold  dust  was  practically  worth  $16,  but  the 
Oregon  merchants  would  not  take  it  for  goods,  for  more  than  $11,  while  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  having  some  coined  money,  was  buying  up  gold  dust  at 
$10  an  ounce  and  shipping  it  to  the  mint  in  London.  This  conditioH  of  affairs 
caused  the  circulation  of  a  petition  to  the  Oregon  Provisional  Government,  set- 
ting forth  that  in  consequence  of  the  neglect  of  the  United  States  Government, 
the  people  must  combine  against  the  greed  of  the  merchants ;  and  the  Provisional 
Government  must  at  once  set  up  an  Oregon  mint  to  coin  the  gold  dust  into  legal 
tender  money.  It  was  represented  as  a  basis  of  action  that  there  was  then  in 
February,  1849,  $2,000,000  worth  of  gold  dust  ready  to  be  coined.  That  was 
about  six  times  as  much  money  per  capita  of  the  population  as  there  is  now,  or 
ever  has  been  since  1852.  And  prices  of  everything  went  up  accordingly.  Beef 
was  ten  to  twelve  cents  a  pound  on  the  block;  pork  sixteen  to  twenty  cents; 
butter  sixty-two  to  seventy-five  cents ;  flour  was  $14  per  barrel ;  potatoes  $2.50  a 
bushel,  and  apples  $10.00  a  bushel. 

The  petition  for  the  mint  was  favorably  considered  by  the  Provisional  Legis- 
lature, and  a  bill  was  passed  to  authorize  it  and  to  coin  money.  Two  members 
of  the  legislature — Medorem  Crawford  and  W.  J.  Martin — voted  against  the 
measure  on  the  grounds  that  it  was  inexpedient  and  a  violation  of  the  constitution 
of  the  United  States.  The  act  provided  for  an  assayer,  melter  and  coiner  and 
any  alloy  was  forbidden  in  the  money.  Two  pieces  only  were  to  be  coined — one 
to  weigh  five  pennyweights  and  one  ten  pennyweights,  and  both  to  be  pure  gold. 
The  coins  were  to  be  stamped  on  one  side  with  the  Roman  figure  for  the  smaller 
coin,  and  the  other  with  the  figure  ten  on  one  side.  And  on  the  reverse  sides 
the  words  "Oregon  Territory"  with  the  date  of  the  j'ear  aroiuid  the  face,  with 
the  arms  of  Oregon  in  the  center.  The  officers  of  this  mint  were  James  Taylor, 
Director,  Truman  P.  Powers,  treasurer,  W.  H.  Willson,  melter  and  coiner,  and 
George  L.  Curry,  assayer.  These  officers,  however,  did  not  coin  any  money. 
And  to  supply  that,  a  partnership  was  formed,  called  the  "Oregon  Exchange 
Company,"  which  at  once  proceeded  to  coin  gold  on  its  own  responsibility. 
The  members  of  that  company  were :  W.  K.  Kilborne,  Theophilus  Magruder, 
James  Taylor,  George  Abernethy,  W.  H.  Willson,  W.  H.  Rector,  John  Gill 
Campbell  and  Noyes  Smith.  Rector  made  the  stamps  and  dies,  and  acted  as 
coiner.  The  engraving  of  the  five  dollar  die  was  done  by  Hamilton  Campbell, 
and  the  ten  dollar  die  was  engraved  by  Victor  M.  Wallace.  The  total  coinage 
was  $58,500 — $30,000  in  five  dollar  pieces,  and  $28,500  in  ten  dollar  pieces. 
The  initials  A.   and  W.   standing  for  Abernethy  and  Willson,   do  not  appear 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  337 

on  the  ten  dolhu-  coin.  This  coinage  i-aised  the  price  of  gold  dust  from  twelve 
to  sixteen  dollars  an  ounce,  and  saved  a  vast  amount  of  money  to  the  honest 
miners.  Engravings  of  the  "Beaver  Money,"  as  this  last  coinage  was  called, 
are  shown  on  another  page. 

The  general  effect  of  the  wealth  of  gold  brought  back  from  California  was 
beneficial  to  Oregon ;  yet  in  all  too  many  instances  it  proved  the  ruin  of  many 
men  whose  sudden  rise  to  riches  induced  habits  of  profligacy  and  dissipation 
from  wiiich  they  never  recovered.  Many  men  brought  back  as  much  as  thirty 
or  forty  thousand  dollars  washed  out  of  the  California  streams  within  a  year  or 
two ;  and  then  threw  it  all  away  on  idle  dissipation,  and  had  to  start  in  again  at 
the  bottom  of  the  ladder  encumbei-cd  with  bad  habits  and  remorseful  regrets. 

CONDITIONS  OF  THE  COUNTRY   IN   1848 

Sixty-four  years  ago  the  great  mass  of  the  people  of  Oregon  was  located  in 
the  Willamette  Valley.  At  that  time  Eastern  Oregon  was  yet  practically  in  pos- 
session of  the  Indians.  The  great  donation  claims  of  640  acres  each,  had  sub- 
stantially taken  up  all  the  open  lands  in  Western  Oregon.  At  that  time  the 
country  and  the  farmers  were  every  thing,  and  the  towns  amounted  to  little  in 
wealth,  population  or  political  influence.  The  Methodist  Mission  people  had 
been  concentrated  at  Salem,  and  that  village  had  become  the  centre  of  religious, 
if  not  political  influence,  and  was  then  aspiring  to  become  the  seat  of  the  pro- 
posed Territorial  Government. 

The  farmers  resided  distant  from  each  other  and  remote  from  the  towns,  and 
the  social  life  was  scarcely  apparent.  And  yet  all  were  bound  together  by  a 
common  tie  and  unwavering  interest  in  a  single  hope  and  purpose.  That  was 
the  universal  desire  of  a  Ten-itorial  Government  by  the  United  States,  and  the 
passage  of  an  act  of  congress  recognizing  and  legalizing  their  donation  land 
claims.  And  many  a  good  Methodist  could  have  paraphrased  the  old  hymn  to 
read: 

' '  On  Jordan 's  stormy  banks  I  stand 
And  cast  a  wishful  eye 

To   Willamette's  fair   and   happy   land 
Where  my  possessions  lie. ' ' 

They  little  dreamed  that  so  much  wealth,  prosperity  and  progress  was  so  near 
at  hand. 

They  had  labored  long  and  painfully  to  reach  this  promised  laud;  they  had 
saved,  and  pinched  and  suffered  to  the  extremity  to  make  ends  meet,  and  hoping 
and  trusting  the  great  government  at  the  great  city  of  Washington  would  hear 
and  heed  their  far  cry  from  the  wilderness  of  Oregon  for  recognition  and  pro- 
tection. Their  prayers  and  petitions  had  been  heard ;  but  they  knew  it  not.  U.  S. 
Government  protection,  and  great  wealth  in  gold  had  both  been  vouchsafed  by  a 
Providence  the  Oregonians  did  not  hear  of  for  six  months  after  the  fact.  Con- 
gress passed  the  Act  organizing  Oregon  Territory  on  Sunday  morning.  August 
13, 1848,  and  Gov.  Lane  did  not  reach  Oregon  with  his  commission  until  March  2, 
1849.  Gold  was  discovered  in  California  on  January  19,  1848,  but  the  Oregonians 
did  not  hear  the  great  news  until   the  July   following;    and  before   the  peo- 


338  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

pie  learned  they  had  fmally  recognized  and  given  the  protection  of  the  United 
States,  with  the  "Marion  of  the  Mexican  War"  as  governor,  half  of  the  able 
bodied  men  had  rushed  off  to  the  gold  mines  of  California. 

As  characteristic  of  the  people  and  the  times,  the  following  lines  contributed 
at  that  time  to  the  "Oregon  Spectator"  by  John  Carey  of  Yamhill  county,  a 
pioneer  of  1847,  who  wrote  over  the  signature  of  "0.  P.  Q."  is  given  here  as 
veritable  history: 

Come  hither,  Muse,  and  tell  the  news. 

Nor  be  thou  a  deceiver. 
But  sing  in  plain  poetic  strains 

The  present  "yellow  fever". 

And  then  I  looked,  and  lo !    I  saw 

A  Herald  bright  advancing — 
A  being  from  some  other  clime 

On  golden  pinions  dancing. 

And  as  he  neared  the  mighty  crowd 

He  made  this  proclamation 
In  tones  so  clear,  distinct  and  loud 

It  startled  half  the  nation. 

"Whj^  do  you  labor  here,"  he  cried, 

"For  merely  life  and  pleasure. 
While  just  beyond  that  mountain  gray 

Lies  wealth  beyond  all  measure? 

The  road  is  plain,  the  way  is  smooth, 

'Tis  neither  rough  nor  thorny; 
Come,  leave  this  nigged  vale  and  go 

With  me  to  California. 

There  wealth  untold  is  bought  and  sold 

And  each  may  be  partaker ! 
Where  fifty  tons  of  finest  gold 

Are  dug  from  every  acre ! ' ' 

At  sound  of  gold  both  young  and  old 

Forsook  their  occupation. 
And  wild  confusion  seemed  to  rule 

In  every  situation. 

An  old  cordwainer  heard  the  news, 

And  though  not  much  elated. 
He  left  his  pile  of  boots  and  shoes 

And  just  evaporated. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  339 

The  cooper  left  his  tubs  and  pails, 

His  buckets  and  his  piggins; 
The  sailor  left  his  j'ards  and  sails, 

And  started  for  the  "diggins". 

The  farmer  left  his  plough  and  steers. 

The  merchant  left  his  measure. 
The  tailor  dropped  his  goose  and  shears 

And  went  to  gather  treasure. 

A  pedagogue  attired  incog. 

Gave  ear  to  what  was  stated, 
Forsook  his  stool,  bestrode  a  mule, 

And  then  absquatulated. 

A  boatman,  too,  forsook  his  crew, 

Let  fall  his  oar  and  paddle, 
And  stole  his  neighbor's  iron-gray, 

But  went  without  a  saddle. 

The  joiner  dropped  his  square  and  jack, 

The  carpenter  his  chisel. 
The  peddler  laid  aside  his  pack 

And  all  prepared  to  mizzle. 

The  woodman  dropped  his  trusty  axe, 

The  tanner  left  his  leather, 
The  miller  left  his  pile  of  sacks 

And  all  went  off  together. 

The  doctor  cocked  his  eye  askance. 

The  promised  wealth  descrying. 
Then  wheeled  his  horse  and  off  he  pranced 

And  left  his  patients  dying. 

The  preacher  dropped  the  Holy  Book. 

And  gi-asped  the  mad  illusion ; 
The  herdsman  left  his  flock  and  crook 

Amid  the  wild  confusion. 

The  judge  consigned  to  cold  neglect 

The  great  judicial  ermine, 
But  just  which  way  his  honor  went 

I  could  not  well  determine. 

And  then  I  saw  far  in  the  rear 

A  fat,  purse-proud  attorney 
Collect  his  last  retaining  fee 

And  start  upon  his  journey. 


340  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

And  when  each  brain  in  that  vast  train 

Was  perfectly  inverted, 
My  slumbers  broke  and  I  awoke 

And  foimd  the  place  deserted. 

Yamhill,  November  10,  1848. 


CHARACTER   OF   THE   PEOPLE. 

The  boundary  question  between  England  and  the  United  States  was  settled 
in  1846:  and  that  fact  with  the  prospect  of  the  donation  land  law  passing 
congress  produced  the  great  immigration  of  1847,  the  largest  coming  into 
Oregon  in  any  one  year  from  1842  doAvn  to  the  completion  of  transcontinental 
railroad.  Every  immigration  to  Oregon  the  plains  across  had  been  attended  by 
much  suffering  and  loss,  and  this  year  it  was  worse  than  ever  before.  The  foremost 
companies  on  the  trail  exhausted  the  grass  which  compelled  the  later  companies 
to  halt  to  recruit  their  teams.  And  this  delay  brought  them  to  Oregon  late 
in  the  season  and  in  a  starving  condition,  which  brought  on  much  sickness.  The 
great  numbers  of  people  and  cattle  also  alarmed  and  angered  the  Indians  who 
attacked  the  small  companies  at  every  opportunity  from  the  Blue  mountains 
to  the  Dalles,  robbing  the  wagons  and  tearing  the  clothes  off  the  women,  leaving 
them  naked  in  the  wilderness,  and  committing  other  outrages.  It  would  be  in- 
teresting to  give  some  account  of  all  these  pioneers;  but  that  is  impossible,  for 
but  few  of  them  ever  took  any  care  to  leave  any  record  of  their  antecedents  or 
lives.  Mrs.  Frances  Puller  Victor  hunted  up  for  Bancroft's  History  all  that  has 
been  preserved  of  these  brave  pioneers,  and  which  is  given  in  the  following 
note  to  this  chapter,  and  which  shows  the  character  of  the  early  settlers  of 
Oregon. 

BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES 

Dr.  Perry  Prettyman  was  born  March  20,  1796,  in  Newcastle  Co.,  Del.  He 
married  Elizabeth  H.  Vessels,  Dec.  25,  1825,  and  began  the  study  of  medicine  in 
1828,  at  the  botanic  medical  school  in  Baltimore,  Maryland.  In  1839  he  moved 
to  Mo.,  and  7  years  later  to  Oregon.  He  settled  in  1849  on  a  farm  near  East 
Portland,  where  he  remained  till  his  death,  March  27,  1872.  Portland  Advocate, 
April  4,  1872.  Mrs.  Prettyman  died  December  26,  1874,  in  the  71st  year  of  her 
age.  She  was  born  in  Lewiston,  Del.,  in  1803.  She  was  the  mother  of  ten  chil- 
dren, only  four  of  whom  survived  her.    Id.,  Jan.  7,  1875. 

John  Marks,  born  in  Virginia,  January  10,  1795,  removed  when  a  boy  to  Ky., 
and  in  1818  married  Panny  Forrester,  m  1838  moved  to  Johnson  Co.,  Mo., 
and  in  1847  to  Oregon,  and  settling  in  Clackamas  Co.,  where  he  resided  until 
his  death,  January  5,  1874.  He  was  a  soldier  of  the  War  of  1812,  and  received 
in  his  declining  years  a  pension  from  the  government. 

Thomas  N.  Aubrey  was  born  in  Va.,  in  1791,  and  moved  westAvard  with  the 
ever-advancing  line  of  the  frontier  until  he  settled  on  the  shore  of  the  Pacific.  He 
was  the  oldest  mason  in  Oregon,  except  Orrin  Kellogg.  Eugene  City  Guard,  May 
31,  1879. 

Rev.  William  Robinson  left  Missouri  in  1847.  Mrs.  Susannah  Robinson,  his 
wife,  was  born  in  Pa.,  in  1793 ;  married  in  Ohio,  and  in  1833  removed  to  Indiana, 
thence  to  Platte  Co.,  Mo.,  and  finally  to  Polk  Co.,  Oregon.    She  outlived  her  hus- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  341 

liaiid,  dying  at  tlie  home  oL'  lier  daughter,  Mrs.  Cauuou,  uear  Cottage  Crove  in 
l-a,iie  Co.,  Sept.  30,  1870.    Portland  Adv.,  October  15,  1870. 

Mrs.  Alice  Claget  Alosier,  born  in  New  York,  May  31,  1794,  removed  with  her 
parents  to  Indiana,  where  she  married  Daniel  Hosier  in  1830,  with  whom  she 
came  to  Clackamas  County,  Oregon.  She  spent  the  last  years  of  her  life  with  her 
son  Elias,  her  husband  having  died  before  her.  Her  death  oceui-red  July  2, 
1870.     Id.,  September  10,  1870. 

Mrs.  Pollj'  Grimes  Pattou  was  born  September  23,  1810,  in  Fredei-ick  Co.,  Md. 
She  was  the  daughter  of  Joshua  and  Ellen  Grimes,  and  removed  with  them  to 
Adams  Co.,  Ohio,  where  she  was  married  to  Matthew  Patton  in  April,  1830,  who 
soon  after  removed  with  her  to  La  Fayette,  Indiana,  and  in  1839  to  Davis  Co., 
Mo.,  whence  they  went  to  Oi-egon  and  settled"  in  Portland.  She  died  January  7, 
1868.    Id.,  Jan.  11,  1868. 

James  Johnson  was  born  April  4,  1809,  in  Tenn.  He  moved  to  Ohio  in  1841, 
and  thence  to  Oregon  in  1847,  settling  in  the  Tualatin  plains,  and  died  August  20, 
1870. 

Mrs.  Anna  Clarke  was  born  in  Dearborn  Co.,  Ind.,  February  26,  1823.  At  the 
age  of  16  she  married  Jason  S.  Clark,  with  whom  she  came  to  Oregon.  She  was 
the  mother  of  7  children.  In  1865  they  removed  to  White  River  Valley,  in  Wash- 
ington, where  Mrs.  Clark  died  Ang  13,  1867.    Id.,  Sept.  7,  1867. 

Mrs.  Susan  Bowles  White  was  born  in  Frederick  Co.,  Md.,  Sept.  18,  1793.  She 
was  the  daughter  of  Rev.  Jacob  Bowles  of  the  Methodist  church.  She  married 
Dr.  Thomas  White,  and  eventuallv  settled  at  French  Prairie,  where  she  died 
August  13,  1867. 

Chandler  Cooper,  born  1823,  was  a  native  of  Vt,  He  moved  with  his  parents- 
to  Ind.,  when  a  boy,  and  at  the  age  of  24  to  Oregon.  Settling  in  Yamhill,  he  mar- 
ried Alvira  Frve,  by  whom  he  had  3  children.  He  died  March  24,  1865,  at  his 
home  in  Yamhill.     Id.  April  29,  1865. 

Peter  SehoU  was  born  in  Clarke  Co.,  Kj^,  in  1809,  when  young  went  to  111.,  and 
thence  to  Oregon.  He  settled  at  Scholl's  Ferry  in  Washington  Co.  He  died 
November  23,  1872.    Id.,  Nov.  28,  1872. 

Elias  Buell,  born  July  20,  1797,  in  the  State  of  New  York.  At  the  age  of  If/ 
he  removed  with  his  parents  to  Ind.,  where  he  married  Sarah  Hammond,  October 
15,  1817.  In  1835  he  went  west  as  far  as  Louisa  Co.,  Iowa,  where  he  resided  until 
1847,  when  he  came  to  Oregon  and  settled  in  Polk  Co.,  in  the  spring  of  1848, 
where  he  lived  until  his  death,  November  14,  1871.     Id.  November  30,  1871. 

Mrs.  Emeline  Buell  Blair,  wife  of  T.  R.  Blair,  and  daughter  of  Eliza  Buell, 
was  born  in  Tippecanoe  Co.,  Ind.,  Feb.  29,  1829.  She  married  Mr.  Blair  in  Ore- 
gon in  1850 ;  and  died  July  6,  1877,  leaving  several  children.    Id.,  August  9,  1877. 

Mrs.  ]\Iargaret  McBride  Woods,  born  May  27,  1809,  in  Tenn.,  was  a  daughter 
of  Elder  Thomas  and  Nancy  McBride.  The  family  removed  to  Missouri  in  1816, 
where  Margaret  was  married  to  Caleb  Woods  in  1828,  and  emigrated  with  him  to 
Oregon  in  company  with  her  brother,  Dr.  James  McBride,  and  his  family.  The 
sons  of  this  marriage  were  two,  George  Lemuel  Woods,  who  was  Governor  of 
Oregon  for  one  term,  and  James  C.  Woods,  merchant.  She  died  at  her  home  in 
Polk  Co.,  January  27,  1871.  Caleb  Woods  has  since  resided  at  Columbia  City  on 
the  Columbia  river.    Id.,  February  25,  1871. 

Benjamin  E.  Stewart,  youngest  of  11  children,  was  born  near  Newark,  Ohio, 
April  18,  1815.  He  wa.s  apprenticed  to  a  saddler  and  engaged  in  this  business  at 
Pindley,  Hannock  Co.,  where  he  married  Ann  Crumbacker,  September  28,  1837. 
Before  coming  to  Oregon  he  lived  for  several  years  in  Putnam  Co.,  Ohio.  He 
settled  finally  in  Yamhill  Co.,  on  a  farm,  where  he  died  of  injuries  received  by  a 
fall,  on  the  18th  of  August,  1877,  leaving  a  wife  and  three  sons  and  three  daugh- 
ters.   Id.  September  6,  1877. 

Susanna  T.  Hurford  wife  of  Joseph  E.  Hurford,  born  in  Va.,  died  at  Port- 
land in  the  58th  year  of  her  age,  August  19,  1877.     Id.,  August  23,  1877. 

Joseph  Jeffers  was  born  in  Wa.shington,  D.  C,  October  17,  1807,  removed  to 


342  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

Wheeling,  Va.,  in  1825,  and  was  married  to  Sarah  Crawford  of  that  place,  No- 
vember 19,  1829.  He  moved  to  Burlington,  Iowa,  in  1837,  where  he  became  a 
licensed  exhorter  of  the  Methodist  church.  On  going  to  Oregon  he  resided  three 
years  at  Oregon  City,  after  which  he  made  Clatsop  county  his  home.  His  family 
consisted  of  eleven  children,  only  three  of  whom  survived  him.  He  died  in  Port- 
land, January  2,  1876.    Id.  Jan.  27,  1876. 

Mrs.  Mary  Watson,  one  of  the  ai-rivals  in  1847,  died  at  King's  valley,  Benton 
Co.,  February  11, 1873,  aged  64  years.    Id.,  Feb.  27,  1873. 

Henry  W.  Davis,  known  as  the  Hillsboro  hermit,  was  born  in  London,  Eng., 
whence  he  emigrated  to  Canada,  where  he  participated  in  the  Patriot  war  of 
1837-8,  having  commanded  a  gun  in  one  of  the  battles,  and  is  said  to  have  been  a 
Colonel.  After  the  insurrection  he  fled  to  the  United  States  to  escape  arrest.  He 
was  employed  in  a  flouring  mill  at  Cincinnati  for  some  time,  and  when  he  went  to 
Oregon  took  with  him  a  set  of  mill-stones.  He  erected  a  flouring  mill  on  Dairy 
creek  near  Hillsboro,  Washington  county,  which  was  in  operation  for  several 
years.  Davis  lived  alone,  dressed  in  rags,  and  avoided  his  fellowmen.  He  was 
once  tried  by  a  commission  of  lunacy,  who  decided  him  sane,  but  eccentric.  He 
died  alone  in  his  cabin  in  the  summer  of  1878,  leaving  considerable  real  estate 
and  several  thousand  dollars  in  money,  which  went  to  a  nephew  by  the  name  of 
Tremble.    Portland  Bee,  August  30,  1878. 

J.  H.  Bellinger  was  born  in  the  state  of  New  York  in  1791,  served  in  the  War 
of  1812,  and  built  the  flrst  canal-boat  for  the  Erie  Canal.  He  settled  in  Marion 
county,  and  his  family  have  been  much  noted  in  state  politics.  He  died  of  pa- 
ralysis, November  13, 1878.  Portland  Bee,  November  14,  1878 ;  Corvallis  Gazette, 
November  22,  1878. 

Jesse  Monroe  Hodges  was  born  in  Melbourne  Co.,  S.  C,  December  18,  1788. 
In  1811  he  married  Catherine  Stanley  of  N.  C.  He  served  in  the  war  of  1812, 
and  fought  under  General  Jackson  at  Horse  Shoe  Bend.  In  1817  he  moved  to 
Tenn.,  thence  to  Ind.,  and  thence  in  1839  to  Mo.,  making  his  last  remove  to  Oregon 
in  1847,  and  settling  in  Benton  county.  He  died  at  the  residence  of  his  son,  D.  R. 
Hodges,  March  28,  1877.  His  mental  condition  was  sound  up  to  his  latest  mo- 
ments, though  over  88  years  of  age.    Albany  Democrat,  April  6,  1877. 

J.  H.  Crain,  born  in  Warren  Co.,  Ohio,  in  1831.  He  removed  with  his  parents 
in  1837  to  Fountain  Co.,  Ind.,  and  thence  to  Oregon.  He  remained  in  and 
about  Portland  till  1852,  when  he  went  to  the  mines  of  Southern  Oregon 
finally  settling  in  the  Rogue  River  valley.  He  served  as  a  volunteer  in  the  Indian 
war  of  1855-6,  after  which  he  married  and  followed  the  occupation  of  farming. 
In  1876  he  still  resided  in  Jackson  county.     Ashland  Tidings,  Oct.  14,  1876. 

John  Baum,  born  in  Richland  county,  Ohio,  August  12,  1823,  removed  with 
his  parents  to  Porter  Co.,  Ind.,  in  1835,  and  came  to  Oregon  when  24  yeai-s  of  age. 
He  located  at  Salem,  but  the  gold  discovery  of  1848  drew  him  to  California.  Here 
he  mined  for  a  few  months,  but  finding  his  trade  of  carpentering  more  attractive, 
and  also  profitable,  he  followed  it  for  a  season.  In  1850  he  drifted  back  to  Ore- 
gon from  the  Shasta  mines,  and  in  July,  1851,  married  Phoebe  S.  Tieters,  who 
died  in  July,  1873,  leaving  eight  living  children,  three  of  whom  were  sons,  namely, 
James  T.,  John  N.,  and  Edgar  C,  Sonoma  Co.,  Hist.,  631. 

Jonas  Specht,  another  who  went  to  the  California  mines,  was  born  in  Pa., 
and  had  lived  in  Ohio  and  Mo.  He  settled  in  California,  to  which  state  his  biog- 
raphy properly  belongs.    See  Sutter  Co.  Hist.,  24,  and  Yuba  Co.  Hist.,  36. 

Morgan  Lewis  Savage,  was  born  in  1816;  came  to  Oregon  in  1847;  died  in 
Oregon,  February  9,  1880.  He  was  twice  married,  and  left  a  widow  and  six  chil- 
dren. "Lute"  Savage,  as  he  was  familiarly  called,  was  a  favorite  among  the  Pio- 
neers of  the  Pacific  coast.  He  served  in  the  Cayuse  war  in  the  battalion  raised  in 
the  spring  of  1848,  and  was  elected  to  the  Senate  after  Oregon  became  a  State. 
As  a  citizen,  soldier,  legislator,  husband,  father,  friend,  he  did  his  whole  duty. 
Nesmith,  in  Ore.  Pioneer  Asso.,  Trans.,  1879,  54-5. 

Rev.  St.  M.  Faekler,  a  native  of  Staunton,  Virginia,  removed  to  Missouri,  and 


MMmi 


^RSc^'i^-^^"-^'^ 


No   1— WILLIAM    DUNBAR,    started    flour    trade    t..    (  hina 

No.  2— JOSEPH    WATT,    exported    first    cargo    of    wheat    dii'ect    t,,    Eurupe 

No.  S^JOSEPH  H.  LAMBERT,  produced  the  -'Lambert   elierrv,"   tlie   l.est    in   tlie   world 

No.  4— CYRUS    A.    REED,   built    the    first    steam    sawmill 


'om 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  343 

thence  to  Oregon  in  1847.  He  conducted  the  first  Episcopal  services  in  Portland, 
and  continued  faithfully  in  his  profession  in  that  city  till  1864,  when  he  removed 
to  Idaho  to  establish  tlie  church  in  that  Territory.  Pie  never  took  part  in  politics 
or  money  speculations,  but  kept  an  eye  single  to  the  promotion  of  religion.  Ilia 
first  wife  dying,  he  mairied  a  daughter  of  John  B.  Wands,  of  New  Scotland,  N.  Y. 
In  1867,  being  on  the  steamer  San  Francisco  bound  east  to  meet  his  wife  and 
child,  he  met  his  death  about  the  7th  of  Januaiy  from  unintermitting  attention 
to  othei-s  on  board  suffering  from  an  epidemic.  S.  F.  Alta,  Jan.  16,  1867; 
Blue  Mountain  Times,  La  Grande,  Aug.  1,  1868. 

Thomas  Cox  was  by  birth,  a  Virginian.  When  but  a  small  child  he  removed 
with  his  parents  to  Ross  Co.,  Ohio.  In  1811  he  married  Martha  Cox,  who  though 
of  the  same  name  was  not  a  relative.  He  removed  with  his  family  of  three  chil- 
dren and  their  mother  to  Bartholomew  Co.,  where  he  built  the  first  grist  and 
carding  mills  in  that  place.  He  afterward  removed  to  the  Wabash  river  country, 
and  there  also  erected  flour  and  carding  mills  at  the  mouth  of  the  Shawnee 
river.  He  also  manufactured  guns  and  gun-powder,  and  carried  on  a  general 
blacksmithiug  business.  In  1834  he  made  another  move,  this  time  to  Illinois, 
where  he  settled  in  Will  county,  and  laid  out  the  town  of  Winchester,  the  name 
of  which  was  afterward  changed  to  Wilmington,  and  where  he  again  erected 
mills  for  flouring  and  carding,  and  opened  a  general  merchandise  business.  Dur- 
ing the  period  of  land  speculation  and  "wild-cat"  banks.  Cox  resisted  the  gamb- 
ling spirit,  and  managed  to  save  his  property,  while  others  were  ruined.  In  1846 
he  made  preparations  for  emigration  to  Oregon,  in  company  with  his  married  son, 
Joseph,  and  two  sons-in-law,  Elias  Brown  and  Peter  PoUey.  Elias  Brown,  father 
of  J.  Henry  Brown,  died  on  the  way ;  and  Mr.  Cox  in  company  with  Damascus 
Brown,  as  before  related,  brought  the  family  through  to  Salem,  where  he  set  up 
a  store,  with  goods  he  had  brought  across  the  plains  and  mountains  to  Oregon. 
He  purchased  the  land  claim  of  Walter  Helm  and  placed  upon  it  Mr.  Policy. 
When  gold  was  di-scovered  in  California,  his  sou  William  went  to  the  mines,  and 
being  successful,  purchased  a. large  stock  of  goods  in  San  Francisco,  returned  with 
them  to  Salem,  where  his  father  retired  from  the  mercantile  business,  leaving  it 
in  the  hands  of  William  and  Mr.  Turner  Crump.  Thomas  Cox  then  engaged  in 
farming,  raising  choice  fruits  from  seeds  which  he  imported  in  1847.  The  fruit 
business  proved  remunerative.  Cox's  first  apples  selling  readily  at  $6.00  a  bushel, 
and  peaches  at  $10  and  $12.  Mr.  Cox  died  at  Salem,  October  3,  1862,  having 
always  possessed  the  esteem  of  those  who  knew  him.  Or.  Literary  Vidette 
April,  1879. 

Joseph  Cox,  son  of  Thomas  Cox,  was  born  in  Ohio  in  1811,  and  removed  with 
his  parents  to  Indiana,  where,  in  1832  he  married,  and  two  years  afterward  went 
to  111.,  settling  in  Wilmington,  whence  he  removed  to  St.  Joseph,  Missouri,  and 
remained  there  till  1847,  when  he  joined  the  emigration  to  Oregon.  He  was  a 
member  of  the  convention  that  framed  the  present  State  constitution.  Without 
being  a  public  speaker,  he  wielded  considerable  influence.  Of  an  upright  nature 
and  practical  judgment,  his  opinions  were  generally  accepted  as  sound.  A  good 
man  in  any  community,  Oregon  was  the  gainer  by  his  becoming  a  citizen.  He  died 
in  1876.  Or.  Pioneer  Asso.  Trans.,  1876-67.  Thomas  H.  Cox,  born  in  Wilming- 
ton, Illinois,  was  a  son  of  Joseph  Cox.  He  died  at  Salem  of  paralysis  of  the 
heart,  Sept.  25,  1878.    Salem  Statesman,  Sept.  25,  1878. 

Albert  Briggs,  a  native  of  Vermont,  with  a  number  of  others  joined  a  com- 
pany of  115  wagons  at  St.  Joseph,  Mo.,  commanded  by  Lot  Whitcomb.  He  ar- 
rived at  Portland,  October  14th,  and  went  to  Oregon  City,  where  he  remained 
till  1852,  when  he  removed  to  Port  Townsend.  Further  mention  of  Mr.  Briggs 
will  be  found  in  the  history  of  Washington. 

Aaron  Payne  was  a  pioneer  of  Putnam  County,  Illinois.  He  was  elected  first 
coroner,  then  county  commissioner,  and  afterward  delegate  to  the  state  convention 
which  was  held  at  Rushville,  Schuyler  county.  He  was  a  ranger  under  General 
Harrison,  was  also  in  the  Black  Hawk  war  of  1812,  and  was  severely  wounded  at 


344  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

the  battle  of  Bad  Axe.  At  the  age  of  73,  when  the  country  was  under  the  excite- 
ment of  war,  he  longed  to  take  up  arms  for  the  flag.  He  came  to  Oregon  in  1847, 
and  settled  in  Yamhill  county.    Oregon  Argus,  March  28, 1863. 

John  C.  Holgate  was  identified  with  the  early  histories  of  Oregon,  Washing- 
ton and  Idaho.  He  was  killed  in  a  mining  difficulty  at  Owyhee  in  March,  1868. 
Sacramento  Reporter,  April  10,  1868. 

John  F.  Farley  came  to  California  in  1846-7  with  the  New  York  volunteers. 
While  in  California  he  belonged  to  the  Veteran  Association,  soldiers  of  the  Mexi- 
can war.  He  was  one  of  the  original  members  of  the  Washington  Guard  of  Port- 
land, in  which  place  he  died,  February  16,  1869.  Portland  Oregonian,  February 
18,  1869. 

Dr.  James  McBride,  Tennessean  by  birth  but  brought  up  in  Missouri,  was  a 
leading  man  in  his  community  both  in  Slissouri  and  Oregon.  A  friend  of  Senator 
Linn,  he  discussed  with  him  the  features  of  his  famous  bill  of  1841-2,  and  early 
took  an  interest  in  Oregon  matters.  He  emigrated  with  his  family  to  the  new 
west  in  1846,  and  settled  in  Yamhill  county  where  for  many  years  he  lived,  a 
useful  and  honorable  citizen.  He  was  the  friend  of  education  and  temperance. 
Early  in  the  history  of  the  Territorial  Government  he  was  elected  to  the  council ; 
and  in  the  political  excitement  of  the  civil  war  of  1861-5,  was  an  ardent  supporter 
of  the  administration.  In  1863,  while  his  eldest  son,  John  R.  McBride,  was  in 
Congress,  Dr.  McBride  received  the  appointment  of  U.  S.  Commissioner  to  the 
Sandwich  Islands,  which  position  he  held  for  several  years.  He  died  at  St.  Helens, 
Oregon,  in  December,  1875,  aged  73,  leaving  a  numerous  family  of  useful  and 
respected  sons  and  daughters.  Portland  Oregonian,  December  25,  1875.  His 
wife,  Mahala,  a  woman  of  marked  talent,  survived  him  2  years,  dying  February 
23,  1877,  at  St.  Helens.     Olympia  Transcript,  March  3,  1877. 

Jeremiah  Ralston  in  1847  removed  from  Tennessee,  where  he  was  born  in 
1798.  He  laid  out  the  town  of  Lebanon,  Marion  county,  on  his  land  claim.  He 
died  August,  1877,  leaving  a  large  property,  a  wife  and  seven  children,  namely, 
Joseph  Ralston,  Tacoma ;  William  Ralston,  Albany,  Ore. ;  Charles  and  John 
Ralston,  Lebanon ;  Mrs.  Moist,  Albany ;  Mrs.  D.  C.  Rowland,  Salem,  Ore. ;  and 
Mrs.  John  Hamilton,  Corvallis,  Ore.     Seattle  Tribune,  August  17,  1877. 

Luther  Collins  came  to  Oregon  in  1847,  residing  there  until  1850,  when  he 
went  to  Puget  Sound,  and  was  the  first  to  take  up  a  claim  in  what  is  now  King 
county.  He  was  drowned  in  the  upper  Columbia  in  1852.  His  widow,  a  native 
of  New  York,  died  in  July,  1876,  leaving  two  children,  Stephen  Collins,  and  Mrs. 
Lucinda  Pares.     Seattle  Intelligencer,  July  8,  1876. 

Andrew  J.  Simmons  arrived  in  Oregon  in  1847,  and  settled  in  Cowlitz  prairie. 
He  died  February  12,  1872,  in  Lewis  county,  of  which  he  was  sheriff,  at  the  age 
of  45.  Seattle  Intelligencer,  February  26,  1872;  Olympia  Standard,  March  2, 
1872. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Everett  located  in  1847  near  Newberg  in  Yamhill  count}',  where 
they  permanently  settled.  They  were  both  born  in  England,  in  1792,  on  the  8th 
of  March,  being  of  equal  age.  They  reared  a  large  family,  most  of  whom  mar- 
ried and  had  also  large  families,  nearly  all  living  on  the  same  section  of  land. 
Olympia  Courier,  August  9,  1873. 

Mrs.  Agnes  Tallentine,  mother  of  Mr.  Thomas  Tallentine,  died  at  Olympia, 
April  13,  1876.  She  was  born  at  Harrisburg,  Pa.,  in  1820,  crossed  the  plains  in 
1847,  and  settled  in  the  Puget  Sound  coimtry  in  1851.  She  left  two  children,  a 
son  and  a  daughter.    Olympia  Transcript,  April  15,  1876. 

Samuel  Fackler,  a  native  of  Maryland,  in  1847,  came  from  Illinois  to  Oregon, 
and  died  at  Bethany,  Marion  county,  February  22,  1867,  aged  81  years.  Salem 
American  Unionist,  March  11,  1867. 

John  David  Crawford,  born  in  Omondago  Co.,  N.  Y.,  August  16,  1824,  was 
by  trade  a  printer ;  thence  he  came  to  Milan,  Ohio,  where  he  studied  law ;  but  re- 
peated solicitations  from  his  brother,  Medorem  Crawford,  finally  induced  him 
to  come  to  Oregon  in  1847.    In  the  Cayuse  war  he  was  appointed  in  the  commis- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  Jilf) 

sary  department  under  Cencral  Palmer.  When  George  L.  Curry  established  the 
Eree  Press,  Crawford  was  for  a  time  employed  upon  that  paper  as  printer;  but 
when  the  California  gold  exeitement  came,  he  joined  the  exodus  to  the  mines,  re- 
turning soon  to  Oregon  with  some  of  the  precious  metals,  with  which  he  pur- 
ciiased  in  1851  a  half-ownership  in  the  Iloosier,  the  first  steamboat  that  ran  on 
I  he  Willamette  Kiver,  between  Oregon  City,  Portland,  Vancouver  and  Salem. 
In  1852  he  went  into  mercantile  business  with  Robert  Newell  in  Chanipoeg, 
where  he  continued  to  resitle  till  the  tlood  of  1862  swept  the  town  away.  Jlr. 
Crawford  was  a  member  of  the  State  legislature  in  1872.  He  was  a  Alason,  a 
member  of  the  State  grange,  and  of  the  Oregon  Pioneer  Association.  He  died 
in  Clackamas  county  in  the  suiuiner  of  1877.  Oregon  Pioneer  Association 
Trans.,  1877,  66-1. 

Walter  Monteith  with  his  brother,  Thomas  Monteith,  came  to  Oregon  in  1847. 
They  were  natives  of  Pulton  county,  New  York,  but  when  little  more  than  20 
i-emoved  to  Wilmington.  Illinois,  emigrating  from  that  place  to  Oregon.  The 
brothers  purchased  and  settled  upon  that  section  of  land  where  the  town  of 
Albany  now  stands,  and  laid  it  out  in  town  lots  in  1848.  The  result  was  an 
abundant  return  upon  their  investments.  Like  many  others,  they  visited  the 
California  gold  mines,  and  returned  with  some  money  which  assisted  them  in 
starting  in  business.  The  first  house  in  Albany,  the  fiiiest  residence  in  Oregon, 
was  built  by  the  brothers  at  the  corner  of  Washington  and  Second  streets.  In  1850 
they  organized  a  company  of  which  they  were  the  principal  members,  and  erected 
the  Magnolia  Mills,  uciir  the  mouth  of  the  Calapooya  creek,  and  have  always 
been  most  active  in  all  enterprises  which  have  contributed  to  the  prosperity  of 
Albany.  Walter  Monteith  died  June  11,  1876.  He  had  married  in  1858,  Margaret 
Smith.  Three  sons  were  the  fruit  of  this  union.  State  Rights  Democrat,  June 
16  and  23,  1876. 

Henry  Warren  was  one  of  the  young  men  who  came  from  Missouri  to  Oregon 
to  help  build  the  State.  He  had  not  been  long  married,  and  brought  a  wife  and 
babe  to  the  new  land.  The  young  people  settled  in  Yamhill  County,  where  they 
remained  for  several  years,  until  Mr.  Warren  was  appointed  receiver  of  the  land- 
office  at  Oregon  City.  His  eldest  son,  Charles  E.  Warren,  was  carefully  educated 
and  studied  law,  in  which  profession  he  graduated  with  credit.  When  about  26 
he  married  a  daughter  of  Dr.  Henry  Saft'arans,  of  Oregon  City ;  but  in  his  28th 
year  died,  much  lamented,  disappointing  the  hopes  of  his  family  and  the  com- 
munity.   Salem  Mercury,  April  3,  1874. 

Mrs.  Jane  L.  Waller,  born  in  Payette  county,  Kentucky,  in  1792,  was  married 
to  Thomas  C.  Waller  in  1815,  and  went  with  him  to  Illinois,  where  he  died  leav- 
ing her  with  a  famil.y  of  several  young  children,  whom  she  reared  and  educated, 
and  with  whom  she  removed  to  Oregon,  settling  in  Polk  county,  in  1847.  She  lived 
a  useful  life,  respected  by  all,  and  died  full  of  years  and  honor  Nov.  23,  1869,  be- 
ing 77  years  old  on  the  day  of  her  death.    Dallas  Times,  Dec.  4,  1869. 

James  David.son  was  born  in  Barren  county.  Ivy.,  Aug.  30,  1792.  Like  most 
western  men  of  his  time,  he  was  self-educated,  but  his  talents  being  above  the 
average,  he  became  a  leader  among  his  fellows.  When  a  youth  he  took  part  in 
the  war  of  1812,  and  was  in  the  battle  of  the  Thames,  where  Tecumseh  was  killed. 
He  married  in  1817,  and  lived  at  Nashville,  Tennessee,  from  1823  to  1829,  at  St. 
Louis  in  1830.  and  in  Greene  county,  Illinois,  from  1831  to  1836.  He  then  re- 
moved to  the  Black  Hawk  purchase,  Iowa,  and  lived  in  Burlington  until  1847, 
when  he  came  to  Oregon,  and  settled  in  Salem.  Mr.  Davidson  has  represented 
his  county  in  the  legislature,  and  in  all  respects  enjoyed  the  confidence  and  esteem 
of  his  neighbors.  Nine  children  blessed  the  union.  Plis  sons,  Albert  and  Thomas, 
were  among  the  most  enterprising  agriculturists  in  Oregon.  Albert,  the  elder, 
first  came  to  Oregon  in  1845,  and  returning,  induced  the  family,  and  many  others, 
to  return  with  him.  They  took  the  southern  route.  Salem  Record,  Aug.  29, 
1874.     Salem  Statesman,  Oct.  13.  1876. 

Nebuxardan  Coffey,  born  in  North  Carolina  in  1790,  moved  to  Kentuckv, 


346  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

where  in  1810  he  married  Miss  Easley,  14  days  older  than  himself.  He  removed  to 
Illinois  in  1831,  and  came  to  Oregon  in  1847.  He  died  at  his  home  in  Marion 
county  on  the  20th  of  January,  1867,  leaving  his  wife,  who  with  him  had  borne 
the  vicissitudes  of  57  years  on  the  frontier.     Salem  Unionist,  Feb.  11,  1867. 

Samuel  Headrick,  born  in  Pettis  Co.,  Mo.,  November  13,  1836,  came  to  Oregon 
with  his  father  when  a  boy.  Like  most  boys  who  crossed  the  plains,  he  early 
learned  self-reliance.  In  Marion  county  where  he  resided,  Headrick  was  esteemed 
the  soul  of  honor  and  the  defender  of  the  right.  He  was  four  years  sheriff  of  his 
county  and  two  years  treasurer  just  previous  to  his  death,  which  occurred  March 
26,  1869.     Salem  Unionist,  March  27,  1869. 

Dr.  John  P.  Poujade  died  at  his  residence  at  Gervais  in  July,  1875.  fie  was 
born  in  France  in  1790,  and  was  a  surgeon  in  the  army  of  Napoleon,  1812.  He 
came  to  Oregon  in  1847.  His  son,  T.  C.  Poujade,  resided  in  Salem.  Salem 
Record,  July  9,  1875. 

Robert  Crouch  Kinney  was  born  July  4,  1813,  in  St.  Clair  Co.,  111.  At  20  years 
of  age  he  married  Eliza  Bigelow,  and  shortly  afterward  removed  to  Muscatine, 
Iowa,  of  which  city  he  was  one  of  the  principal  founders.  Engaging  in  milling 
business,  he  remained  15  years  at  IMuscatine,  when  the  tide  of  Oregon  emigration 
bore  him  to  the  shore  of  the  Pacific.  Settling  in  Yamhill  county,  he  farmed  for 
ten  years,  save  a  short  interval  when  he  was  absent  at  the  gold  mines  of  Cali- 
fornia. He  served  in  the  territorial  legislature  and  was  a  member  of  the  state 
constitutional  convention.  After  1857  he  returned  to  his  old  business  of  milling, 
and  with  his  sons,  owned  large  flouring  mills  at  Salem,  where  he  died  March  2nd, 
1875.  Mr.  Kinney  had  eight  children.  Mrs.  Mary  Jane  Kinney  Smith,  wife  of 
J.  H.  Smith,  of  Harrisburg  in  Lane  County,  was  born  December  16,  1839,  at 
Muscatine.  Albert  William  Kinney  who  married  Virginia  Newby,  daughter  of 
W.  T.  Newby,  was  born  at  Muscatine,  October  3rd,  1843,  and  resided  at  Salem. 
Augustus  Crouch  Kinney  who  married  Jane  Welch,  was  born  July  26,  1845,  at 
Muscatine ;  studied  medicine  and  lived  at  Astoria.  Marshall  John  Kinney,  bom 
at  Muscatine,  Januarj^  31,  1847,  resided  in  San  Francisco.  Alfred  Coleman  Kin- 
ney, born  in  the  Chehalem  Valley,  Yamhill  county,  January  30,  1850,  graduated 
at  Bellevue  Medical  College,  New  York;  residence,  Astoria.  Josephine  Elarena 
Kinney  Walker,  wife  of  Jas.  S.  Walker  of  San  Francisco,  was  born  January  14, 
1852,  in  the  Chehalem  Valley.  Wm.  Sylvester  and  Eliza  Lee  Kinney  were  born 
at  Chehalem  in  1854  and  1858.  Robert  C.  Kinney  a  son  of  Samuel  Kinney,  who 
in  1800  settled  on  Horse  Prairie,  west  of  the  Kaskaskia  river,  Illinois,  and- 
Samuel  Kinney  a  son  of  Joseph  Kinney  who  in  1799  resided  near  Louisville,  Ky., 
and  had  a  family  of  seven  sons  and  four  daughters.  One  of  his  sons,  William, 
drove  the  first  wagon  over  the  road  from  the  Ohio  river  to  the  new  home  of  the 
family  in  Illinois,  of  which  State  he  was  afterward  Lieutenant-Governor.  Robert 
had  a  brother  named  Samuel  who  settled  in  West  Chehalem,  and  who  died  October 
20,  1875.  His  other  brothers  and  sisters  remained  in  the  States.  Salem  Farmer, 
March  12,  1875;  Oregon  Statesman,  March  6,  1875;  Salem  Mercury,  March  5, 
1875. 

Robert  Cowan,  a  native  of  Scotland,  emigrated  from  Slissouri,  where  he  mar- 
ried, and  joined  the  Oregon  companies  of  1847.  In  the  following  year  he  settled 
in  the  Umpqua  valley,  Y^oncalla  precinct,  and  with  the  exception  of  Levi  Scott 
and  sons,  was  the  first  white  settler  in  Douglas  county.  His  cabin  stood  near  the 
old  tra:il  which  the  pioneer  goldseekers  of  1848  and  1849  traveled,  and  is  remem- 
bered by  many  as  the  last  mark  of  civilization  north  of  the  Sacramento  valley. 
He  was  killed  by  a  splinter  from  a  tree  which  he  was  felling  March  9th,  1865.  Or. 
Statesman.  March  20,  1865. 

Samuel  Allen  settled  on  the  Abiqua,  in  Marion  county. 

Joseph  Hunsaker  settled  10  miles  south  of  Salem. 

J.  H.  Pruett  resided  at  McMinnville  in  Yamhill  county. 

Jacob  Comegys,  of  Hagerstown,  Md.,  born  1798,  came  to  Oregon  in  1847 ;  re- 
moved to  San  .Jose,  California,  in  1856  where  he  died  in  1870. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  347 

Charles  Sauljoni  was  ili'owiied  iu  the  WiUaiuetle  river  near  Eugene  City, 
October,  1875. 

John  F.  Tayhir  never  had  a  home,  but  lived  among  the  old  settlers,  dying  at 
tlie  age  of  7b,  and  buried  at  public  charge,  an  exception  generally  in  his  habits 
to  his  old  companions. 

Samuel  Whitley,  resided  on  the  southern  border  of  Marion  county — a  native 
of  Virginia — and  died  September,  1868,  age  80  yeai-s. 

William  S.  Barker,  a  cabinetmaker,  settled  at  Salem,  where  he  died  July  2, 
1869,  having  been  a  respected  citizen  of  Oregon  tor  22  years. 

William  Whitney,  a  native  of  Stately,  Huntingdonshire,  England,  born  iu 
1808,  at  the  age  of  19  married  Elizabeth  Taylor,  of  Bourne,  Lincolnshire,  and 
moved  to  the  United  States  iu  1832.  Their  iirst  residence  was  in  Pennsylvania; 
and  from  there  they  removed  to  Indiana,  and  in  1847  joined  the  emigi-ation  to 
Oregon,  having  at  this  time  a  family  of  six  children.  AVhitney  settled  in  Marion 
county,  and  in  1848  went  to  the  California  mines  and  met  with  good  success.  He 
died  at  Butteville,  June  1st,  1878,  three  years  after  his  wife,  who  died  April  4, 
1875. 

Rev.  P.  J.  McCormick,  who  came  to  Oregon  in  the  ship  L'Etoile  du  Matin,  be- 
fore mentioned,  was  a  man  of  very  plain  parts,  and  of  an  Irish  family  of  not  the 
very  best  blood.  On  ai-riving  at  Oregon  City,  he  was  stationed  there  for  some 
time,  where  he  was  compelled  to  perform  every  menial  service,  even  to  washing 
his  linen,  though  a  man  of  accomplishments.  Falling  ill  from  this  cheerless  way 
of  living,  he  was  ordei'ed  to  the  uplands  of  Chile,  where  he  resided  twenty  years ; 
thence  returning  to  Oregon,  he  resided  there  until  his  death  in  1874,  w-ell  known 
for  his  talents  and  virtues.    Portland  Bulletin,  December  14,  1874. 

William  McKinney  w'as  born  in  Howard  county,  Missouri,  August  20,  1820. 
In  April,  1847,  he  married  Matilda  Darby,  and  started  with  the  immigrations 
for  Oregon,  settling  in  Marion  county.  He  died  October  20,  1875.  leaving  a 
family  of  eleven  children  to  whose  welfare  he  was  truly  devoted.  In  losing 
him  the  community  lost  a  good  citizen.  Portland  Oregonian,  November  6, 
1875. 

James  Pulton,  born  at  Paoli,  Orange  county,  Indiana,  in  1816,  emigrated  to 
Missouri  in  1840,  and  to  Oregon  in  1847.  His  father  laid  out  the  town  of  Paoli, 
and  with  Blackstone,  Hallowell,  Lindley,  and  Hopper,  built  the  half-moon  fort 
at  that  place  in  General  Harrison's  campaign.  Settled  in  Yamhill  county  where 
he  remained  for  ten  years,  when  he  removed  to  Wasco  county,  where  he  died  in 
1896.  He  saw  service  in  the  Yakima  Indian  war  of  1855-56.  A  number  of  his 
ancestors  served  in  the  Revolutionary  war.   He  sensed  one  term  in  the  legislature. 

Ephraim  Adams,  born  in  New  Jersey  in  1799,  removed  in  1835  to  Ohio,  in 
1839  to  Missouri,  and  thence  to  Oregon  with  his  family.  Located  in  Yamhill 
county,  he  spent  the  remainder  of  a  long  life  in  Oregon,  dying  January  15,  1876, 
at  McMinnville,  respected  and  regretted  by  his  acquaintances  of  twenty-nine 
years.    Oregon  Statesman,  Jan.  22,  1876. 

H.  L.  Aikin,  born  in  England  in  1818,  emigrated  with  his  parents  to  the 
United  States  in  his  childhood.  At  the  age  of  29  he  left  Illinois,  where  his  father 
was  settled,  to  go  to  Oregon.  He  chose  a  residence  in  Clatsop  county,  where  he 
lived  a  man  of  note  in  his  community,  dying  at  Astoria  in  April,  1875,  leaving 
three  immediate  descendants,  a  son  and  two  daughters,  his  wife  having  died  be- 
fore him.  Portland  Oregonian,  April  24,  1875;  Oregon  City  Enterprise,  April 
23,  1875. 

Isaac  W.  Bewley,  began  the  westward  movement  by  leaving  Indiana  for  Mis- 
souri in  1837,  and  thence  on  to  Oregon.  He  is  the  brother  of  John  W.  Bewley  of 
La  Fayette,  Indiana,  and  of  Rev.  Anthony  Bewley.  who  w'as  hanged  by  a  southern 
mob  in  Texas,  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  rebellion,  for  his  fearless  advocacy  of 
human  rights.  Mr.  I.  W.  Bewley  settled  on  a  farm  in  Tillamook  county,  Oregon, 
about  as  near  sunset  as  any  spot  in  the  United  States.  Lafayette  (Ind.)  Bee,  in 
Portland  Oregonian,  Oct.  31,  1874. 


348  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Tollman  H.  Rolfe,  a  printer,  joined  the  Oregon  immigration  of  1847,  but  pro- 
ceeded in  the  spring  of  1848  to  California,  where  he  was  engaged  on  the  Star. 
Tuthill's  History  of  California,  215.  He  was  elected  alcalde  of  Yuba  county, 
and  afterward  in  1853,' went  to  Nevada  City  where  he  was  employed  on  the  Jour- 
nal, and  afterward  started  the  Nevada  Democrat,  which  he  edited  in  company  with 
his  brother,  I.  J.  Rolfe.  When  Austin  was  founded,  Rolfe  went  to  that  place, 
and  for  a  time  edited  the  Reveille,  but  returned  to  Nevada  City  and  edited  the 
Gazette.  He  several  times  filled  the  office  of  city  trustee,  and  about  1870  was 
elected  justice  of  the  peace,  which  office  he  held  until  failing  health  drove  him 
to  San  Bernardino,  where  he  died  in  1872. 

William  Allphin,  a  native  of  Kentucky,  was  born  November  17,  1777.  On 
becoming  of  age,  he  removed  to  Indiana,  settled  at  Indianapolis,  and  engaged 
in  the  manufacture  of  brick,  furnished  the  material  for  the  walls  of  the  state- 
house  in  that  city.  In  1837  he  removed  to  Illinois,  and  10  years  later  to  Oregon, 
where  he  located  in  Linn  county,  eight  miles  east  of  Albany.  He  was  twice  a  mem- 
ber of  the  territorial  legislature  and  held  several  other  offices  to  which  he  was 
elected  by  the  people.  He  died  October,  1876,  within  13  months  of  the  age  of 
100  years,  leaving  a  memory  revered.  Corvallis  Gazette,  October  13,  1876; 
Albany  Reporter,  December  11,  1876 ;  Salem  Statesman,  October,  13,  1876. 

A.  N.  Locke,  born  in  Virginia  in  1810,  moved  to  Mo.,  in  1820,  and  to  Oregon 
in  1847.  He  was  among  the  late  arrivals  of  that  year,  having,  "suffered  incred- 
ible hardships."  He  settled  in  Benton  countj^  a  few  miles  north  of  Corvallis, 
He  was  several  times  sheriff:  and  county  judge,  filling  these  positions  in  an  hon- 
orable manner,  and  enjoying  the  confidence  and  esteem  of  the  country  he 
served.  He  lived  there  for  many  years  and  raised  a  large  and  interesting 
family.  He  died  on  the  14th  of  October,  1872.  Corvallis  Gazette,  October  18, ' 
1872. 

Robert  Houston,  born  in  Madison  county,  Kentucky,  February,  1793,  removed 
to  Shelby  county,  Ohio,  in  1805,  and  resided  there  until  1847.  In  1827  he  mar- 
ried Miss  Mary  Brown,  having  by  her  six  children.  While  residing  in  Ohio, 
he  served  as  associate  justice  for  seven  yeara,  and  filled  other  stations  of  trust  with 
credit.  On  reaching  Oregon  in  September,  1847,  he  selected  a  farm  in  Linn 
county,  where  he  resided  till  his  death  in  September,  1876,  surrounded  by  his 
children  and  grandchildren,  and  esteemed  by  them  all.  He  lived  long  in  the 
enjoyment  of  the  simple  pleasures  of  coiintr,y  life,  as  he  had  desired.  Albany 
State  Rights  Democrat,  September  15,  1876. 

Leander  C.  Burkhart  was  born  in  Hawkins  county,  East  Tennessee,  Novem- 
ber, 14,  1823.  Emigrating  to  Oregon  in  1847;  he  settled  in  Linn  county,  in 
company  with  his  father  and  a  numerous  relationship,  amassing  a  large  fortune 
without  losing  his  high  reputation  for  integrity,  being  possessed  of  a  sterling 
worth  acknowledged  by  all  men.  He  died  at  his  residence  half  a  mile  east  of 
Albany,  November  3,  1875. 

Samuel  Laughlin  was  born  in  South  Carolina  in  1791,  removed  to  Missouri 
in  1823,  where  he  resided  until  1847,  being  twice  married,  and  having  seven  chil- 
dren by  each  wife,  an  equal  number  of  boys  and  girls. 

Mrs.  Asenath  M.  Luelling  Bozarth,  daughtei  of  Henderson  Luelling,  came 
with  her  parents  to  Oregon  from  Indiana  in  1847.  She  was  the  mother  of  11 
children,  four  sons  and  seven  daughters,  ten  of  whom  survived  her.  She  died  at 
the  home  of  her  husband.  John  S.  Bozarth,  on  Lewis  River,  Cowlitz  county,  where 
she  had  resided  22  years,  on  the  30th  of  November,  1874,  aged  40  years.  Van- 
couver Register,  December  25,  1874. 

Charles  Hubbard  settled  at  what  is  now  Hubbard  station,  in  Marion  county, 
in  the  spring  of  1848.  Mrs.  Margaret  Hubbard  died  at  her  home  in  that  place 
December  7,  1879,  aged  68  years.  She  was  a  native  of  Ky.,  but  married  Mr. 
Hubbard  in  Mo.  After  marriage  she  resided  in  Pike  county,  Illinois ;  had  she 
lived  a  few  days  longer,  her  golden  wedding  would  have  been  celebrated.     She 


?«!?^,.,^^^^     ■::^^^ 


SOME   OREGON   GOATS   TIIK    \V()I,\  KS    DID    NOT    (;KT 
WOIJ--    lirXT    IX    KKKXCH    I'ltAli;!!':    iX    lS4;i 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  a-19 

was  the  mother  of  4  sons  and  3  daughters.     I'ortlaiid  Oregonian,  J)eceniher  13, 
1879. 

Hugh  Harrison  was  boru  in  Harrison  county,  Ivy.,  whieh  county  was  named 
after  his  grandfather.  He  was  for  several  years  in  the  Rocky  Mountains  with 
Kit  Carson,  but  settled  in  Soutii  Salem  in  1847,  wliere  he  died  at  the  age  of  76 
years,  May  27,  1877.    Portland  Standard,  June  1,  1877. 

Joseph  Merrill,  boi'n  in  Ross  county,  Ohio,  November  15,  1818,  removed  with 
his  parents  to  Illinois,  at  the  age  of  10  years,  returned  to  Ohio  when  he  attained 
his  majority,  and  married  the  next  year  a  Miss  Freeman,  of  Chillicothe,  the 
ceremony  being  performed  by  Justice  of  the  Peace  Thurston,  afterward  U.  S. 
Senator  from  Ohio.  Jlerrill  subsequently  returned  to  Illinois,  where  he  resided 
until  1847.  In  the  spring  of  1848  he  settled  in  Columbia  county,  Oregon.  He 
died  at  his  home.  May  6,  1879,  regretted  by  the  community  in  which  he  lived. 
Portland  Standard,  May,  13,  1879. 

Mrs.  John  Fisher  lost  her  husband  at  the  crossing  of  the  Platte  river, 
June  6,  1847 ;  and  on  Snake  river  she  buried  her  little  girl  2  years  of  age.  She 
arrived  late  in  tiie  autumn  at  Tualatin  Plains,  where  during  the  winter  she 
met  W.  A.  Mills,  who  had  arrived  in  1843.  He  proposed  marriage  and  they 
were  united  in  1848,  continuing  to  reside  near  Hillsboro.  Mrs.  Mills  had  five 
children,  two  sons  and  three  daughters.  She  was  born  in  Wayne  county,  Ind., 
April  20,  1822,  and  died  December  11,  1869.  Salem  Farmer,"  March  26,  1870. 
William  Glover  settled  in  Marion  county.  Mrs.  Jane  Jett  Graves  Glover  was 
born  in  Pittsylvania  Co.,  Va.,  in  1827,  removed  with  her  parents  to  Missouri 
in  1830,  and  was  married  to  William  Glover  in  1843,  with  whom  she  came  to 
Oregon  in  1847.     She  died  December  31,  1876.     Id.,  Jan.  12,  1877. 

Leander  L.  Davis  was  bom  in  Belmont  Co.,  Ohio,  and  crossed  the  plains 
in  1847,  settling  in  Marion  Co.  He  served  in  the  State  legislature  in  1866. 
He  died  June  29,  1874,  at  Silverton,  aged  48  years.     Id.,  July  4,  1874. 

Mrs.  Olive  Warren  Chamberlain  was  born  in  Covington,  New  York,  Feb- 
ruary 12,  1822.  While  she  was  a  child,  her  father,  an  itinei-ant  Methodist 
preacher,  removed  with  her  to  Michigan,  where  in  1843  she  married  Joseph 
Chamberlain,  and  came  to  Oregon.  She  was  the  mother  of  ten  children,  eight  of 
whom  survive  her.  She  died  October  27,  1874,  at  Salem.  Salem,  Or.,  States- 
man,  November  7,   1874. 

Mrs.  R.  A.  Ford,  who  settled  with  her  husband  in  Marion  county  in  1847, 
after  becoming  a  widow,  studied  medicine,  and  practiced  in  Salem,  educating 
a  son  for  the  profession.  She  died  in  March,  1880,  in  the  city  of  Portland. 
Portland   Standard,   April  2,   1880. 

William  H.  Dillon  was  a  native  of  Kent  Co.  Del.,  from  which  he  removed 
^^•hen  a  child,  to  the  Scioto  valle.y  in  Ohio.  When  a  young  man  he  removed 
again  to  Indiana,  and  thence  to  Oregon.  Dillon  lived  one  .year  on  Sauvie's 
Island,  when  he  went  to  the  California  gold  mines,  returning  in  a  few  months 
witli  a  competency,  and  settling  near  Vancouver. 

Samuel  T  McKean  was  from  Delaware  county,  New  York,  where  he  mar- 
ried Polly  Hicks,  in  1817,  and  removed  to  Richmond,  Ohio,  from  which  place 
many  years  later  he  again  removed  to  Illinois,  where  he  founded  the  town  of 
Chillicothe,  naming  it  after  the  old  Indian  village  of  that  name  in  Ohio. 
When  he  came  to  Oregon  he  had  a  family  of  six  children.  In  the  autumn  they 
removed  to  San  Jose,  California.  During  his  residence  in  Oregon,  McKean 
held  several  places  of  trust  and  honor,  as  member  of  the  legislative  assembly, 
clerk  of  the  district  court  of  Clatsop  county,  and  afterward  as  county  judge, 
and  president  of  the  board  of  trustees  of  the  town  of  Astoria.  He  died  at  San 
Jose,  in  1873,  and  his  wife  followed  him  in  1877,  leaving  many  descendants. 
San  Jose  Pioneer,  April  28,  1877. 

George  La  Rocque,  a  native  of  Canada,  was  born  near  Montreal  in  1820. 
At  the  age  of  16  he  entered  the  United  States  and  like  most  Canadians,  soon 
sought  employment   of   the   fur   companies.      Being    energetic   and   intelligent. 


350  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

he  became  useful  to  the  American  Fur  Company,  with  whom  he  remained  eight 
years,  finally  leaving  the  service  and  settling  in  Oregon  near  his  former 
friend,  F.  X.  Matthieu,  on  French  Prairie.  When  the  gold  discoveries  at- 
tracted nearlj^  the  whole  adult  male  population  of  Oregon,  to  California,  he 
joined  in  the  exodus,  returning  soon  with  $12,000.  This  capital  invested  in 
business  at  Butteville  and  Oregon  City,  made  him  a  fortune.  He  died  at 
Oakland,  California,  Feb.  2-3,  1877.     Oregon  City  Enterprise,  March  8,  1877. 

Ashbel  Merrill  died  at  Fort  Hall,  his  wife,  Mrs.  Susannah  Sigler  Merrill, 
and  children  pursuing  their  way  to  Oregon.  Mrs.  Merrill  was  born  in  the 
Shenandoah  valley,  Virginia,  March  20,  1800.  She  was  married  to  Ashbel 
Merrill  April  23,  1823,  in  Ross  county,  Ohio,  and  moved  to  Illinois,  and  thence 
in  1847  to  Oregon.  Their  children  were,  William,  George,  Mary  A.  Emert, 
Lyman,  Electa,  Alvin  and  Lyda.  Six  of  these  resided  in  Oregon  chiefly  in 
Columbia  county,  and  had  numerous  families.  Mrs.  Merrill  has  celebrated 
her  82nd  birthday.     St.  Helen  Columbian,  March  31,  1881. 

Joseph  Carey  Geer,  went  from  Windom,  Conn.,  to  Ohio  in  1816.  The 
family  removed  to  111.,  and  from  there  to  Oregon.  The  founder  of  the  Oregon 
family  of  Geer  was  born  in  1795.  He  settled  in  Yamhill  county,  in  1847,  and 
in  the  number  of  his  descendants  has  outdone  the  Canadians,  there  being  of 
his  line  164  on  the  Pacific  coast;  all  honorable  men  and  virtuous  women,  be- 
sides being  physically  people  of  weight.    Portland  West  Shore,  February,  1880. 

Ralph  C.  Geer,  was  the  pioneer  nurseryman  of  Marion  county.  He  also 
taught  the  first  public  school  in  the  section  where  he  settled,  having  30  pupils 
in  1848,  all  but  four  of  whom  were  living  30  j'ears  afterward — a  proof  that  the 
climate  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  fatal  character  of  the  diseases  which  carried 
off  the  natives  in  early  times.  Geer  planted  apple  and  pear  seeds  to  start  his 
nursery  in  the  red  soil  of  the  Waldo  Hills,  which  he  found  to  be  excellent  for 
his  purpose.  His  father  also  put  an  eqiial  amount  of  apple  and  pear  seeds  in 
the  black  soil  of  the  Clackamas  bottoms,  but  was  disappointed  in  the  returns, 
which  were  not  equal  to  the  Waldo  Hills,  where  R.  C.  Geer  has  had  a  fruit 
farm  and  nursery  for  more  than  30  yeai-s. 

John  Wilson  drove  to  the  Willamette  valley  a  number  of  choice  Durham 
cattle,  from  Henry  Clay's  herd,  at  Blue  Grass  Grove,  111.,  and  also  some  fine 
horses,  greatly  to  the  improvement  of  the  stock  in  the  valley.  J.  C.  Geer  also 
drove  a  fine  cow  from  this  herd. 

Stephen  Bonser,  who  settled  on  Sauvie's  Island,  drove  a  herd  of  choice 
cattle,  which  improved  the  stock  on  the  Columbia  River  bottoms. 

Luther  Savage  took  to  the  Willamette  Valley  a  blood  race-horse  called 
George,  whose  descendants  are  numerous  and  valuable. 

Hugh  Fields  drove  a  flock  of  fine  sheep  from  Missouri  in  1845  which  he  took  to 
the  Waldo  Hills.  Before  getting  settled  he  and  his  wife  both  died  under  a 
large  fir-tree,  with  the  measles.  The  sheep  were  sold  at  auction  in  small  lots, 
and  being  superior,  the  Fields  sheep  are  still  a  favorite  breed  in  Oregon. 
Headrick,  Turpin,  and  Mulkey  took  a  flock  of  fine  sheep.  Turpin's  were  Sax- 
ony. This  lot  stocked  Howell  Prairie.  R.  Patton  took  a  large  flock  to 
Yamhill  county. 

Mr.  Haun  of  Haun's  Mills,  Mo.,  carried  a  pair  of  mill  buhr-stones  across 
the  plains  to  Oregon. 

A.  R.  Dimiek  carried  the  seeds  of  the  "early,"  or  "shaker  blue"  potatoes 
from  Mich.,  planting  them  on  his  farms  in  the  north  part  of  iMarion  Co.  From 
these  seeds  sprung  the  famous  Dimiek  potato,  the  best  raised  in  Oregon  in  early 
days. 

Mr.  Watson  of  King's  Valley,  Benton  Co.,  drove  some  short-horn  stock 
to  Oregon.  The  above  notes  are  taken  from  Geer's  Blooded  Cattle,  MS.,  a 
a  valuable  contribution  on  the  origin  of  stock  in  the  Willamette  Valley.     See 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  n->l 

also  his  address  before  the  Pioneer  associatioi   for  1879,  on  the  iminij^ration 
of  1847;  see  also  Salem  Or.  Statesman,  June  20,  1879. 

John  E.  Ross  was  born  in  Madison  connty,  Oliio,  February  15.  1818.  Emi- 
grated with  his  parents  to  Ind.,  when  10  years  of  age,  and  to  111.,  when  16 
years  old.  At  the  age  of  29  he  started  for  Oregon,  and  was  captain  of  his  ti-ain 
of  forty  wagons.  In  the  Cayuse  war  which  broke  out  soon  after  he  arrived  in 
Oregon,  he  served  a.s  lieutenant  and  captain.  He  resided  for  some  time  at 
Oregon  City,  engaged  in  various  pursuits.  When  gold  was  discovered  in  Cal- 
ifornia he  went  to  the  Feather  River  mines,  and  in  1850,  after  having  returned 
to  Oregon,  explored  in  the  southern  valleys  and  in  northern  California  for 
gold,  discovering  several  rich  places,  known  as  Yankee  Jim's,  Wambo  Bar,  Jack- 
sonville, etc.  For  a  number  of  years  he  was  almost  constantly  engaged  in 
mining  or  selling  supplies  to  miners ;  and  in  1852  again  commanded  a  company 
who  went  out  to  fight  the  Indians  on  the  southern  route.  In  the  winter  of  1852-3 
he  was  married  to  Elizalieth  Hopewood,  of  Jacksonville,  their 's  being  the  first 
wedding  solemnized  in  that  place.  They  have  nine  children,  five  girls  and  four 
boys.  When  the  Rogue  River  war  broke  out,  in  185;},  Ross  was  elected  colonel, 
and  again  in  1855  was  elected  colonel  of  the  9th  regiment  and  commissioned  by 
Governor  Davis.  He  was  a  member  of  the  territorial  council  in  the  same  year; 
and  in  1866  was  elected  to  the  state  legislature.  When  the  I\Iodoc  war  broke  out, 
in  1872,  he  was  commissioned  by  Governor  Grover  as  brigadier-general  in  com- 
mand of  the  State  troops.  In  1878  he  was  a  member  of  the  senate  from  the 
county  of  Jackson,  where  he  has  resided  for  many  years.  The  Salem  States- 
man, in  remarking  upon  the  personal  appearance  of  Ross,  describes  him  as 
having  a  well-shaped  head,  pleasant  face  and  a  reserved  but  agreeable  manner. 
Ashland  Tidings,  December  13,  1878. 

Ahio  S.  Watt  was  born  in  Knox  Co.,  Ohio,  Jan.  15,  1824 ;  went  to  Mo.,  in  1838, 
and  to  Oregon  in  1848.  He  was  married  in  1850  to  Mary  E.  Elder,  and  settled 
in  Yamhill  county.  He  was  a  member  of  the  senate  in  1878 ;  has  been  clerk 
of  the  court,  surveyor,  and  farmer,  and  a  useful  and  honorable  citizen. 

E.  L.  Massey,  well  known  in  Oregon,  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  mining 
excitement  of  1861,  removed  to  Walla  Walla,  where  he  was  justice  of  the 
peace.  In  1867  while  traveling  in  Idaho  he  had  his  feet  frozen,  from  the  effects 
of  which  he  died  in  August  of  that  year.  Walla  Walla  Statesman,  August  30, 
1867. 

Burrell  B.  Griiifin  settled  in  Linn  county,  where  he  discovered  in  1851  a  moun- 
tain of  bluish  gray  marl  near  the  junction  of  Crabtree  and  Thomas  forks  of 
the  Santiam.  The  stone  was  easily  worked,  and  hardened  on  exposure  to  the 
air,  and  came  to  be  much  used  in  place  of  brick  for  hearthstones  and  chimney 
pieces.  In  1852  Mr.  Griffin  removed  to  the  Rogue  River  valley,  where  he  dis- 
covered in  1875  valuable  ores  of  cinnabar  and  antimony  near  Jacksonville. 
Oregonian,  September  25,  1875. 

George  A.  Barnes,  a  native  of  Lockport,  Monroe  county,  New  York,  first 
emigrated  to  Fort  Wayne,  Indiana,  and  from  there  to  Oregon  in  1848.  He 
went  to  the  gold  mines  in  California  in  1849,  returned  to  Fort  Wayne  via  the 
Isthmus  that  winter,  and  in  the  spring  of  1850  started  across  the  plains  to  Oregon 
with  his  family,  locating  in  Portland.  He  was  active  in  aiding  to  secure  the 
passage  of  an  act  incorporating  Portland  as  a  city  in  January,  1851,  and  at  the 
first  city  election.  April  7,  1851.  was  elected  a  member  of  the  council.  In  the 
spring  of  1852  he  removed  to  Puget  Sound,  with  the  history  of  which  he  has 
since  been  identified. 

David  Stone  who  was  captain  of  the  company  with  which  Barnes  traveled, 
settled  in  the  Cowlitz  Valley,  a  few  miles  north  of  the  Columbia. 

Thomas  W.  Avery  emigrated  to  Oregon  with  his  parents  at  the  age  of  15, 
and  in  1849  went  to  the  gold  mines  in  Ca  lifornia  from  which  he  returned  in 
1857,  when  he  settled  in  Douglas  county.  Working  as  a  carpenter  and  teach- 
ing a  country  school,  he  continued  to  reside  in  the  Umpqua  valley  until  1862, 


352  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

when  he  went  to  Salem  to  study  law  iu  the  office  of  Bonliam  and  Curl.  He  was 
elected  to  the  democratic  state  convention  in  1864,  and  commenced  the  practice 
of  law  in  Umatilla  county,  and  was  in  the  legislature  in  1866.  In  connection 
with  J.  C.  Dow,  he  established  the  Columbia  Press,  the  tirst  newspaper  at  Uma- 
tilla. He  died  of  consumption  in  Salem  in  the  autumn  of  1867.  Salem  Capital 
Chronicle,  December  14,  1867. 

Airs.  Susan  Sturges,  born  in  Illinois,  May  14,  1839,  married  Andrew 
Sturges  in  Oregon  in  1855,  and  died  at  Vancouver  in  Washington  Territory, 
April  28,  1876,  her  husband  and  6  children  surviving.  Portland  Advocate, 
May  11,  1876. 

Mrs.  Jacob  Conser,  born  in  Richmond  county,  Ohio,  July  31,  1822,  removed 
with  her  parents  to  Illinois,  where  she  was  married  February  28,  1839,  and  emi- 
grated to  Oregon  with  her  husband  in  1848.  She  died  at  Walla  Walla  while  on  a 
visit  to  a  sister  residing  there,  April  18,  1879.     San  Jose  Pioneer,  May  10,  1879. 

Nathaniel  Hamlin,  an  immigrant  of  1848,  died  in  June  1866.  Seattle  Weekly, 
June  18,  1866. 

Rev.  Clinton  Kelly  Avas  born  in  Pulaski  county,  Ky.,  June  15,  1808.  He 
joined  the  Methodist  church  at  the  age  of  19,  and  devoted  his  life  to  preacliing. 
Before  he  was  20  he  married  Mary  Baston,  who  died  in  1837,  leaving  him  five 
children.  He  married  in  the  following  year  Jane  Burns,  who  also  died  leaving 
one  child.  He  then  married  Maria  Grain  by  whom  he  had  nine  children.  Being 
opposed  to  the  institution  of  slaverj^  he  determined  to  emigrate  to  a  country 
where  his  numerous  family  could  be  educated  to  become  useful  citizens,  and 
chose  Oregon  for  his  home,  where  he  was  widely  known  as  "Father  Kelly"  and  as 
a  never  tiring  advocate  of  temperance.  He  died  at  his  residence  near  East  Port-, 
land,  June  19,  1875,  leaving  an  honorable  memory.  Oregonian,  June  19,  1875 ; 
Oregon  City  Enterprise,  June  25,  1875 ;  Portland  Temperance  Star,  June  25, 
1875 ;  Salem  Statesman,  June  26,  1875. 

W.  W.  Bristow,  son  of  Elijah  Bristow,  who  emigrated  in  1846,  with  his 
brother,  E.  L.  Bristow,  and  other  members  of  the  family,  followed  his  father 
in  1848,  and  all  settled  in  Lane  county,  then  the  southern  part  of  Linn.  Mr. 
Bristow  was  one  of  the  foremost  citizens  of  that  part  of  the  country;  was  a 
member  of  the  first  state  senate,  and  of  the  state  constitutional  convention,  and 
active  in  securing  the  location  of  the  state  universitj'  at  Eugene  City.  In  his 
family  he  was  as  gentle  as  he  was  enterprising  in  affairs  of  public  interest.  He 
died  at  Eugene  City,  December  10,  1874.  Eugene  City  Guard,  December  1874; 
Roseburg  Plaindealer,  December  12,  1874. 

J.  M.  Hendricks,  brother-in-law  of  W.  W.  and  E.  L.  Bristow,  also  settled  at 
Pleasant  Hill,  in  Lane  county,  where  he  died  in  the  spring  of  1878.  His  son, 
T.  G.  Hendricks,  is  a  prominent  merchant  of  Eugene  City.  San  Jose  Pioneer, 
April  6,   1878. 

Nicholas  Lee  was  born  in  Pike  county,  Ohio,  February  11,  1818.  On  coming 
to  Oregon  he  settled  in  Polk  county,  near  Dallas.  He  engaged  in  merchandis- 
ing in  1862,  but  retired  to  give  place  to  his  son,  Joseph  D.  Lee,  in  1876.  His 
death  occurred  July  11,  1879,  at  the  farm  where  he  settled  in  1848.  Dallas 
Itemizer,  July  18,  1879. 

Prances  Ella  Reynolds,  born  in  Tenn.,  in  1815,  emigrated  to  Orgeon  in  1848, 
and  resided  with  her  sister,  Mrs.  Wells,  at  the  time  of  her  death  on  the  25th 
of  November,  1879.     Portland  Advocate,  December  4,  1879. 

William  Porter  of  Aumsville,  Marion  county,  had  never  been  farther  away 
from  his  home  than  Oregon  City,  in  his  27  years'  residence  in  Oregon,  until 
summoned  to  Portland  by  the  U.  S.  district  court,  to  appear  as  a  juror.  He  has 
contributed  pleasing  articles  to  the  columns  of  the  Parmer,  but  the  journey 
across  the  plains  satisfied  completely  his  love  of  travel.  Salem  Parmer,  June 
25,  1875. 

John  L.  Hicklin,  born  in  Kentucky,  June,  1793,  first  removed  to  Indiana 
and  finally  settled  in  Washington  county,   Tualatin  Plains,   Oregon,   iu  1848, 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  353 

where  he  continued  to  reside  surrounded  by  a  large  family.  He  died  October 
14,  1876,  after  a  long  and  exemplary  life.  Portland  Standard,  October  27, 
1876. 

David  Linenberger,  emigrated  from  Virginia.  In  1851  he  moved  to  Siskiyou 
county,  California,  where  he  engaged  in  mining.  He  died  September  7,  1868. 
Yreka  Union,  September  12,  1868. 

Rev.  Joseph  E.  Parrott,  a  man  of  fine  talents  and  a  tirm  Methodist  was  born 
in  Missouri,  in  1821,  emigi-ated  to  Oregon,  in  1848,  and  married  Susan  Gar- 
rison, in  1851,  who  died  in  August,  1869.  On  the  31st  of  May,  1870,  he  mar- 
ried Mrs.  L.  A.  Worden.  On  the  3rd  of  September,  1872,  he  died  at  his  home 
near  Lafayette  in  Yamhill  county.    Portland  Advocate,  September  19,  1872. 

Buford  Smith,  who  settled  in  Marion  county,  after  a  long  residence  re- 
moved to  Northern  California,  where  he  remained  a  few  years  and  returned 
to  Oregon,  having  lost  his  health.  He  survived  the  change  but  a  short 
time,  and  the  once  energetic  and  always  genial  pioneer  of  1848  passed  to  his 
rest  at  the  age  of  70  years,  November  6,  1870.     Saleiu  Parmer,  Nov,  12,  1870. 

Mrs.  Elizabeth  Smith,  wife  of  Buford  Smith,  was  killed  by  the  accidental 
discharge  of  a  gun  in  November,  1876.  Their  sons  were  A.,  Charles  and  Wil- 
liam Smith,  who  resided  at  Silverton  in  Marion  county.  Salem  Statesman, 
November  24,  1876. 

William  Greenwood  was  born  in  Hardy  county,  Va.,  September  13,  1806 ;  on 
the  12th  of  August,  1828,  he  married  Elizabeth  Jane  Bramel,  and  in  1832  re- 
moved to  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  and  two  years  later  to  near  Burlington,  Iowa,  emigrating 
in  1858  to  Oregon,  and  settling  on  Howell  Prairie.  He  was  always  an  upright 
and  industrious  citizen.  He  was  elected  to  the  State  senate  in  1862,  serving 
four  years.  His  death  occurred  May  18,  1869,  from  injuries  received  by  accident, 
leaving  two  sous  and  two  daughters  and  a  lai-ge  estate.     Id.,  August  9,  1869. 

iMrs.  Jane  Belknap,  wife  of  Jesse  Belknap,  died  December  10,  1876.  Born 
in  Penu.,  in  1792,  she  emigrated  with  her  parents  to  western  N.  Y.,  in  1796.  At 
the  age  of  16  she  became  a  convert  to  Methodism,  and  on  settling  with  her  hus- 
band in  Benton  county,  kept  open  house  to  the  ministry,  entertaining  Bishop 
Simpson  on  his  first  visit  to  Oregon  to  preside  over  the  first  annual  conference 
of  the  Methodist  church.  She  had  a  large  family  of  children.  Her  husband 
survived  her.     Portland  Advocate,  December  21,   1876. 

Rev.  John  W.  Starr  was  born  in  Va.,  in  1795,  removed  to  Ohio  in  childhood 
and  from  tluit  state  in  1839  to  Van  Buren  Co.,  Iowa,  emigrating  in  1848  to 
Oregon  and  locating  in  Benton  county.  He  was  an  ardent  preacher  of  his 
faith  from  youth  to  old  age.    Id.,  March  20,  1869. 


CHAPTER  Xlli 

1844—1912 

FOUNDING   OF    PORTLAND  —  TOWNSITE   PROPRIETORS FIRST    TEACHERS,    PREACHERS, 

DOCTORS  AND  LAWYEP.S — FIRST  STEAMBOATS  AND  THEIR  BUILDERS. 

After  the  native  red  man,  according  to  all  reliable  evidence,  the  first  white 
man  to  come  upon  the  Portland  townsite  and  say,  ' '  This  is  my  land,  here  will  I 
build  my  hut,  here  will  I  make  my  home, ' '  was  William  Overton,  a  young  man 
from  the  state  of  Tennessee,  who  landed  there  from  an  Indian  canoe  in  1843, 
and  claimed  the  land  for  his  own.  He  had  not  cleared  a  rod  square  of  land; 
he  had  not  even  a  cedar  bark  shed  to  protect  him  from  the  "Oregon  mist,"  when 
one  day  on  the  return  trip  from  Vancouver  to  Oregon  City,  he  invited  his  fel- 
low passenger,  A.  L.  Lovejoy,  to  step  ashore  with  him  and  see  his  land  claim, 
which  he  did.  The  two  men  landed  at  the  bank  of  the  river  as  near  as  could  be 
located  afterwards,  about  where  the  foot  of  Washington  street  strikes  the  river, 
and  scrambled  up  the  bank  as  best  they  could,  to  find  themselves  in  an  unbroken 
forest — literally  "the  continuous  woods,  where  rolls  the  Oregon."  The  only 
evidence  of  pre-occupation  by  any  human  being,  was  a  camping  place  used  by 
the  Indians  along  the  bank  of  the  river  ranging  from  where  Alder  street  strikes 
the  water,  up  to  Salmon  street.  This  was  a  convenient  spot  for  the  Indian 
canoes  to  tie  up  on  their  trips  between  Vancouver  and  Oregon  City,  and  the 
brush  had  been  cut  away  and  burned  up,  leaving  an  open  space  of  an  acre  or  so. 

On  this  occasion,  Lovejoy  and  Overton  made  some  examinations  of  the  land 
back  from  the  river,  finding  the  soil  good  and  the  tract  suitable  for  settlement  and 
cultivation  if  the  dense  growth  of  timber  was  removed.  Overton  was  penniless 
and  unable  to  pay  even  the  trifling  fees  exacted  by  the  Provisional  Government 
for  filing  claims  for  land,  or  getting  it  surveyed,  and  then  and  there  proposed 
to  Lovejoy  if  he  would  advance  the  money  to  pay  these  expenses,  he  should 
have  a  half  interest  in  the  land  claim — a  mile  square  of  land.  Mr.  Lovejoy 
had  not  exercised  his  right  to  take  land,  and  the  proposition  appealed  to  him. 
Overton  had  not  thought  of  a  townsite  use  for  the  laud  and  did  not  present 
that  view  of  the  subject.  But  the  quick  eye  of  Lovejoy  took  notice  of  the  fact, 
that  there  was  deep  water  in  front  of  the  land,  and  that  ships  had  tied  up  at 
that  shore,  and  so  he  accepted  Overton's  proposition  at  once,  and  became  a  half 
owner  in  the  Overton  land  claim;  and  the  Portland  townsite  proposition  was 
born  right  then  and  there  in  the  brain  of  Amos  Lawrence  Lovejoy ;  and  making 
him  in  reality  and  fact  the 

"founder   OF   THE    CITY   OF   PORTLAND" 

Following  up  this  bargain  and  joint  tenancy  in  this  piece  of  wild  land,  Love- 
joy and  Overton  made  preparations  for  surveying  the  tract,  some  clearing  and 

355 


356  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

the  erection  of  a  log  cabin.  But  before  these  improvements  could  be  even  com- 
menced, Overton's  restless  disposition  led  him  to  sell  out  his  half  interest  in 
the  land  to  Francis  W.  Pettygrove  for  the  sum  of  fifty  dollars  to  purchase  an 
outfit  to  go  back  to  ' '  The  States ' '  or  somewhere  else,  nobody  ever  knew  where.  Of 
Overton  nothing  is  known  of  the  slightest  consequence  to  the  location  of  the  town. 
One  account  says  that  he  made  shingles  on  the  place.  If  he  did,  it  was  probably 
only  for  the  cabin  that  was  necessary  to  hold  the  claim,  but  he  never  built  any 
sort  of  a  house  protection,  and  sold  out  to  Pettygrove  before  the  cabin  was  built. 
Overton  was  a  mere  bird  of  passage ;  no  one  ever  knew  where  he  came  from  or 
where  he  went  to. 

By  some  writers,  Overton  is  given  the  honor  of  being  the  ' '  first  owner  of  the 
Portland  Land  Claim,"  and  "after  completing  his  settlement"  he  sold  out  to 
Lovejoy  and  Pettygrove.  But  he  never  was  the  owner  of  the  claim,  and  he  never 
made  or  completed  any  settlement.  He  had  done  nothing  to  entitle  him  to  the 
land;  he  merely  said  to  a  passer-by,  "This  is  my  claim."  He  filed  no  claim  with 
the  Provisional  Government,  he  posted  no  notice,  he  built  no  cabin,  and  he  did  not 
even  do  what  the  pioneers  of  the  Ohio  valley  did,  in  a  hostile  Indian  country  in 
taking  lands — he  blazed  no  line  or  boundary  trees.  The  Ohio  valley  pioneers  took 
what  was  called  in  their  day  "tomahawk"  claims  to  land.  That  is,  they  picked 
out  a  tract  of  land  that  suited  their  fancy,  two  or  three  hundred  acres,  and  then 
taking  a  light  axe  or  Indian  tomahawk,  they  established  and  marked  a  boundary 
line  around  the  piece  of  land  by  blazing  a  line  of  forest  trees  all  around  that 
land.  That  was  the  custom  of  the  countr}\  There  was  no  law  for  it.  Those 
settlers  were  hundreds  of  miles  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  any  state,  or  the  sur- 
veillance of  any  government  officer.  But  when  the  public  surveys  were  extended 
west  from  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia,  these  "tomahawk  claims"  were  found  to 
cover  large  settlements.  Their  blazed  trees  were  notice  to  everybody  and  were 
respected  by  all  incoming  settlers ;  and  the  United  States  government  surveyors 
were  instructed  to  adjust  all  these  irregular  boundary  lines  and  give  the  actual 
settlers  on  the  lands,  or  their  bona  fide  assignees,  accurate  descriptions  of  these 
claims,  which  were  in  due  course  confirmed  by  government  patents.  The  first 
settlers  in  Oregon,  both  British  and  American,  were  doing  precisely  the  same 
thing  to  secure  their  home  and  farms ;  and  it  was  one  of  the  objects  of  forming 
the  Provisional  Government  to  provide  for  the  recording  of  all  these  claims  to 
the  end  that  strife  and  litigation  might  be  prevented.  The  Provisional  Government 
had  already  before  Overton  set  up  a  verbal  claim  to  the  land  provided  for  this 
registry  of  claims.  Overton  had  not  complied  with  that  law,  but  gave  Lovejoy 
half  of  his  inchoate  right,  whatever  it  might  be,  to  go  ahead  and  comply  with  the 
law,  and  which  Lovejoy  did.  Lovejoy  is  then  in  truth  and  fact  the  founder  of 
Portland,  Oregon,  for  it  was  he  who  secured  the  title  to  the  land  for  a  town  site, 
and  originated  the  town  site  proposition. 

Amos  L.  Lovejoy,  born  in  Groton,  Mass.,  March  14,  1808,  a  graduate  of  Am- 
herst college,  related  to  the  Lawrence  family  of  the  old  Bay  state,  studied 
law,  read  Hall  Kelley's  descriptions  of  Oregon,  and  started  west.  Halting 
in  Missouri,  he  commenced  the  practice  of  law  in  that  state.  But  falling  in  with 
Dr.  Elijah  White,  who  had  been  appointed  some  kind  of  an  Indian  agent 
for  Oregon,  Lovejoy  crossed  the  plains  and  came  to  Oregon  in  1842,  with 
the    party    of    Dr.    White,    and    in    which    party    he    acted    as    one    of    the 


THK  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  357 

flirce  sciciilific  men  1o  iccord  :\11  their  oxporienees  and  discoveries  oil  their 
journey  tlirougli  the  wihlei-ncss.  On  reaching  Oregon,  Lovejoy  fell  in  with  the 
missionary,  Dr.  Marcus  Whitman.  And  no  sooner  had  Lovejoy  reached  the 
Walla  Walla  valley  than  Whitman  besought  him  to  return  to  the  states  with  him 
(Whitman)  as  a  companion.  Not  one  man  in  ten  thousand,  for  love  or  money, 
would  have  undertaken  that  trip  in  the  approaching  winter,  after  just  finishing 
a  like  trip  from  Missouri  to  Oregon.  But  he  yielded  to  Whitman's  entreaties, 
starting  to  the  states  in  the  month  of  November,  and  reaching  Missouri  in  Feb- 
ruary, by  the  southern  route  through  Santa  Fe,  Mexico,  and  suffering  every 
imaginable  trial,  privation,  danger  and  distress  while  living  on  dog  meat,  hedge- 
hogs, or  anything  else  of  animal  life  that  would  sustain  their  own  lives.  In  May 
following  his  return  to  Missouri,  Mr.  Lovejoy  joined  the  emigrant  train  of  1843, 
and  again  returned  to  Oregon,  arriving  at  Fort  Vancouver  in  October.  He  had 
thus  made  three  trips  across  the  western  two-thirds  of  the  continent,  over  six 
thousand  miles  in  travel,  on  horseback  altogether,  suffering  all  the  trials  and 
dangers  of  the  plains,  being  once  taken  prisoner  by  the  Sioux  Indians,  and  break- 
ing all  records  in  Overland  Oregon  trail  travel,  in  the  space  of  seventeen  months. 
And  such  was  the  courageous  and  determined  character  that  founded  Portland, 
Oregon. 

In  organizing  and  maintaining  the  Provisional  Government,  Mr.  Lovejoy 
took  a  leading,  useful  and  honorable  part.  He  occupied  first  and  last  nearly 
every  office  in  the  government,  and  was  elected  supreme  judge  by  the  people, 
and  was  exercising  the  duties  of  that  office  when  the  United  States  finally  ex- 
tended its  autliority  over  the  territory  in  1849. 

Francis  W.  Pettygrove  who  joined  Mr.  Lovejoy  in  developing  the  Portland 
townsite,  was  born  in  Calais,  Maine,  in  1812 ;  received  a  common  school  education 
in  his  native  towai,  and  engaged  in  business  on  his  own  account  at  an  early  age. 
At  the  age  of  thirty  years  he  accepted  an  offer  to  bring  to  Oregon,  for  an  east- 
ern mercantile  house,  a  stock  of  general  merchandise,  suitable  for  this  new  coun- 
try. Shipping  the  merchandise,  and  accompanying  the  venture  with  his  family 
on  the  bark  Victoria,  he  reached  the  Columbia  river  by  the  way  of  the  Sandwich 
Islands,  transferring  his  merchandise  at  Honolulu  from  the  Victoria  to  the 
bark  Fama.  This  vessel  discharged  cargo  at  Vancouver,  and  Pettygrove  had  to 
employ  a  little  schooner  owned  by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  to  carry  the  goods 
from  Vancouver  to  Oregon  City.  After  selling  out  this  stock  of  merchandise, 
Pettygrove  engaged  in  the  fur  trade,  erected  a  warehouse  at  Oregon  City  and 
was  the  first  American  to  go  into  the  grain  trade,  buying  up  the  wheat  from 
the  French  Prairie  farmers. 

But  to  return  to  the  towiisite,  we  find  that  after  buying  out  Overton, 
Lovejoy  and  Pettygrove  employed  a  man  to  build  a  log  house  on  their  claim 
and  clear  a  patch  of  land.  The  house  was  built ;  a  picture  of  which  may  De 
found  on  another  page,  near  the  foot  of  the  present  Washington  street.  The 
next  year,  1845,  the  land  was  surveyed  out,  and  a  portion  of  it  laid  off  into 
lots,  blocks  and  streets.  That  portion  of  the  land  between  Front  street  and  the 
river  was  not  platted  into  lots  and  blocks,  it  being  supposed  at  the  time  that 
it  would  be  needed  for  public  landings,  docks,  and  wharves,  like  the  custom  in 
many  of  the  towns  and  cities  on  rivers  in  the  eastern  states.  But  if  such  was 
the  idea  and  intention  of  the  land  claimants,  they  failed  to  make  such  intentions 


358  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

known  or  effective  at  the  time,  and  their  failure  to  do  so  gave  rise  to  much 
trouble,  contention  and  litigation  thereafter. 

But  it  must  strike  every  reader  that  it  was  a  most  singular  proceeding, 
counting  very  largely  on  the  lax  ideas  held  by  those  pioneers  on  the  subjects 
of  land  titles,  that  these  two  men  could  take  up  a  tract  of  land  in  the  wilder- 
ness without  a  shadow  of  a  title  from  either  the  United  States  or  Great  Britain 
— the  governments  claiming  title  to  the  land — and  proceed  to  sell  and  make 
deeds  to  the  purchasers  for  gold  dust,  beaver  money  or  beaver  skins,  as  came 
in  handy,  and  everything  going  "merry  as  a  marriage  bell."  No  abstract 
of  title  can  be  found  that  covers  or  explains  these  anomalies  in  the  dealings  of 
the  pioneer  town  lot  settlers ;  but  it  is  proper  to  add  that  in  assuming  control 
of  the  country,  Congress  approved  of  the  land  titles  initiated  by  the  Provisional 
Government. 

However,  the  real  estate  dealers  in  Portland  in  1845  were  giving  a  better 
deal  to  their  customers  in  some  things  than  their  successors  are  in  1912.  Now- 
adays the  first  thing  in  the  history  of  the  city  is  a  grand  map  and  a  grander 
name.  In  1845  Portland  was  started,  and  lots  sold  before  it  had  any  name. 
This  proving  somewhat  awkward  and  embarrassing,  the  matter  came  up  for 
discussion  and  decision  at  a  family  dinner  party  of  the  Lovejoys  and  Petty- 
groves  at  Oregon  City,  Mr.  Pettygrove  hailing  from  Maine,  wished  to  name  the 
to-HTi  for  his  favorite  old  home  town  of  Portland,  while  General  Lovejoy  com- 
ing from  Massachusetts,  desired  to  honor  Boston  with  the  name.  And  not 
being  able  to  settle  the  matter  with  any  good  reason,  it  was  proposed  to  decide 
the  difference  by  tossing  a  copper;  and  so,  on  the  production  of  and  old  fash- 
ioned copper  cent,  an  engraving  of  which  is  given  on  another  page,  the  cent 
was  tossed  up  three  times  and  came  down  "tails  up"  twice  for  Portland,  and 
once  ' '  heads  up ' '  for  dear  old  Boston.  And  that  is  the  way  Portland  got  its  ap- 
propriate name. 

The  town  started  slowly,  and  its  rate  of  growth  for  the  first  three  years  was 
scarcely  noticeable.  Oregon  City  was  the  head  center  of  all  the  Americans; 
the  seat  of  government,  the  saw  and  the  grist  mill;  and  Vancouver  did  not  in- 
vite and  encourage  settlers  at  that  point.  Men  came  and  looked,  and  then  passed 
on  up  the  valley,  or  out  into  Tualatin  plains,  and  took  land  for  farms.  The 
people  coming  into  the  country  were  mostly  farmers,  had  always  been  farmers, 
as  had  their  forefathers,  and  had  but  little  confidence  in  townsite  opportuni- 
ties. And  beside  all  this,  the  lots  offered  for  sale  were  so  heavily  covered  with 
timber  that  it  would  cost  more  to  clear  a  lot  than  the  o^vner  could  sell  it  for 
after  it  was  cleared ;  and  so  the  town  stood  still,  or  nearly  so.  One  of  the  first 
to  start  anything  -that  looked  like  business  at  a  cross  roads  or  a  tovmsite,  was 
James  Terwilliger,  who  erected  a  blacksmith  shop  and  rang  an  anvil  chorus 
for  customers  from  the  vast  woods  all  around.  Terwilliger  was  born  in  New 
York  in  1809;  went  west,  following  up  the  Indians,  and  came  out  to  Oregon 
with  the  immigration  of  1845.  His  shop  at  Portland  was  evidently  only  a  side 
issue  with  him,  running  it  only  five  years,  for  he  at  the  same  time  took  up  a 
land  claim  a  mile  south  of  Lovejoy  and  Pettygrove,  improved  it,  and  there 
passed  the  remainder  of  his  life,  passing  away  in  1892,  at  the  advanced  age  of 
82  years.     James  Terwilliger  was  always  an  active  man  of  affairs,  stoutly  de- 


HAM.    KELLEVS    TOWX 


<VTE.    PLATTED    IX    1836,    WHERE    UXl\'ERSirV    I'ARK    IS 
LOCATED  BELOW  PORTLAXD 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  359 

rciidiug  his  opinion  of  the  right,  and  with  true  public  spirit,  contributing  to 
I  he  iniproveineut  of  the  tovra  and  the  development  of  the  country. 

Pettygrove  erected  a  building  for  a  store  and  put  in  a  very  small  stock 
from  his  remnants  at  Oregon  City.  The  business  of  the  town  moved  impercep- 
tibly; in  fact  there  was  no  business  worth  mentioning.  When  a  ship  would 
come  in,  all  that  had  money,  furs,  or  wheat,  would  buy  of  the  ship,  and  trade 
in  their  produce,  so  that  merchandise  at  the  store  was  a  mere  pretense. 

The  first  item  of  improvement  that  so  attracted  the  attention  of  the  coun- 
try as  to  have  Portland  talked  about,  was  the  starting  of  a  tannery  by  Daniel 
H.  Lownsdale  in  1847 — the  first  in  Portland.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however, 
there  were  three  small  tanneries  at  or  near  Oregon  City,  and  many  of  the 
farmers  up  in  the  valley  had  been  tanning  deer  and  calves  skins  in  a  limited  way, 
as  nearly  all  the  pioneer  people  knew  something  of  the  art  of  tanning  skins ;  but 
the  Lownsdale  tannery  was  started  as  a  business  enterprise  to  accommodate  the 
public  and  make  profit  to  its  proprietor.  Hides  would  be  tanned  for  so  much 
cash,  or  leather  would  be  traded  for  hides;  or  leather  would  be  sold  for  cash, 
furs  or  wheat.  Here  was  a  start  in  a  productive  manufacturing  business,  and 
Lownsdale 's  tannery  was  the  talk  of  the  whole  country,  and  advertised  Port- 
land quite  as  much  as  it  did  the  tannery.  This  tannery  was  not  started  on  the 
towaisite,  but  waj'  back  in  the  forest  a  mile  from  the  river,  on.  the  spot  now 
occupied  by  the  "Multnomah  Field"  of  the  Athletic  Association.  And  with 
$5000  dollars  worth  of  leather,  not  yet  tanned,  Lownsdale  bought  out  Petty- 
grove's  interest  in  the  townsite.  After  running  the  tannery  for  two  years, 
Lownsdale  sold  it  to  two  newcomers — Ebson  and  Ballance— who  in  turn  sold 
it  to  Amos  N.  King,  who  then  took  up  the  mile  square  of  land  adjoining  Portland 
on  the  west,  kno^\^l  as  the  King  Donation  Claim,  and  which  has  made  for- 
tunes for  all  his  children  by  the  sale  of  town  lots.  Amos  N.  King  was  not  much 
of  a  town  lot  speculator.  It  was  a  long  time  before  he  could  muster  up  cour- 
age enought  to  ask  a  big  price  for  a  little  piece  of  ground.  He  stuck  to  his  tan- 
nery, and  made  honest  leather  for  more  than  twenty  years  before  he  platted  an 
addition  to  the  city. 

A  leading  citizen  of  those  earh'  days  of  Portland  wa.s  John  Waymire,  who 
built  the  first  double  log  cabin,  and  made  some  efforts  to  accommodate  strangers 
and  traders  who  dropped  oft"  the  passing  bateaux  to  look  at  the  new  city,  by 
furnishing  meals  and  giving  them  a  hospitable  place  to  spread  their  blankets 
for  the  night.  Waymire  further  enlarged  his  fortunes  by  going  into  the  trans- 
portation business  with  a  pair  of  oxen  he  had  driven  two  thousand  miles  all  the 
way  from  old  IMissouri  across  the  mountains  and  plains.  As  the  new  town 
was  the  nearest  spot  to  Oregon  City  where  the  ships  could  safely  tie  up  to  the 
shore  and  discharge  cargo,  Waymire  got  business  both  ways.  With  his  oxen  he 
could  haul  the  goods  up  to  his  big  cabin  for  safety,  and  then  vrith  his  oxen  he 
could  haul  the  stuff  back  to  the  river  to  load  into  small  boats  and  lighters  for 
transportation  to  Oregon  City.  In  addition  to  the  transfer  business,  and  the 
hotel  business,  Waymire  started  a  sauanill  on  Front  street.  The  machinery 
outfit  would  not  compare  well  with  the  big  sawanills  along  the  river  in  Portland 
at  the  present  time,  being  only  an  old  whip-saw  brought  all  the  way  from  Mis- 
souri, where  it  had  been  used  in  building  up  that  state.  The  motive  power  be- 
ing one  man  standing  on  top  of  the  log  pulling  the  saw  up  preparatoiy  for  the 


360  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

down  stroke,  and  another  man  in  the  pit  under  the  log  who  pulled  the  saw  down 
and  got  the  benefit  of  all  the  sawdust.  Waymire  was  the  only  busy  man  in  the 
new  town,  and  prospered  from  the  start.  He  knew  well  how  to  turn  an  honest 
penny  in  the  face  of  severe  financial  troubles.  With  the  money  made  in  Port- 
land, he  went  to  Dallas,  in  Polk  countj',  in  later  years  and  started  a  store, 
thinking  it  safer  to  rely  on  the  farmers  for  prosperity  than  take  chances  on  such 
a  strenuous  city  life.  There  he  sold  goods  "on  tick"  (credit)  as  was  the  cus- 
tom of  the  country,  and  not  being  a  good  bookkeeper,  he  wrote  down  on  the  in- 
side board  walls  of  his  store  with  a  piece  of  chalk  the  names  of  his  customers, 
and  under  each  name  the  goods  they  had  bought  on  credit,  with  sums  due. 
And  while  absent  on  a  brief  trip  to  Portland,  his  good  wife,  thinking  to  tidy 
up  the  store,  got  some  lime  and  whitewashed  the  inside  of  the  whole  establish- 
ment. On  his  return  and  seeing  what  had  been  done,  he  threw  up  his  hands 
in  despair  and  declared  he  was  a  ruined  man.  The  good  woman  consoled  him 
with  the  suggestion  that  he  could  remember  all  the  accounts  and  simply  write 
them  all  over  again  on  the  wall.  And  so  the  next  day  being  Sunday,  and  a  good 
day,  and  everybody  absent  at  church,  he  undertook  the  task.  His  wife  dropped 
in  after  divine  service  and  inquired  how  he  was  getting  along.  He  replied, 
"Well,  I've  got  the  accounts  all  down  on  the  wall  agin;  I  don't  know  that  I've 
got  them  agin  just  the  same  men,  but  I  believe  I've  got  them  agin  lot  of  fel- 
lows better  able  to  pay."  There  were  preachers  and  teachers  and  all  sorts  of 
men  in  Oregon  then,  as  now. 

Another  man  that  dropped  in  on  young  Portland  the  next  year  after  Way- 
mire, was  William  H.  Bennett  (Bill  Bennett)  who,  having  quit  the  mountains 
and  the  fur  trade,  started  in  to  make  his  fortune  in  making  shingles  out  of  the 
cedar  timber  on  the  townsite,  which  was  a  gift  to  him.  Bennett  got  a  start 
and  prospered  until  he  was  ruined  by  his  convivial  habits.  He  pushed  various 
small  enterprises,  finally  starting  a  livery  stable  at  the  corner  where  the  Mulkey 
block  is  now  located.  The  business  started  by  Bennett  was  owned  successively 
by  John  S.  White,  Lew  Goddard,  Elijah  Corbett,  P.  J.  Mann  (founder  of  the 
Old  Folks'  Home),  Godard  &  Frazier  and  now  by  Frazier  and  McLean,  at  the  cor- 
ner of  Fifth  and  Taylor  streets.  In  1846  came  Job  McNamee  from  Ohio,  hav- 
ing come  into  the  valley  with  the  immigration  of  1845.  McNamee  was  a  good 
citizen  and  brought  a  good  family,  wife  and  daughter,  possibly  among  the  first 
ladies  of  the  place,  and  whose  presence  smothered  down  some  of  the  rough  places 
in  the  village.  Miss  McNamee  became  the  wife  of  E.  J.  Northriip,  one  of  the  best 
citizens  Portland  ever  had,  and  the  founder  of  the  great  wholesale  and  retail 
hardware  store  now  owned  by  the  "Honeyman  Hardware  Company."'  Not 
long  after  the  advent  of  the  McNamees,  came  Dr.  Ralph  Wilcox  from  New  York, 
a  pioneer  of  1845.  Dr.  Wilcox  was  the  first  physician  and  the  first  school 
teacher  of  the  city,  and  a  most  useful  and  public-spirited  citizen,  taking  a  lead- 
ing part  in  organizing  society  and  serving  the  public  as  clerk  of  the  state  legis- 
lature and  as  clerk  of  the  United  States  district  and  circuit  courts.  His  widow, 
Mrs.  Julia  Wilcox,  now  over  ninety-two  years  of  age,  is  still  active  and  an  in- 
terested spectator  of  the  growth  of  a  city  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
people,  which  she  came  to  in  her  early  womanhood  as  a  few  log  cabins  in  an  un- 
broken  forest. 

And  about  the  same  time  as  Dr.  Wilcox  came,  also  came  the  0 'Bryant  broth- 


/,^    '^3» 


h  ''^'^M 


X"^    r 


Amos   Lawrence   Lovejoy 


Steplu'ii    Collin 


W  .    W.    Chapman 


Daniel    H.    Lownsilalr 


FOCNUERS  OF   PORTLAND 


*8Ton,  l: 
TILDEH   FOv 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  361 

ers,  Ilumphroy  and  Hugh.  I  lie  latter  of  which  became  the  first  mayor  of  the  city 
ill  1851,  a  notice  of  whom  will  appear  with  that  of  the  other  mayors;  and  about 
tlie  same  time  with  0 'Bryant,  came  in  J.  L.  Morrison,  a  Scotchman,  a  contractor 
and  builder,  who  built  the  first  frame  house  on  Morrison  street,  thus  giving  his 
name  to  the  street. 

L.  R.  Hastings  and  family  came  across  the  i)lains  in  1847,  and  stopped  a 
while  in  Portland.  He  is  remembered  as  an  active,  pushing  business  man,  and 
stayed  with  the  fortunes  of  the  town  for  four  years.  But  imagining  he  could 
see  a  larger  city  at  the  entrance  to  Puget  Sound,  joined  with  Pettygrove  in 
building  a  schooner,  and  loading  it  up  with  all  their  worldly  belongings.  Petty- 
grove  sold  out  his  interests  in  Portland,  and  the  whole  party  sailed  away  in 
1851,  for  Puget  Sound,  M'here  they  founded  the  city  of  Port  Townsend,  and 
where  they  spent  the  remainder  of  their  lives  and  strength  in  building  up  a 
city  to  eclipse  Portland.  Port  Townsend  has  about  two  thousand  population 
today,  and  Portland  has  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  times  as  many. 

And  now  Portland  got  its  first  politician  and  statesman  in  Colonel  William 
King,  landing  on  the  river  front  in  1848.  Colonel  King  was  an  unusual  man. 
He  would  have  been  a  man  of  mark  in  any  communit,y.  He  was  needed  by  the 
new  city,  and  he  made  his  presence  felt  from  his  very  first  day  in  town.  No- 
body seemed  to  know  from  what  corner  of  the  earth  King  came,  and  he 
took  no  pains  to  enlighten  them.  But  he  was  a  valuable  addition  to  the  city, 
as  he  was  familiar  with  all  sorts  of  scheming,  and  by  that  early  day  the  new 
town  had  to  look  out  for  its  interests  at  every  session  of  the  legislature;  and 
King  was  always  on  hand  to  see  that  there  was  a  square  deal  with  possibly 
something  over  for  Portland. 

If  King's  advice  had  been  followed  there  would  have  been  no  question  as  to 
the  ownership  by  the  city  of  Portland  of  its  water  front  east  of  Front  street  in 
the  original  townsite. 

King  made  enemies  as  well  as  friends.  His  positive  disposition  and  his  love 
of  fair  play  did  not  always  tally  with  predisposed  politics.  It  is  remembered 
that  at  the  time  Governor  Curry  had  selected  officials  for  the  militia  without 
respect  to  party  affiliations,  a  petition  was  gotten  up  by  some  democrats  to  have 
the  whigs  (republicans)  removed  or  their  appointments  cancelled.  When  it 
was  presented  to  King  to  sign,  he  read  it  over  carefully,  then  as  if  not  under- 
standing it,  read  it  a  second  time,  and  then  vehemently  tore  the  document 
to  pieces,  and  proceeded  to  denounce  the  authors  in  words  more  forcible  than 
polite:  "That  such  men  would  rather  see  women  and  childi-en  slaughtered  by 
the  Indians  than  to  have  a  good  mau  of  the  opposite  party  hold  an  honorable 
position  in  the  militia." 

As  gi'eat  nations  have  been  dependent  on  the  sea,  not  only  for  their  pros- 
perity, but  also  their  very  existence — England  for  example — so  it  was  with 
Portland,  in  the  years  of  1845  to  1851.  And  now  the  story  turns  from  the  land 
builders  of  the  town  to  the  hardy  sea  rovers  working  to  the  same  end.  And  in 
this  good  work  the  name  of  Captain  John  H.  Couch  stands  at  the  top  of  the  list. 

The  fii-st  appearance  of  Captain  Couch  in  Oregon  waters,  was  in  1840,  when  he 
came  out  here  from  Newburyport,  Massachusetts, — in  command  of  the  ship 
Maryland  to  establish  a  salmon  fishery  on  the  Columbia.  The  ship  belonged  to 
the  wealthy  firm  of  the  Cushings  of  Newburyport,  who  had  been  induced  to 


362  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

some  extent  by  letters  from  Jason  Lee  to  make  this  venture.  The  fishery  was 
not  successful,  for  there  were  no  fishermen  but  the  Indians,  and  they  were  not 
reliable  in  serving  the  Americans.  And  so  Couch  sold  the  vessel  at  the  Sandwich 
Islands  and  returned  to  Newburyport,  leaving  in  Oregon,  George  W.  Le  Bre- 
ton, an  active  and  pushing  j'oung  man,  who  made  his  mark  in  helping  organize 
the  Provisional  Government.  Having  learned  from  this  voyage,  the  conditions 
and  requirements  of  trade  in  Oregon,  Couch  returned  in  1842  with  a  stock  of 
goods  in  a  new  brig — The  Chenamus — named  for  the  Chinook  Indian  chief 
who  had  lived  opposite  Astoria;  and  leaving  this  stock  at  Oregon  City  with  one 
Albert  E.  "Wilson,  and  who  also  came  out  in  the  Chenamus,  and  Le  Breton, 
Couch  engaged  his  vessel  in  the  trade  to  the  Sandwich  Islands,  the  whole  busi- 
ness being  under  the  name  and  auspices  of  Cushing  &  Company,  of  Newbury- 
port. Couch  continued  to  manage  this  business  until  1847,  when  he  returned 
home  to  Newburyport  by  the  way  of  China.  In  the  following  year  he  engaged 
with  a  company  of  New  York  merchants  to  bring  a  cargo  of  goods  to  Oregon 
on  the  bark  Madonna,  Captain  George  H.  Flanders  coming  out  with  the  Ma- 
donna as  first  officer,  and  took  command  of  the  Madonna  on  reaching  Oregon, 
while  Couch  took  charge  of  the  cargo,  which  was  stored  and  sold  at  the  new  town 
of  Portland  on  the  Willamette.  The  two  captains  went  into  business  together, 
and  remained  in  Portland  for  the  rest  of  their  lives.  And  thus  were  two  of 
the  best  men  located  in  Portland  that  ever  lived  in  the  state. 

Portland  got  the  benefit  of  all  this  shipping  by  Captain  Couch.  He  early 
saw  and  fully  appreciated  the  advantages  of  the  location  for  the  foundation 
of  a  seaport  and  commercial  city,  and  took  advantage  of  his  opportunities  to 
locate  a  land  claim  at  what  has  long  been  the  north  end  of  the  city.  And  con- 
sidering what  Captain  Couch  did  directly  for  the  town,  by  making  it  the  home 
port  of  his  ships  for  several  years,  and  also  what  he  did  indirectly  by  influenc- 
ing other  vessels  to  tie  up  at  Portland,  he  probably  exerted  more  influence  to 
give  Portland  a  start  than  all  other  persons  combined. 

Next  after  Couch,  in  giving  Portland  a  start,  came  Captain  Nathaniel  Crosby, 
who  founded  the  towTi  of  Milton,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Willamette  slough. 
Crosby  brought  the  bark  Toulon  into  the  river  in  1845,  and  unloaded  his  vessel 
on  the  river  bank  at  the  foot  of  Washington  street,  and  from  there  transported 
his  goods  up  to  Oregon  City  by  smaller  craft.  Captain  Crosby  made  numerous 
trips,  and  finally  anchored  in  Portland  and  in  1847  erected  the  first  palatial  resi- 
dence in  the  new  city — the  old  story  and  a  half  house  with  the  dormer  windows 
which  stood  for  so  many  years  on  the  east  side  of  Fourth  street,  between  Yam- 
hill and  Taylor,  having  been  removed  to  that  site  from  its  original  location 
at  the  southwest  corner  of  First  and  Washington  streets.  To  accommodate  the 
increasing  traffic  of  his  shipping,  Crosby  erected  a  small  storehouse  on  the  city 
front,  probably  on  the  open  strip  east  of  Front  street,  but  most  of  his  merchandise 
was  sent  up  to  Oregon  City,  which  continued  to  be  the  commercial  center  of  the 
"i^'hole  country. 

Besides  Couch  and  Crosby,  there  were  other  traders  with  ships  entering  the 
river.  In  1847  Captain  Roland  Gelston,  of  New  York,  brought  in  the  bark 
Whiton  loaded  with  merchandise,  and  Captain  Kilbourn  came  in  with  the  brig 
Henry  also  loaded  with  merchandise,  and  tied  up  at  the  east  side  opposite  Port- 
land, and  seriously  threatened  to  start  a  rival  city  over  there.    There  was  plenty 


THE  COIN   THAT   WAS   TOSSED   TO   DECTOE   THE   NAME  OF  THE   TOWN 


CAPT.  JOHN   H.   COUCH 
Who    located    the    town 


M 


i  ^SS.°""j:°2!2i- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  363 

of  free  land  to  be  had  for  the  taking,  and  a  town  site  or  two  more  or  less  eould 
not  make  mueli  diifereiiee  to  Porlhuid,  and  the  doughty  eaptaiu  was  told  to  go 
ahead  with  his  town,  for  it  would  all  be  Portland  after  awhile,  and  so  now,  sixty- 
live  years  afterward,  it  is  all  Portland,  with  five  bridges  to  connect  the  two  sides 
and  another  bridge  coming. 

(^aptain  Gelston,  mentioned  above,  made  a  second  voyage  to  the  Pacific 
coast,  arriving  in  San  Francisco  baj',  just  after  the  great  gold  fever  excitement 
got  well  started,  and  taking  advantage  of  the  gold  panic  news  sent  to  the  states, 
Gelston  had  laid  in  a  heavy  stock  of  picks,  gold  pans  and  shovels,  and  when  he 
got  safe  within  the  "Golden  Gate"  his  fortune  was  made,  from  the  sales  of  his 
hardware  at  prices  twenty-fold  of  what  it  had  cost  him. 

With  these  ships  came  in  some  good  men  who  located,  drove  down  their 
stakes,  and  staid  with  the  town  until  all  got  rich  and  repaid  the  town  by  great 
service  as  good  and  useful  citizens.  Of  these  may  be  mentioned  Richard  Hoyt, 
who  canie  as  first  officer  on  the  Whiton ;  and  Daniel  Lunt,  one  of  the  mates  of 
the  Chenamus.  Lunt  took  up  a  land  claim  south  of  Terwilliger's,  and  subse- 
quently sold  it  to  Thomas  Stevens.  The  suburb  of  Fulton  is  now-  built  on  the 
Lunt  claim. 

But  according  to  the  recollection  of  Colonel  Nesmith,  the  first  land  claim 
within  the  present  limits  of  the  city  was  the  claim  just  south  of  Lovejoy  and 
Pettygrove.  This  was  taken  up  in  1842  by  William  Johnson,  an  English  sailor, 
who  was  living  on  his  claim  before  Overton  was  claiming  the  land  he  sold  to 
Lovejoy  and  Pettygrove.  Johnson's  name  figured  considerably  in  the  history 
of  the  celebrated  or  notorious  "Wrestling  Joe"  Thomas'  lawsuit  about  the  Ca- 
ruthers  estate,  that  estate  being  almost  wholly  the  land  originally  claimed  by 
Johnson  and  abandoned  or  sold  by  him  to  Finiee  Caruthers.  Mrs.  Charlotte 
Moffett  Cartwright  remembers  well  the  cabin  of  Johnson  and  his  half-blood  In- 
dian wife,  which  was  located  near  the  ti-ail  which  led  from  the  Terwilliger  home 
to  the  "town."  Johnson  removed  from  the  site  of  Portland  to  the  vicinity  of 
Champoeg. 

Johnson  had  an  interesting  history,  showing  what  a  lot  of  odd  and  celebrated 
characters  drifted  into  this  then  out-of-the-way  corner  of  the  world.  He  was 
originally  an  English  sailor,  subject  of  Great  Britain,  but  foreswore  his  alle- 
giance to  the  British  king,  and  took  service  with  the  United  States  on  the  old 
frigate  Constitution,  and  was  in  the  celebrated  naval  battle  between  that  ship 
and  the  British  "man-of-war"  Guerriere,  in  which  bloody  battle  he  made  one 
of  boarding  party  charging  the  bulwarks  of  the  Guerriere  and  received  an  ugly 
scalp  wound  from  a  British  cutlass.  He  delighted  to  tell  of  this  terrible  sea 
.fight,  speaking  of  the  "Old  Ironsides"  as  one  might  speak  of  their  dearest  friend. 
And  being  the  only  Oregoniau  known  to  have  taken  part  in  a  naval  battle  in 
defense  of  the  American  flag,  he  is  entitled  to  have  his  name  reverently  pre- 
served in  this  history.  When  the  war  of  1812  broke  out  between  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain,  it  was  supposed  that  as  this  country  had  no  navy,  the 
English  would  sweep  the  American  merchantmen  from  the  seas.  This  they 
tried  to  do ;  and  the  few  small  frigates  of  the  Americans  could  offer  but  little 
opposition.  The  American  ship  made  famous  by  the  battle  here  commemorated, 
had  but  then  recently  returned  from  European  waters,  where  she  barely  escaped 
capture  by  the  speed  of  her  sailing.     And  when  she  fell  in  with   the  British 


364  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

cruiser  Guerriere,  off  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence,  on  the  19th  day  of  August,  1812, 
a  trial  of  mettle  and  nerve  was  the  result.  The  British  captain  had  been  anxious 
to  encounter  a  "Yankee  man-of-war,"  having  no  doubt  of  an  easy  victory,  and 
the  "Yankee"  Captain  Hull  of  the  Constitution  was  ready  to  accommodate  him. 
It  was  none  of  the  modern  steel-clad  battle  ships  firing  at  each  other  from  a  range 
of  eight  or  ten  miles,  but  they  were  wooden  ships  and  they  sailed  right  into  each 
other,  firing  their  little  cannon  as  rapidly  as  they  could  be  loaded,  until  with 
grappling  irons  one  ship  laid  hold  of  the  other  and  her  brave  men  leaped  over 
all  obstructions  to  end  the  fight  at  arm's  length  in  a  life  and  death  struggle  on  the 
decks  of  the  boarded  ship.  This  was  the  real  battle  in  which  "William  Johnson, 
who  had  his  little  log  cabin  on  the  present  site  of  Portland  seventy  years  ago, 
immortalized  himself  in.  He  was  defending  his  adopted  country  against  the  in- 
justice of  the  land  that  gave  him  birth,  and  he  shed  his  blood  that  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  should  not  be  hauled  doAvn  in  defeat.  He  was  the  first  settler  on  the  site 
of  Portland,  Oregon.  He  was  a  member  of  the  first  committee  appointed  to  or- 
ganize the  provisional  government,  and  he  was  one  of  the  fifty -two  who  stood  up 
at  Champoeg  sixty-nine  years  ago  to  be  counted  from  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  And 
it  is  .justly  due  to  his  memory  that  his  name  and  his  great  services  be  here  duly 
recorded,  that  they  may  be  honored  for  all  time. 

The  original  proprietors  and  their  land  claims  will  be  better  under- 
stood by  reference  to  the  drawing  here  given.  William  Johnson,  the  first  set- 
tler within  the  present  limits  of  old  Portland,  had  taken  the  land  south  of  the 
Overton  tract,  claimed  by  Lovejoy  and  Pettygrove,  for  the  reason  that  the  river 
valley  south  of  the  line  of  Caruthers  street  was  open  grass  land,  and  furnished 
pasturage  for  cattle  and  horses.  Etienne  Lucier,  one  of  the  two  Canadian 
French  Catholics  that  stood  up  to  be  counted  for  American  institutions  at  Cham- 
poeg, was  the  first  settler  within  the  boundaries  of  East  Portland,  and  the  first 
man  to  open  a  farm  in  Oregon,  which  he  did  on  East  Portland  townsite  in  that 
year,  1829 ;  but  he  made  no  claim  on  the  land,  and  before  Portland  was  claimed 
for  a  townsite,  he  removed  to  the  open  prairie  lands  called  "French  Prairie" 
(because  so  many  Frenchmen  settled  there)  in  Marion  county,  and  made  his 
home  there  as  a  result  of  the  offer  of  seed  wheat  to  them  by  Dr.  John  McLoughlin, 
the  head  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  at  Fort  Vancouver.  The  wheat  thus 
raised  was  sold  to  Dr.  McLoughlin  at  Champoeg,  and  he,  in  turn,  sold  it  to  the 
Russian  authorities  at  Sitka,  and  thus  paid  for  trapping  privileges  in  Alaska. 

Lovejoy  and  Pettygrove  were  the  next  settlers  filing  claims  on  the  Overton 
tract.  And  before  any  others  came  in  they  laid  out  sixteen  blocks  into  lots, 
blocks  and  streets,  making  the  block  at  the  southwest  corner  of  Front  and  Wash- 
ington streets  "block  No.  1."  James  Terwilliger  claimed  the  land  south  of  the. 
Johnson  tract.  Daniel  Lunt  claimed  the  land  south  of  the  Terwilliger  tract. 
Daniel  H.  Lownsdale  claimed  the  land  west  of  Lovejoy  and  Pettygrove,  and 
Captain  Couch  claimed  the  land  north  of  Lovejoy  and  Pettygrove.  Then  John- 
son sold  out  to  Finice  Caruthers ;  Lunt  sold  to  Thomas  Stephens ;  Lownsdale  sold 
to  Amos  N.  King ;  Lovejoy  sold  out  his  interests  to  Benjamin  Stark,  and  Petty- 
grove sold  out  to  Lownsdale  in  1848  for  $5,000  worth  of  leather,  and  Lownsdale 
agreed  to  a  segregation  of  the  lands  so  that  Stark  got  the  sole  title  to  the  triangu- 
lar tract  bounded  by  the  river  on  the  east.  Stark  street  on  the  south  and  the 
Couch  claim  (line  of  Ankeng  street)  on  the  north. 

Daniel  H.  Lownsdale  was  the  first  man  to  get  into  the  townsite  who  fully 


FIRST  PHOTO  TA1s:EN  OF  FRONT  STREET.   I'l.ilJTLAM).  IX    \s:,:: 

The  citizens  proudly  showing  the  first  dray. — Reading  from  right  to  left,  tlie  fiist  tall 
hat  man,  is  W.  S.  Ogden,  merchant;  the  next  man  Ogden's  partner,  John  M.  Breok; 
next,  tall  hat  man,  Henry  W.  Corbett;  next,  tall  hat  man,  is  Thomas  J.  Dr.ver  (founder 
of  "The  Oregonian");  the  man  in  the  door,  behind  Dryer,  is  W.  H.  Barnhart,  first  agent 
for  Wells  Fargo  in  Oregon;  the  sliort  man.  beyond  Dryer,  is  Adolph  Miller,  the  drayman; 
and  the  man  on  the  extreme  left   is  Charles  P.  Bacon. 


aSTOR,  l.EMOX  AND  J 

TILDEH   FOUNDATIONS,       ! 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  365 

comprehended  the  great  future  of  the  phice.  He  had  considerable  experience 
as  a  nierehaut  and  business  man,  and  had  traveled  much,  not  only  in  the  United 
States,  but  also  in  Europe;  and  not  only  appreciated  the  advantages  of  the  po- 
sition, but  possessed  the  confidence  and  enthusiasm  so  necessary  to  succeed  with 
a  new  enterprise.  Born  in  Kentucky,  moved  to  Indiana,  from  Indiana  to  Geor- 
gia, traveled  in  Europe,  then  to  Oregon,  he  gave  all  his  thoughts,  time  and  en- 
ergy to  every  possible  plan  to  build  up  the  new  town.  He  sold  lots  at  nominal 
prices,  or  gave  them  away  to  secure  improvements.  He  did  not  get  very  far 
along  until  he  felt  the  need  of  assistance,  and  soon  found  the  right  man  in  the 
person  of  Stephen  Coffin,  then  living  at  Oregon  City,  to  whom  he  sold  a  half 
interest  in  the  townsite.  Coffin  was  a  man  of  great  push  and  energy,  and  quite 
as  much  of  an  optimist  as  Lownsdale.  The  two  men  made  a  team  that  settled  the 
future  of  Portland.  But  they  did  not  get  very  far  into  the  depths  of  the  spec- 
ulation until  they  ran  up  against  so  many  legal  snags  and  obstructions  that  they 
felt  the  need  of  a  legal  adviser.  And'  for  that  man,  the  man  who  fully  believed 
in  Portland,  and  most  heartily  and  harmoniously  worked  with  and  approved 
the  efforts  of  Lownsdale  and  Coffin,  was  William  W.  Chapman ;  and  to  Chap- 
man, Lownsdale  and  Coffin  united  in  selling  and  conveying  an  undivided  one- 
third  interest.  So  far  as  the  town  on  the  east  side  of  the  river  is  concerned, 
the  water  front  and  lands  back  of  it  for  a  mile  were  covered  by  the  claims  of 
James  B.  Stephens  and  Jacob  Wheeler.  But  neither  of  these  men  ever  con- 
tributed anything  whatever  to  the  success  of  locating  or  building  a  city  at  this 
point.  Lownsdale,  Coffin  and  Chapman  soon  put  their  affairs  in  shape  for  ag- 
gressive and  continuous  work  for  the  town  by  organizing  a  townsite  company, 
of  which  Coffin  was  president  and  Chapman  was  secretary,  and  thus  making 
Portland  the  strongest  and  most  active  townsite  interest  on  the  Pacific  coast 
north,  of  San  Francisco.  Lot  Whitcomb,  as  the  representative  and  principal 
owner  of  the  Milwaukie  townsite,  had  been  giving  the  Portlanders  a  hot  fight  for 
supremacy.  In  this  he  was  ably  supported  by  Captain  Joseph  Kellogg,  the 
father  of  all  the  Kelloggs  and  the  man  who  brought  across  the  plains  in  1848 
the  charter  of  the  first  Masonic  Lodge  on  the  Pacific  coast — orginally  Multnomah 
Lodge  No.  84,  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Grand  Lodge  of  Missouri,  now 
Multnomah  Lodge  No.  1,  Oregon  City.  With  their  saw  mill  and  little  schooner, 
they  were  earning  money  in  making  and  carrying  lumber  down  to  San  Francisco. 
And  just  when  the  race  appeared  to  be  about  even  between  the  two  rival  cities, 
Whitcomb  got  hold  of  a  steam  engine  at  San  Francisco,  brought  it  up  here,  and 
with  the  aid  of  Jacob  Kamm,  built  and  equipped  a  steamboat,  launching  her 
on  Christmas  day,  1850.  Whitcomb  soon  had  her  going,  a  first-class,  com- 
modious boat  for  those  days,  and  put  her  on  the  route  between  Milkaukie  and 
Astoria,  twenty  dollars  for  the  down  trip  and  twenty-two  dollars  for  the  return 
trip,  with  meals  additional,  steaming  past  Portland  without  stopping  or  either 
saluting  with  a  blast  from  the  steam  whistle. 

At  the  same  time  that  Whitcomb  and  Kellogg  were  waging  their  active  op- 
position to  Portland,  the  Pacific  Mail  Steamship  Company,  which  had  at  first 
made  Astoria  the  end  of  their  trip,  suddenly  abandoned  Astoria,  and  came  up 
and  purchased  a  large  interest  at  St.  Helens,  and  erected  a  wharf  and  ware- 
house there,  and  made  St.  Helens  the  Oregon  terminus  of  their  San  Francisco 
steamship  voyage.  Whitcomb  and  Kellogg  at  once  united  in  this  arrangement, 
and  as  it  was  a  shorter  run  for  their  steamboat,  it  could  be  and  was  used  effect- 


366  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

ively  to  cut  off  trade  from  Portland  by  running  the  boat  to  Vancouver  and  Ore- 
gon City,  as  well  as  to  all  points  on  the  Columbia  river. 

Up  to  this  period,  Captain  John  H.  Couch  had  been  the  most  efficient  sup- 
port that  Portland  had  received  in  concentrating  trade,  especially  the  ocean- 
going sailing  vessels.  Couch's  influence  was  never  fully  comprehended  in  this 
contest.  He  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  hundreds  of  sea  captains  and  was 
favorably  known  wherever  these  captains  sailed  their  ships;  and  the  fact  that 
he  had  always  discharged  his  own  ship  here  influenced  all  his  acquaintances  on 
the  seas  to  also  "sail  for  Portland,  Oregon." 

But  now  the  townsite  proprietors — Coffin,  Chapman  and  Lowusdale — must 
bestir  themselves.  They  were  compelled  to  meet  the  opposition  of  the  Pacific  Mail 
Steamship  Company  and  destroy  it  one  way  or  another,  or  be  ruined.  And  by  this 
time  (1850)  although  growing  slowly,  Portland  had  gathered  in  quite  a  village 
population  of  active,  earnest  men,  who  not  only  had  their  own  property  inter- 
ests at  stake,  but  had  a  genuine  friendship  for  the  townsite  proprietors.  And 
it  was  decided  that  a  long  pull,  and  a  strong  pull,  and  a  pull  all  together, 
was  the  thing  to  do  and  get  in  a  steamship  in  the  interest  of  Portland.  This 
sentiment  being  conveyed  down  to  San  Francisco,  the  side-wheel  steamer 
Gold  Hunter  took  in  a  cargo  for  Portland,  Oregon,  and  came  up  to  see  how  the 
town  looked.  This  was  the  first  ocean-going  steamship  that  ever  tied  up  at 
Portland.  It  was  in  fact  a  gold  hunter,  and  was  for  sale.  Immediately  every 
friend  of  Portland  got  busy.  Hope  and  enthusiasm  took  the  place  of  anxiety 
and  fear  in  the  face  of  the  towns-people,  and  courage  once  more  filled  up  the 
shrinking  purse.  The  price  and  terms  for  the  ship  were  ascertained.  Sixty 
thousand  dollars  would  purchase  a  controlling  interest  in  the  ship,  and  run  her 
between  Portland,  Oregon,  and  San  Francisco.  Twenty-one  thousand  dollars 
of  this  was  raised  and  paid  in  an  hour,  of  which  sum  Coffin,  Chapman  and 
Lownsdale  put  up  eighteen  thousand  six  hundred  dollars. 

And  while  this  transaction  revived  the  hopes  and  confidence  of  many,  and 
strengthened  the  courage  of  all,  it  did  not  end  the  contest.  The  Pacific  Mail 
Steamship  Company,  with  ample  capital,  set  to  work  to  undermine  the  bulwarks 
put  up  by  the  Portlanders,  and  bought  out  some  of  the  interests  of  Portland  stock- 
holders in  the  Gold  Hunter,  again  giving  San  Francisco  the  whip-hand.  And 
after  a  few  trips  to  Portland  the  Gold  Hunter  was  treacherously  sent  down  to 
South  America,  mortgaged  and  sold  for  a  trifle  of  her  value  to  get  rid  of  all  the 
Portland  stockholders.  It  was  a  bitter  lesson  to  Portland,  and  withal  most  dis- 
honorable on  the  part  of  pretended  friends  and  open  enemies.  But  it  had  proved 
one  thing,  and  that  was  that  Portland  would  fight  for  the  rights  of  the  town, 
and  that  the  town  was  a  force  that  was  not  to  be  despised  for  weakness  or  want 
of  courage.  In  the  meantime,  Portland  had  been  making  allies  on  the  land  side. 
A  fairly  passable  wagon  road  had  been  opened  out  to  Tualatin  Plains  and  on  up 
the  valley  to  Yamhill  and  Polk  counties,  by  which  the  farmers  of  all  that  region 
could  haul  their  product  to  Portland. 

Although  the  money  was  gone,  the  investment  in  the  steamship  had  not  been 
wholly  lost.  It  had  been  proved  that  an  ocean-going  steamship  could  safely  and 
successfully  come  to  Portland  with  full  cargoes  and  could  get  full  cargoes  of 
produce  and  safely  go  out  to  sea  again.  The  steamships  were  not  getting  cargoes 
at  St.  Helens,  as  Whitcomb's  steamboat  carried  the  produce  to  them,  and  it  did 
not  get  enough  to  load  them.     Whitcomb  could  get  nothing  at  Milwaukie  but 


n~ 


r^ ,  h 


11  f^ 


::,3T0i;,   Lf.'NOX    \!iU 
TILDEM   FOUNDATION*, 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  367 

lumber,  and  that  could  uot  be  shipped  on  tlie  steamer.  The  farmers  could  not, 
and  would  not,  haul  tlieir  produce  to  St.  Helens,  and  the  Whiteomb  would  not 
stop  at  Portland  to  get  it,  and  so  the  St.  Helens  ships  were  sailing  away  with 
little  or  nothing  of  freight.  And  thus  it  was  made  plain  to  tlie  steamship  own- 
ers that  tliey  were  gnawing  a  file ;  and  that  sooner  or  later  some  other  steamship 
would  sail  into  Portland  harbor  and  appropriate  a  profitable  trade  that  they 
never  could  get  by  staying  at  St.  Helens.  And  tlius  forced,  in  March,  1851,  the 
Pacific  Mail  Steamsliip  Company  abandoned  its  opposition,  ran  up  the  Portland 
flag  and  sent  all  its  ships  to  tlie  wharves  of  Portland.  And  from  that  day  on 
tlie  supremacy  of  Portland,  as  against  all  other  points  on  the  Columbia  and 
Willamette  rivers,  was  acknowledged  everywhere. 

Of  the  three  men  who  made  good  the  project  of  Amos  Lawrence 'Love joy  in 
the  establishment  of  a  city  at  this  location,  Daniel  H.  Lownsdale  comes  first  in 
order  for  notice.  Mr.  Lownsdale  was  born  in  Mason  county,  Kentucky,  in  1803. 
At  the  age  of  twenty-three  he  married  Ruth,  youngest  daughter  of  Paul  Over- 
field,  Esq.,  and  moved  to  Gibson  county,  Indiana.  In  1830  his  wife  died  leaving 
three  children,  two  daughters  and  a  son.  That  son  was  J.  P.  0.  Lownsdale,  who 
for  many  years  was  an  active  and  influential  citizen  of  Portland,  passing  away 
in  July,  1910,  at  the  age  of  eighty  years.  After  losing  his  wife,  Mr.  Lownsdale 
moved  to  the  state  of  Georgia  and  engaged  in  mercantile  pursuits.  And  there, 
losing  his  health,  he  took  a  trip  to  Europe  and  traveled  through  many  countries. 
Returning  to  the  United  States  in  1844,  he  found  the  southwest  agitated  over 
the  "Oregon  Question,"  and  immediately  made  up  his  mind  to  come  out  to  this 
unsettled  region  and  grow  up  with  the  country.  Joining  an  emigrant  train  in 
the  spring  of  1845,  he  crossed  the  plains  with  the  usual  luck  and  labor  of  other 
emigrants,  and  reached  the  Portland  townsite  late  in  1845 ;  and  soon  after,  as 
has  been  stated,  claimed  the  King  donation  claim,  west  of  the  city,  and  started 
the  first  commercial  tannery  north  of  California  and  w^est  of  the  Rocky  moun- 
tains. He  died  in  IMay,  1862,  and  is  buried  in  Lone  Fir  cemetery  on  the  east  side 
of  the  river. 

Of  General  Stephen  Coffin  much  can  be  said  in  his  praise  as  a  public-spirited 
man,  and  a  most  energetic  and  successful  builder  of  the  city  of  Portland.  Gen- 
eral Coffin  was  born  at  Bangor,  Maine,  in  1807,  moved  west  to  the  state  of  Ohio 
early  in  life,  and  crossed  the  plains  and  reached  Oregon  City  in  October,  1847. 
Here  he  went  to  work  with  the  industry  and  energy  that  characterized  his  whole 
life,  and  at  the  end  of  two  years  he  had  accumulated  enough  to  enable  him  to 
purchase  a  half  interest  in  the  Portland  townsite  claim,  as  has  already  been 
stated.  When  the  tug  of  war  came  up  with  the  Pacific  Mail  Steamship  Company, 
Coffin  was  in  the  forefront  of  the  battle.  His  wliole  being  rebelled  at  anything 
like  injustice.  It  was  said  of  him  that  when  the  immigrants  reached  Oregon, 
of  which  party  he  was  a  member,  some  of  those  already  here  attempted  to  extort 
unreasonable  prices  for  food  and  accommodations,  and  Coffin  rebelled.  To  as- 
suage his  wrath,  he  was  told  that  his  treatment  was  the  usual  custom,  and  when 
he  got  settled  in  the  country  he  could  recoup  his  losses  by'  fleecing  other  immi- 
grants in  like  manner.  This  only  made  matters  worse,  and  the  newcomer  so  bit- 
terly denounced  such  conduct  as  to  make  enemies  that  never  forgave  him.  But 
he  was  not  the  man  to  shape  his  conduct  to  placate  enemies  or  please  w-rong- 
doers.  Fearless  and  courageous,  he  pushed  his  way  over  all  opposition,  serving 
the  public  faithfully  in  every  act  of  liis  life,  and  often  at  the  sacrifice  of  per- 


368  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

sonal  interest.  He  was  liberal  to  the  public  and  his  friends  to  a  fault.  He  is 
the  only  man  that  ever  gave  grounds  for  the  public  schools  of  the  city ;  he  gave 
the  first  bell  to  a  church  in  the  city,  which  still  sends  out  its  call  from  the  old 
Taylor-street  church  every  Sunday  morning,  inviting  in  the  faithful.  He  or- 
ganized the  company  to  build  the  wagon  road  to  Washington  county ;  he  organ- 
ized the  People's  Transportation  Company  to  reduce  freight  charges  on  the  Wil- 
lamette and  Columbia  rivers ;  he  helped  start  the  Oregon  Central  Railroad,  and 
man}'  other  enterprises.     (For  further  notice  see  biographical  sketches.) 

The  third  man  to  join  the  Portland  Townsite  Company  was  William  W.  Chap- 
man. Esq.,  who  for  distinguished  services  in  the  Oregon  Indian  wars  was  com- 
missioned a  colonel  of  the  volunteers  and  ever  afterwards  retained  that  title. 
Colonel  Chapman  was  born  in  old  Virginia,  early  in  1800.  His  father  was  a 
brick  mason  and  contractor,  and  built  the  first  brick  building  in  Washington 
City.  By  dint  of  great  personal  efforts  and  private  study,  he  picked  up  an 
education,  studied  law  and  attained  a  good  position  in  the  practice  of  the  law  in 
Virginia.  But  thinking  the  new  western  states  offered  the  best  opportunities 
for  advancement,  removed  to  Iowa  while  that  region  was  yet  a  part  of  Michigan. 
There  he  was  appointed  United  States  district  attorney,  and  when  Iowa  was  set 
off  as  a  separate  territory.  Chapman  was  elected  the  first  delegate  to  Congress 
from  Iowa,  in  1836.  He  made  a  fine  impression  in  Congress  in  his  efforts  to  re- 
claim to  Iowa  a  strip  of  territory,  in  dispute  with  Missouri,  and  in  which  he  was 
entirely  successful,  giving  him  great  credit  in  the  new  state.  He  was  a  member  of 
the  convention  to  form  a  constitution  for  Iowa,  and  was  the  father  of  the  measure 
to  transfer  the  gifts  of  public  lands  to  the  states  for  internal  improvements  from 
such  purpose  to  the  endowment  of  public  schools,  and  which  after  that  became 
the  settled  policy  of  the  United  States.  And  while  in  congress  he  was  to  a  great 
extent  the  author  of  the  legislation  to  provide  the  right  to  preempt  public  lands, 
which  then  led  to  the  Homestead  Act,  which  has  made  millions  of  people  happy 
and  independent.  Colonel  Chapman  came  to  Oregon  in  1847,  settling  first  at  Cor- 
vallis  and  later  at  Salem.  He  was  often  at  Oregon  City  on  legal  business,  and 
there  made  the  acciuaintance  of  Coffin  and  'Lownsdale,  and  got  into  the  Portland 
Townsite  Company.  He  held  many  positions  of  honor  and  trust,  discharging 
every  duty  with  scrupulous  integrity,  an  honor  to  the  city  and  the  state,  and 
passed  away  with  the  universal  respect  of  all  citizens. 

The  battle  to  make  Portland  the  land  terminus  of  all  ocean  commerce  was  the 
first  and  greatest  question  to  be  settled.  That  settled  in  favor  of  Portland,  the 
people  would  come  fast  enough.  But  before  it  was  settled  the  settlers  and  little 
businesses  were  slowly  coming  in. 

The  ferry  across  the  river  was  started  as  early  as  1845,  consistnig  of  one 
canoe. 

The  first  blacksmith  shop  was  opened  by  Terwilliger  at  the  corner  of  First 
and  Morrison  streets  in  1846. 

Henderson  Luelling  brought  in  the  first  grafted  fruit  trees  in  1847.  In  this 
same  year  Captain  Crosby  built  the  first  frame  house  in  the  town,  bringing  the 
materials  for  it  from  the  eastern  states  in  his  ship  around  Cape  Horn.  Talk 
about  carrying  "coals  to  Newcastle,"  but  don't  forget  Crosby's  house,  carried 
twenty  thousand  miles  in  a  ship  to  build  alongside  the  finest  timber  in  the  world. 

In  1848  the  first  Methodist  church  was  organized  in  Portland,  and  the  erec- 
tion of  the  church  building  commenced  by  Rev.  J.  H.  Wilbur. 


Ithe  b 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  ^RD 

111  1851  the  first  Congregational  church  was  erected  at  the  corner  oi'  Second 
and  Jeft'erson  streets,  the  Rev.  Horace  Lyman,  first  pastor,  clearing  the  ground 
lit  trees  himseli". 

In  1849  Colonel  Win.  King  built  a  sawmill  to  run  by  water  jxiwer-,  but  it 
burned  down  before  it  could  be  made  to  do  anything. 

In  1850,  W.  P.  Abrams  and  Cyrus  A.  Reed  erected  a  steam  saw  mill  near  tiie 
loot  of  Jeft'erson  street.  The  main  building  was  forty  feet  wide  and  eighty  feet 
long;  the  timbers  being  hewed  out  of  the  giant  firs  growing  alongside  the  mill 
site,  and  being  sixteen  inches  square  were  so  heavy  that  all  the  men  in  town  were 
unable  to  put  the  timbers  in  place  or  "raise"  the  building,  and  General  Coffin 
had  to  go  up  to  Oregon  City  to  get  men  to  help.  But  even  with  this  assistance, 
they  could  not  handle  the  timbers,  and  Reed  was  forced  to  rig  a  derrick,  and 
with  block  and  tackle,  and  all  the  men  to  pull  on  the  ropes,  they  hoisted  the  tim- 
bers to  place  and  erected  the  first  saw'  mill  at  Portland,  Oregon,  a  mill  that  would 
cut  about  ten  thousand  feet  a  day.  Quite  a  change  since  1850  to  the  town  of 
sixty  years  later,  that  cuts  and  ships  more  lumber  than  any  other  city  in  the 
world. 

In  those  days  everybody  worked  and  labored  hard  in  building  houses.  In 
describing  the  work  of  J.  H.  Wilbur  (Father  W^ilbur),  of  the  first  Methodist 
church,  a  contemporary  said  of  him :  ' '  Stalwart  and  strong,  the  great  forest  that 
stood  where  Taylor  street  church  now  stands  (southeast  corner  Third  and  Taylor 
streets),  fell  before  his  axe.  The  walls  of  the  old  church  rose  by  his  saw  and 
hammer,  and  grew  white  and  beautiful  under  his  paint  brush ;  tired  bodies  rested 
and  listened  to  his  powerful  preaching  on  Sunday,  poverty  was  fed  at  his  table, 
and  sickness  cured  by  his  medicines." 

And  now  we  reach  the  first  business  excitement  at  the  new  town.  On  the 
first  of  August,  1848,  a  little  schooner  from  San  Francisco  pulled  into  the  wharf 
at  the  little  town  of  Portland,  Oregon,  and  after  unloading  a  lot  of  Mexican  pro- 
duce and  goods,  began  to  load  up  not  only  with  Oregon  produce  but  with  all  the 
shovels,  picks  and  pans  that  could  be  secured  at  the  two  stores  in  town.  And 
after  making  a  clean-up  of  all  these  necessary  tools  to  mine  placer  gold,  the  cap- 
tain made  known  the  discovery  of  gold  in  California  by  J.  W.  Marshall.  Mar- 
shall had  come  to  Oregon  as  an  immigrant,  across  the  plains  in  1844.  And  not 
getting  anything  to  do  here  at  Portland,  went  down  to  California  in  1846  and 
was  employed  by  General  Sutter  at  his  mill  near  where  the  city  of  Sacramento 
now  stands.  Marshall  was  followed  in  1847  by  Charles  Bennett  and  Stephen 
Staats,  and  they  were  there  at  the  mill  when  Marshall  found  the  first  gold.  And 
thus,  we  see,  that  it  was  an  Oregonian  going  from  Portland  and  Oregon  City  to 
California  that  made  the  discovery  that  gave  to  the  world  four  hundred  million 
dollars  in  gold,  and  which  revolutionized  the  currents  and  conditions  of  trade, 
commerce  and  living  expense  in  every  civilized  land. 

The  rush  to  the  gold  discoveries  nearly  depopulated  the  town.  And  while  it 
carried  ofif  many  good  workers,  there  were  compensations  for  their  absence. 
Lumber,  wheat,  potatoes  and  everything  fit  to  eat,  ran  up  to  enormous  prices  and 
the  Oregon  farmers  were  soon  digging  as  much  gold  out  of  their  land  as  the 
miners  were  getting  in  California.  The  gold  discoveries  helped  in  another  way. 
Very  soon  gold  dust  and  states  mone.y  was  rolling  back  into  Oregon  for  the  pro- 
duce sent  down  and  surplus  dust  sent  back  to  families  and  friends;  so  that  wheat 
was  no  longer  the  cinnilating  legal  tender  medium,  'but    gold    dust,  and   finally 


370  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

' '  Beaver  Money ' '  made  from  dust  at  the  Oregon  City  mint,  became  the  circulat- 
ing medium  and  greatly  stimulated  trade  in  all  its  branches. 

Thomas  Carter  and  wife  came  in  from  Georgia  and  located  the  land  claim 
south  of  the  King  claim,  and  which  covered  what  is  now  known  as  Portland 
Heights.  Carter  built  the  first  old-style  southern  states'  mansion  house  out  in 
the  region  for  a  long  time  demeaned  by  the  name  of  "Goose  Hollow,"  but  sub- 
sequently changed  into  "Paradise  Valley" — the  region  bounded  by  Jefferson 
street  on  the  north.  Chapman  street  on  the  west,  Lownsdale  street  on  the  east, 
and  Market  street  on  the  south.  Carter  lived  on  the  claim  for  many  years,  but 
finally  sold  out  to  his  two  sous,  Charles  M.  Carter  and  Thomas  Jefferson  Carter, 
both  forceful  and  'public-spirited  men. 

' '  Goose  Hollow ' '  was  for  a  long  time  a  sort  of  "no  man 's  land, ' '  being  too  far 
out  to  be  salable  for  city  lots,  and  not  worth  grubbing  out  to  put  in  potatoes'. 
In  consequence  of  which  a  miscellaneous  lot  of  people  got  in  there  who  did  not 
really  go  in  the  "upper  ten"  class  in  1862.  And  while  the  good  husbands  were 
busy  digging  stumps  or  catering  to  the  thirst  of  the  sturdy  yeomen  on  Front 
street,  their  good  wives  were  adding  to  family  comforts  by  raising  geese  and 
plucking  their  feathers  as  far  out  as  the  Carter  mansion.  In  consequence  of  this 
goose  industry  it  soon  got  to  be  that  every  woman  in  the  little  valley  had  a  flock 
of  'geese.  And  in  consequence  of  the  numbers  of  them  they  all  mixed  up  to- 
gether, and  every  good  woman  in  the  whole  neighborhood  claimed  all  the  geese. 
And  from  pulling  feathers  they  got  to  pulling  other  things,  and  some  twenty, 
more  or  less,  goose  owners  were  cited  to  appear  before  Police  Judge  J.  F.  McCoy 
to  receive  justice  at  the  august  forum  of  Portland's  first  police  court.  McCoy 
had  a  worse  job  of  it  than  the  judge  who  decided  the  case 'between  the  two  women 
who  claimed  the  same  baby,  two  thousand  yeai-s  ago.  But  he  was  equal  to  the 
occasion  and  his  decision  was,  that  Marshal  J.  H.  La.ppeus  and  his  two  deputies 
should  repair  to  the  seat  of  war  and  round  up  every  flock  of  geese  that  he  could 
find,  count  them  and  then  divide  them  equally  among  the  contending  owners ;  and 
that  thereafter  the  first  woman  who  complained  about  the  geese  should  be  "in- 
cerated  in  the  city  bastile. "  For  that  trip,  Lappeus  named  it  "Goose  Hollow," 
and  the  name  stuck. 

A  careful  review  of  the  facts  and  the  men  will  show  that  the  future  of  the 
city  and  its  permanent  and  substantial  success  dates  back  to  this  period,  and 
practically  to  a  group  of  about  a  dozen  leading  men  who  were  compelled,  from 
the  very  nature  of  the  case,  to  pull  together  for  self-preservation.  Much  has 
been  said  and  written  from  time  to  time  about  the  want  of  unanimity  and  har- 
monious enterprise  among  the  rich  men  of  Portland.  And  while  there  had  been 
often  outward  manifestations  of  a  want  of  harmony,  if  not  secret  opposition  to 
each  other,  yet  altogether  the  evolutionary  progress  of  the  city  has  compelled 
inharmonious  elements  to  work  and  labor  for  the  common  good.  Incoming  busi- 
ness men  were  loth  to  open  their  purses  to  make  improvements  which  they  thought 
added  more  to  the  prosperity  of  the  townsite  owners  than  their  own.  And 
some  of  these  same  business  men  were  so  stiff  upon  this  point  that  they  would 
not  buy  town  lots  at  a  low  price  which  would  have  made  them  wealthy  while 
they  waited  for  profits  from  other  sources.  But  altogether  the  logic  of  events 
compelled  all  of  them,  in  one  way  or  the  other,  to  contribute  their  time,  ener- 
gies, and  money  indirectly  to  build  a  city  which  made  all  of  them  rich. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  371 

Couiitiiitr  in  the  original  tovvnsite  proprietors,  Coffin,  Chapman  and  Lowns- 
(lalc.  we  liui  add  to  their  efforts  those  of  Captain  J.  C.  Aiusvvorth,  Jaeob  Kamra, 
Henry  W.  Corbett,  Henry  Failing,  C.  H.  Lewis,  Captain  John  H.  Couch,  Cap- 
tain George  H.  Flanders,  William  G.  Ladd,  Simeon  G.  Reed  and  R.  R.  Thompson, 
to  whose  brains  and  energy  Portland  is  indebted  for  its  present  masterful  posi- 
tion in  the  commerce  and  general  prosperity  of  the  country. 

Captain  Ainsworth  had  settled  first  at  Oregon  City,  and  with  his  brother- 
in-law,  DierdorfP,  had  been  carrying  on  a  general  store  and  ti-ading  establish- 
ment at  that  point.  But  seeing  the  natural  advantages  of  Portland,  and  early 
getting  into  the  steamboat  business,  so  shaped  his  affairs  as  to  transfer  all  his 
interests  to  this  point,  and  as  the  transportation  on  the  Columbia  river  developed, 
became  the  executive  head  of  the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company — the  first 
large  transportation  company  of  the  North  Pacific  coast.  Ainsworth 's  last 
work  on  behalf  of  the  city  was  in  extending  transportation  to  Eastern  Oregon, 
building  hte  portage  railway  at  the  Cascades  and  The  Dalles,  and  in  exploring 
the  Columbia  to  its  headwaters  and  into  Kootenai  lake,  where  vast  mineral 
wealth  has  followed  the  discoveries  made  by  Ainsworth 's  exploring  parties. 
And  while  Ainsworth  added  vastly  to  the  fortune  of  himself.  Reed  and  Thomp- 
son, by  the  sale  of  the  property  of  the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company  to 
the  Northern  Pacific  Railway  Company,  that  transaction  enabled  Heni-y  Vil- 
lard  to  get  such  control  of  the  railroads  leading  to  the  great  Columbia  basin,  as 
to  hold  the  transcontinental  business  to  Portland  long  enough  to  demonstrate 
its  superior  and  exclusive  advantages  as  the  gateway  to  the  Pacific;  and  thus 
eventually,  as  has  now  been  established,  control  the  heavy  transportation  be- 
tween the  coast  of  Oregon  and  Washington  and  the  Atlantic  states. 

Of  this  group  of  men,  Jacob  Kamm  is  entitled  to  be  ranked  the  first  in  steam- 
boat development.  Before  Lot  Whitcomb  could  build  the  first  steamboat,  he 
was  compelled  to  bring  Mr.  Kamm  from  California  to  superintend  the  con- 
struction. In  this  pioneer  work,  Mr.  Kamm,  with  his  own  hands,  put  all  the 
machinery  together  even  down  to  riveting  the  boiler  sheets.  From  this  begin- 
ning, Jacob  Kamm  went  on  with  work  on  other  steamers,  and  had  supervision 
as  master  mechanic,  chief  engineer  and  part  owner  of  the  steamboats  Jennie 
Clark,  Carrie  Ladd,  Mountain  Buck.  Senorita,  the  Mary,  Hassalo,  Rival,  Sur- 
prise and  Elk.  Mr.  Kamm  was  the  first  and  only  man  to  put  steamboat  trans- 
portation on  the  upper  Snake  river.  He  was  the  sole  owner  of  the  ocean 
steamer,  George  S.  Wright,  which  he  ran  from  Portland  to  Victoria,  Sitka  and 
Alaska,  being  the  only  capitalist  Portland  had  that  would  make  a  fight  to  hold 
that  trade  to  Portland.  In  latter  years  he  organized  the  Vancouver  Transpor- 
tation Company,  and  put  on  the  steamers  Lui-line  and  Undine.  His  work  in 
building  up  the  city  is  incalculable.  Mr.  Kamm  .was  born  in  Switzerland,  in 
1823,  and  is  yet  a  citizen  of  Portland,  with  all  his  faculties  unimpaired  at  the 
age  of  89.  He  learned  the  steamboat  business  from  engineer's  assistant  up  to 
owner  of  ocean  steamships;  commencing  at  the  engine  room  on  a  Mississippi 
steamboat — another  splendid  example  of  what  a  poor  boy  can  do  with  patient 
work  and  honest  endeavor. 

Henry  W.  Corbett,  born  in  Westborough,  Mass.,  in  1827,  commenced  at  the 
foot  of  the  ladder  of  fortune  and  fame  in  a  wholesale  dry  goods  store  in  New 
York  City,  where  he  spent  seven  yeare  in  hard  work.    At  the  end  of  that  time 


372  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

his  employers  had  so  much  confidence  in  him  that  they  sold  him  a  stock  of 
goods  on  credit  which  he  brought  around  Cape  Horn  in  a  ship  that  landed  at 
this  town  on  March  4,  1851.  There  were  four  hundred  people  here  then,  with 
five  little  stores  in  town.  Corbett  rented  an  unfinished  building  at  the  southwest 
corner  of  Front  and  Oak  streets,  paying  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars  a 
month  rent  for  it.  He  worked  hard,  being  proprietor,  clerk,  salesman,  and  book- 
keeper all  in  one,  and  at  the  end  of  fourteen  months,  had  sold  out  his  whole  stock, 
cleared  twenty  thousand  dollars,  and  started  back  to  New  York  to  get  another 
cargo  of  merchandise. 

He  remained  in  New  York  one  year,  but  continued  to  ship  goods  to  Port- 
land for  sale.  He  then  determined  to  make  Portland  his  home,  and  returned 
in  1853,  with  a  larger  stock  of  general  merchandise,  and  in  1860  converted  his 
store  into  an  exclusive  hardware  business,  and  in  1871  consolidated  with  Henry 
Failing,  forming  the  firm  of  Corbett,  Failing  &  Co.,  making  it  the  largest  hard- 
ware establishment  on  the  Pacific  coast.  Mr.  Corbett 's  activities  in  business  life 
have  been  more  extensive  and  varied  than  that  of  any  other  citizen  of  Portland, 
which,  with  his  service  in  the  United  States  Senate,  has  made  him  one  of  the 
most  useful,  if  not  the  most  conspicuous,  citizen  of  the  state  of  Oregon. 

Cicero  H.  Lewis  is  the  typical  merchant  in  all  comparison,  among  men  who 
have  followed  the  business  of  merchandising  in  the  city  of  Portland.  He  is  the 
only  man  among  the  many  distinguished  business  men  that  Portland  has  de- 
veloped that  has  been  ' '  the  merchant ' '  from  first  to  last.  Messrs.  Corbett,  Fail- 
ing, Ladd,  Ainsworth,  and  others  might  be  named  who  commenced  as  merchants, 
switched  off  into  some  other  pursuit,  before  ending  their  career.  Mr.  Lewis  com- 
menced his  career  as  a  merchant  in  1851,  and  remained  steadfast  in  the  har- 
ness until  death  called  him  January  5,  1897.  He  founded  and  built  up  the 
great  wholesale  grocery  house  of  Allen  &  Lewis,  until  now  its  patrons  cover 
the  whole  country  from  Ashland,  Oregon,  up  to  the  furthest  limits  of  Alaska. 
Many  a  distressed  country  retail  man  he  has  helped  along  for  years  until 
farms  and  business  grew  up  to  help  him  out.  Like  Henry  Failing,  C.  H.  Lewis 
never  pressed  a  customer,  and  his  word  was  as  good  as  government  bonds 
throughout  the  whole  northwest.  Aside  from  this  business  nearly  all  the  edu- 
cational and  charitable  institutions — especially  the  Good  Samaritan  Hospital 
and  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church — owe  much  to  his  wise  guidance  and  finan- 
cial support,  or  that  of  his  family. 

Henry  Failing  came  to  Portland  in  1851,  in  a  subordinate  position  with  his 
father,  Josiah  Failing,  of  blessed  memory,  and  became  a  partner  in  the  firm  of 
J.  Failing  &  Company.  The  business  prospered,  and  in  1864,  Failing,  Sr.,  re- 
tired, leaving  the  hardware  business  to  his  sons,  Henry,  Edward  and  James. 
This  business  was  carried  on  with  success  and  profit  until  it  was  consolidated 
with  that  of  Mr.  Corbett  in  1871.  In  1869  Mr.  Corbett  and  Henry  Failing  pur- 
chased a  controlling  interest  in  the  First  National  Bank,  which  had  been  organ- 
ized by  the  Starr  Bros.,  it  being  the  first  National  Bank  on  the  Pacific  coast. 
Mr.  Failing  became  president  of  the  bank  and  from  that  day  on  it  has  been  the 
great  bank  success  of  the  Pacific  coast.  As  mayor  of  the  city,  as  president  of  the 
board  of  commissioners  that  constructed  the  water  works  to  bring  water  from 
Bull  Run  lake,  a  few  miles  north  of  Mt.  Hood,  and  in  every  trust  reposed  in  him, 
Henry  Failing,  is  the  man  against  whom  there  never  was  a  doubt,  but  that  the 


PORTLAND  OX  THE  DIRECT  MAIN  ROUTE  AROUND  THE  WORLD  CONNECTING  ALL 
THE  COMMERCIAL  CITIES  AND  NATIONS 


THE  NEW  YOB  i 
PUB' 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  373 

public  and  every  private  citizen,  no  matter  how  poor  or  humble,  would  get  abso- 
lute and  unqualified  justice  in  the  discharge  of  every  duty.  The  great  bank  is  a 
monument  to  his  business  sagacity  and  fidelity  to  the  interests  of  its  patrons ;  and 
not  a  single  dollar  ever  passed  into  its  treasury  that  was  made  by  the  foreclosure 
of  any  mortgage  or  the  pressure  of  any  debtor.  With  a  brusque  exterior,  Henry 
Failing  possessed  one  of  the  kindest  and  most  sympathetic  hearts  in  existence. 
And  with  generosity  to  all  he  was  the  absolute  standard  of  honesty,  justice  and 
fair  dealing  in  all  his  ways.  With  justifiable  pride,  his  children  have  placed 
over  his  mortal  remains,  the  epitaph : 

"he  was  a  .just  man  and  loved  mercy" 

With  long  personal  acquaintance,  the  author  of  this  history  can  testify  that 
no  man  ever  deserved  the  above  tribute  more  than  Henry  Failing. 

Captains  Couch  and  Flanders  have  been  already  referred  to,  but  not  as 
they  deserve  to  be.  Captain  John  H.  Couch  most  assuredly  drove  down  the  first 
stake  to  fasten  the  city  at  this  point,  when  he  tied  up  his  ship  at  the  foot  of 
Washington  street,  before  there  was  a  house  here,  and  said,  "To  this  point  can  I 
bring  any  ship  that  can  get  into  tlie  mouth  of  the  great  Columbia  river." 
Like  most  men  developed  on  the  high  seas,  when  he  knew  anything,  he  was  sure 
and  confident  of  his  knowledge.  When  others  were  trembling  and  temporiz- 
ing for  fear  Portland  would  fail  like  the  dozen  other  places,  Captain  Couch 
lost  no  sleep  over  their  fears.  He  knew  just  as  well  that  the  city  had  to  be 
built  here  as  the  experienced  locomotive  engineer  can  tell  how  many  loaded  cars 
his  engine  can  pull  from  Portland  to  Dalles  City.  That  confidence  was  worth  mil- 
lions to  Portland  because  it  converted  all  other  sea  captains  to  the  idea  that  Port- 
land was  the  seaport  of  the  Columbia  river.  In  this  view  Captain  George  H. 
Flanders  fully  occurred.  These  two  men  practically  made  the  Pacific  ocean 
contribute  to  the  success  and  prosperity  of  the  city.  This  was  their  great 
contribution  to  the  building  of  Portland,  although  their  help  in  other  ways  would 
fill  a  book.  When  railroad  development  was  proposed  these  two  men — John 
H.  Couch  and  George  H.  Flanders — placed  their  names  at  the  top  of  the  roll 
of  Portland  men  who  aided  in  starting  railroad  construction  by  donating  ten 
city  blocks  in  the  north  end  of  the  city  for  depot  and  terminal  grounds.  The 
Union  depot  stands  on  land  which  they  gave  to  the  old  Oregon  Central  Rail- 
road Company  when  the  author  of  this  book  was  its  president  and  manager 
forty-two  years  ago.  But  in  every  other  way,  and  especially  in  contributing  to 
the  religious  and  charitable  institutions  of  the  city,  they  and  their  families  have 
taken  a  leading  part  in  making  not  only  a  rich  and  prosperous  city,  but  also  a 
moral,  peaceful,  healthful  and  clean  place  to  raise  families  in. 

As  the  life  and  growth  of  the  city  goes  on,  and  for  generations  upon  gen- 
erations hereafter,  the  name  of  Simeon  G.  Reed  is  likely  to  be  more  in  the  minds 
of  men  and  women  in  this  city  than  the  names  of  all  the  other  men  above 
combined.  Like  R.  R.  Thompson,  for  the  greater  part  of  his  career  in  Port- 
land, Mr.  Reed  shone  by  the  reflected  light  of  J.  C.  Ainsworth.  Reed  was  a 
closer  friend  of  Ainsworth  than  any  other  man,  although  Ainsworth,  Reed  and 
Thompson,  were  always  spoken  of  as  "The  Triumvirate."  Mr.  Reed  was  always 
a  very  charitable  man,  kind-hearted  and  gentle,  with  lucky  fortune  dogging  his 


374  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

steps  throughout  life.  He  put  a  price  on  some  mining  stock  in  Nevada  once, 
and  then  went  off  hunting  sage  hens  in  Umatilla  county.  A  great  body  of  rich 
ore  was  uncovered  in  the  mine,  and  before  the  San  Francisco  "mining  sharps" 
could  locate  Reed  with  telegrams,  that  stock  advanced  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars  in  value,  and  Reed  got  back  to  the  old  town  of  Umatilla  in  time  to  can- 
cel his  oft'er  before  it  could  to  taken  up  by  the  pursuers.  S.  G.  Reed  never 
lost  any  sleep  or  worried  about  matters  he  could  not  prevent.  He  was  always 
ready  to  help  any  man  that  deserved  his  help  if  they  did  not  ask  too  much. 
He  finally  came  to  regard  his  great  fortune  as  a  trust  in  his  hands  for  the 
benefit  of  his  fellow-men.  And  having  no  children,  and  but  few  relatives  when 
he  passed  away,  he  requested  his  life-long  help-meet,  Mrs.  Amanda  Reed,  to 
devote  their  wealth  to  the  benefit  of  the  people  of  the  city  of  Portland.  In  pur- 
suance of  that  wish,  Mrs.  Reed,  in  her  last  will  and  testament,  provided  that 
after  paying  some  legacies  to  relatives,  the  Reed  millions  should  be  devoted 
to  founding  a  great  institution  for  the  teaching  of  practical  and  scientific 
knowledge  to  the  youth  of  this  city.  And  that  great  bequest  is  now  being  ad- 
ministered to  carry  out  the  wishes  of  the  large-hearted  donors. 

Of  other  notable  men  who  have  made  their  impress  on  the  city  and  aided 
largely  in  establishing  the  useful  institutions  of  the  pioneer  town,  Judge  P. 
A.  Marquam  is  entitled  to  a  high  position.  While  he  never  made  a  million 
dollars,  he  did  make  enough,  and  made  it  honestly,  to  attract  the  wolves  of 
finance  and  banking  to  rend  him  to  pieces  and  rob  him  of  what  he  had.  The 
"Marquam  case,"  wherein  the  supreme  court  of  Oregon  held  that  a  trust  deed 
was  not  a  trust  but  a  mortgage,  will  go  down  to  future  courts  and  judges  as 
an  anomaly  in  jurisprudence  that  is  a  disgrace  to  any  state.  But  Judge 
Marquam 's  claim  to  honorable  recognition  in  the  history  of  Oregon  does  not 
depend  on  either  property  or  business.  While  in  California,  he  served  with 
distinction  in  the  wars  to  subdue  the  Indians  and  protect  the  gold  miners. 
He  was  elected  county  judge  twice  before  coming  to  Oregon.  On  reaching 
Portland  he  engaged  in  law  practice  and  soon  secured  a  large  business.  Soon 
after  he  was  elected  county  judge  and  re-elected,  serving  in  all  eight  years. 
Under  his  administration  nearly  all  the  roads  in  the  country  were  located 
and  opened  to  travel. 

There  were,  of  course,  many  other  men  in  the  town  hard  at  work  at  the  date 
when  these  more  prominent  leaders  located  here  who  are  entitled  to  recog- 
nition, and  would  not  be  overlooked  here  if  the  facts  of  their  lives  were  now 
accessible.  To  produce  the  daily  life  of  the  little  town  now,  after  the  passing  of 
sixty  years  has  carried  away  forever  the  lives  and  incidents  of  that  day,  is  a 
difScult  if  not  impossible  task,  and  if  enough  is  furnished  to  enable  the  dis- 
criminating reader  to  guess  at  what  has  been  lost  by  time,  it  is  the  best  that 
can  be  done. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

1847-1855 

THE  WHITMAN  MASSACRE — THE  PROVISIONAL  GOVERNMENT   ARMY — THE  CAYUSE   IN- 
DIAN  WAR  ROGUE  RIVER  INDIAN  WARS  BATTLES  OP  BATTLE  ROCK   AND  BIG 

MEADOWS GENERAL    LANE   BLUFFS    OUT    150   SAVAGES — CHIEP    JOHN,    THE   LAST 

"brave"    to    SURRENDER — THE    YAKIMA    WAR — THE    MODOC    WAR — THE    CANBY- 
THOMAS    MASSACRE. 

The  most  appalling  horror  in  the  history  of  Oregon  and  equal  in  demoniac 
savagery  to  anything  in  the  history  of  the  entire  country  was  the  unprovoked 
massacre  of  Dr.  Marcus  Whitman  and  wife,  and  twelve  other  persons  at  the  Whit- 
man missionary  station  in  Walla  Walla  valley  on  November  29-30,  1847.  And 
wiiile  there  was  not  the  sickening  ferocity  of  burning  at  the  stake  which  has  in 
past  times  attended  the  deadly  strife  between  competing  races  and  rival  creeds, 
yet  that  element  of  diabolical  depravity  was  more  than  equaled  in  the  fact  that 
the  victims  of  this  bloody  deed  were  purely,  honestly  and  patiently  sacrificing 
their  lives  to  benefit  and  lift  up  the  savages  that  struck  them  down. 

The  actual  facts  of  the  bloody  deed  are  briefly  stated.  During  the  forenoou 
of  the  day  on  which  the  massacre  was  executed  Dr.  Whitman  assisted  at  the  fu- 
neral of  an  Indian  who  had  died  during  his  visit  to  the  Umatilla,  and  was  struck 
with  the  absence  of  the  tribe,  many  of  whom  mounted,  were  riding  about,  and  giv- 
ing no  attention  to  the  burial ;  but  as  there  had  been  a  slaughter  of  beef  which 
was  being  dressed  in  the  mission  yard,  an  occasion  which  always  drew  the  In- 
dians about,  the  circumstances  was  in  part  at  least  accounted  for.  School  was  in 
session,  several  men  and  boys  were  absent  at  the  saw-mill  near  the  foot  of  the 
mountains ;  the  women  were  employed  with  the  duties  of  housekeeping  and  nurs- 
ing the  sick,  and  all  was  quiet  as  usual,  when  Whitman  fatigued  with  two  nights' 
loss  of  sleep  entered  the  common  sitting-room  of  his  house  and  sat  dowoi  before 
the  fire  to  rest  thinking  such  thoughts  as  —  Ah !  who  will  say  ? 

While  he  thus  mused,  two  chiefs,  Tiloukaikt  and  Tamahas,  suruamed  "The 
Murderer,"  from  his  having  killed  a  number  of  his  own  people,  presented  them- 
selves at  the  door  leading  to  an  adjoining  room,  asking  for  medicines,  when  the 
doctor  arose  and  went  to  them,  afterward  seating  him.self  to  prepare  the  diiigs. 
And  now  the  hour  had  come!  Tamahas  stepped  behind  him,  drew  his  tomahawk 
from  beneath  his  blanket,  and  with  one  or  two  cruel  blows  laid  low  forever  the 
man  of  God.  John  Sager,  who  was  in  the  room  prostrated  by  sickness,  drew  a 
pistol,  but  was  quickly  cut  to  pieces.  In  his  struggle  for  life  he  wounded  two 
of  his  assailants,  who,  at  a  preconcerted  signal  had  with  others  crowded  into  the 
house.  A  tumult  then  arose  throughout  the  mission.  All  the  men  encountered 
by  the  savages  were  slain.     Some  were  killed  outright ;  others  were  bruised  and 

375 


376  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

mangled  and  left  writhing  back  to  consciousness  to  be  assailed  again  until  after 
hours  of  agony  they  expired.  Dr.  Whitman  himself  lived  for  some  time  after 
he  had  been  stricken  down,  though  insensible.  Mrs.  Whitman,  although  wounded, 
with  Rogers  and  a  few  others  also  wounded,  took  refuge  in  an  upper  room  of  the 
dwelling,  and  defended  the  staircase  with  a  gun,  until  persuaded  by  Tamsucky 
who  gained  access  by  assurances  of  sorrow  and  sympathy,  to  leave  the  chamber, 
the  savages  below  threatening  to  fire  the  house.  On  her  way  to  the  mansion  house, 
where  the  terror  stricken  women  and  children  were  gathered,  she  fainted  on 
encountering  the  mangled  body  of  her  husband,  and  was  placed  upon  a  wooden 
settee  by  Rogers  and  Mrs.  Hays,  who  attempted  to  carry  her  in  this  condition 
through  the  space  between  the  houses;  but  on  reaching  the  outer  door  they 
were  surrounded  by  savages  who  instantly  fired  upon  them,  fatally  wounding 
Rogers,  and  several  balls  striking  Mrs.  Whitman,  who,  though  not  dead,  was 
hurled  into  a  pool  of  water  and  blood  on  the  ground.  Not  satisfied  with  this, 
Ishalhal,  who  had  formerly  lived  in  Gray's  family,  and  who  had  fired  the  first 
shot  at  her  before  she  escaped  to  the  chamber  from  which  Tamsucky  treach- 
erously drew  her,  seized  her  long  auburn  hair,  now  blood-stained  and  dis- 
heveled, and  lifting  up  the  head  happily  unconscious,  repeatedly  struck  the 
dying  woman's  face  with  a  whip,  notwithstanding  which  life  lingered  for 
several  hours. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  relate  the  butchery  of  other  innocent  persons  which 
lasted  for  several  days  and  seemed  to  be  carried  on  for  the  gratification  of  the 
savage  mind.  The  victims  of  this  awful  tragedy  were  Dr.  Marcus  Whitman, 
Mrs.  Narcissa  Whitman,  John  Sager,  Francis  Sager,  Crocket  Bewley,  Mr. 
Rogers,  Mr.  Kimball,  Mr.  Sales,  Mr.  Marsh,  Mr.  Saunders,  James  Young,  Jr.. 
Mr.  Hofi^man,  and  Isaac  Gillen.  Peter  B.  Hall,  while  not  killed  at  the  mission, 
fled  to  Fort  Walla  Walla,  but  was  denied  admission,  and  was  never  heard  of 
afterward.  And  of  the  remaining  persons  at  the  Whitman  mission,  fifty-three 
in  number,  young  and  old  and  mostly  women  and  children,  none  were  spared 
from  outrage  of  any  sort  that  lust  or  thirst  of  blood  could  devise.  In  fact 
the  sufferings  inflicted  on  the  survivors  by  the  savages  were  even  more  hor- 
rifying than  murder  itself.  Everything  that  the  brutal  Indian  could  suggest, 
or  any  mind  could  imagine,  was  inflicted  not  only  on  mothers  whose  hus- 
bands had  been  slaughtered  but  on  little  girls  these  mothers  could  not  pro- 
tect. Grown  women  and  little  girls  were  carried  away  to  Indian  tepees 
for  wives  and  subjected  to  all  the  outrages  that  brutal  lust  could  inflict. 
Miss  Lorinda  Bewley,  a  teacher  of  the  Indian  children,  eleven  days  after  the 
massacre  was  dragged  from  a  sick  bed  and  torn  from  the  arms  of  sympa- 
thizing women,  placed  on  a  horse  in  the  midst  of  a  high  fever 
and  carried  through  a  winter  snow  storm  twenty-five  miles  to  the  lodge  of  an 
Indian  chief  named  Five  Crows,  and  there  for  weeks  in  her  sick 
and  enfeebled  state  forced  to  submit  to  the  brutal  outrages  of  the  sav- 
age. During  the  day  time  she  was  allowed  to  visit  the  house  where  Vicar 
General  Francis  Norbert  Blanchet,  and  Vicar  General  J.  B.  A.  Brouillet,  Catho- 
lic priests  made  their  home,  but  at  night  was  dragged  back  to  the  lodge  of  the 
Indian.  Afterwards  at  the  trial  of  these  murderers  at  Oregon  City,  the  girl  testi- 
fied that  she  cried  and  appealed  to  these  priests  to  be  protected  either  at  the 
house  of  the  priests,  or  to  be  by  them  sent  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  Co. 's.  Fort  Walla 
Walla ;  but  they  would  not  interfere  to  protect  her ;  and  to  add  insult  to  injury 


PiJBLl'^ 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  :'.77 

the  priest  Brouillet  asked  her  how  she  liked  iicr  new  husluind.  'i'lie  conduct  of 
tiiese  j)riest»s  towards  this  defenseless  girl  has  been  ii  inatler  ol'  liittcr  recrimina- 
tion between  Protestants  and  Catholics  for  years.  The  priests  themselves 
never  offered  any  explanation  of  their  conduct;  and  by  their  silence  have  per- 
mitted their  critics  and  competitors  in  the  missionarj'  field  to  place  whatever 
construction  on  their  acts  that  ordinary  reason  and  true  manhood  would  dictate. 

And  here  the  two  diverging  lines  of  Christian  civilization  meet  and  clash 
again.  They  impinged  and  sejiarated  on  the  St.  Lawrence.  They  proceeded  on 
their  own  way  across  the  continent  and  strike  helmets  on  the  Columbia.  The 
Catholics  and  Canadian  Frenchmen  regarded  the  Indian  as  an  inferior  to  be 
taught  to  obey  ordei-s,  to  believe  in  signs  and  metaphors,  to  trust  the  gowned 
priest  who  would  make  sure  of  his  salvation  with  the  Great  Spirit.  They  did  not 
want  his  lauds,  they  only  wanted  him  to  hunt  wild  animals.  All  this  suited  the 
imagination  and  the  comprehension  of  the  Indian.  But  the  Protestant  missionary 
and  American  settlers  approached  the  native  from  an  entirely  different  stand- 
point. The  mi-ssionary  would  regard  him  as  a  man  and  a  brother  to  be  edu- 
cated, enlightened,  and  taught  a  system  of  theology  that  he  could  not  prove; 
and  worse  than  all  else — to  quit  his  wild  ways  and  go  to  work  raising  potatoes 
and  cattle.  And  the  American  settler  was  to  the  Indian  a  worse  enemy  than 
the  missionary.  He  would  fence  up  the  land  to  raise  grain  and  cattle,  and  build 
towns.  That  meant  destruction  of  the  wild  game,  the  cutting  off  of  the  Indians 
natural  sources  of  life,  and  his  eventual  extinction.  The  Indian  could  not  put 
these  ideas  in  words,  but  his  self-preservation  taught  him  the  truth.  Here  was 
the  plain  difference  between  the  two  rival  ethical  and  religious  systems.  One 
would  appeal  to  the  imagination,  flatter  the  vanity  and  adroitly  use  the  simple- 
minded  barbarian  to  help  carry  the  common  burden.  The  other  would  appeal 
to  his  conscience  and  argue  with  him  on  propositions  he  could  not  understand, 
take  his  land  and  fight  him.  One  succeeded  and  kept  the  Indian  quiet;  the 
other  failed  and  bloody  wars  ensued. 

The  course  of  Whitman  as  a  man  of  common  apprehension,  as  the  head  of 
a  family,  and  the  manager  of  the  mission  is  difficult  to  explain.  Dr.  McLoughlin 
had  warned  him  of  his  danger,  had  called  his  attention  to  the  fickle  character 
of  the  Indian  and  explained  to  him  that  the  Indians  would  on  occasion  kill 
their  own  "medicine"  men.  The  honest  old  Indian  friend,  Sticcus,  whom  Col. 
Nesmith  pronounced  the  only  Christian  Indian  he  ever  met,  had  warned  Rev. 
Spalding,  and  told  him  that  the  Indians  had  decided  against  the  Americans. 
Whitman  and  Spalding  were  bosom  friends  and  Whitman  knew  all  that  Spald- 
ing knew.  Many  other  intimations  had  come  to  Whitman,  and  it  was  plain 
that  the  Doctor  and  his  wife  were  in  great  trouble  from  great  peril.  Then 
why  did  he  not  secretly  send  off  a  courier  to  the  Willamette  valley  for  a  guard 
to  come  to  his  relief?  He  could  have  got  it  for  the  asking.  His  course  re- 
vealed a  strange  weakness  or  fatuity  of  conduct  that  cannot  be  explained. 

Why  did  the  Indians  murder  their  friend?  Three  explanations  were  promi- 
ment  in  the  great  excitement  of  the  times  sixty-five  years  ago.  First,  that  Dr. 
^^'^litman  had  given  poison  to  the  Indians  sick  with  the  measles  which  had  been 
lirought  into  the  country  and  comanunicated  to  the  Indians  by  the  American 
immigrants  of  that  year;  and  for  that  many  Indians  had  died.  Secondly,  that 
the  Americans  were  going  to  take  all  the  good  lands  from  the  Indians  and  pay 
them  nothing.     Thirdly,  that  the  Indians  had  been  incited  to  the  bloody  deed 


378  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Co.  and  Catholic  priests.  The  Indians  engaged  in  the  mas- 
sacre themselves  put  forward  the  first  excuse,  even  talking  of  it  among  them- 
selves, as  proven  afterwards,  before  the  murders  were  committed.  A  chief 
named  Tamsueky  took  the  lead  in  this  part  of  the  eonspirac}'.  Tamsucky  's  squaw 
was  sick,  and  it  was  agreed  among  the  conspiring  Indians  to  test  the  medicine 
proposition.  They  would  give  the  sick  squaw  some  of  Whitman's  medicine,  and 
if  she  got  well  then  the  medicine  was  not  poison;  but  if  she  died,  then  it  was 
poison,  and  Whitman  must  be  killed.  They  gave  the  woman  the  medicine  and 
she  died ;  then  the  massacre  was  decided  upon  and  brutally  executed. 

As  to  the  land  taking  excuse,  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  had  the  effect  to 
break  do^^Ti  the  influence  of  Whitman  and  alienate  the  Indians  from  him.  They 
saw  thousands  of  Americans  coming  every  year.  The  first  large  immigration 
— 1843 — had  been  brought  by  or  come  in  with  Whitman  himself,  returning  from 
the  states  that  year.  And  every  succeeding  year  the  Americans  came  in  in- 
creasing numbers  and  many  of  them  stopped  to  see  Whitman  as  a  friend.  There 
were  also  at  that  time  twenty  or  thirty  Iroquois  Indians  in  Oregon,  one  a  half- 
breed,  Joe  Lewis  was  staying  at  the  Whitman  mission.  These  were  all  enemies 
of  the  Americans  and  were  continually  poisoning  the  Indian  mind  against  the 
Americans  by  telling  the  Indians  the  white  men  had  robbed  all  the  Indians  be- 
yond the  mountains  of  their  lands,  and  that  they  would  do  likewise  in  Oregon 
and  that  their  only  safety  was  to  kill  off  all  the  whites  before  any  more  came  over. 
This  had  a  powerful  influence,  and  all  the  prejudice  concentrated  against  the 
victim  Whitman. 

As  to  the  position  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Co.  there  never  was  any  reasonable 
grounds  to  suppose  the  ofiScials  of  that  company  had  in  any  way  connived  at  the 
murder  of  Whitman.  McBean,  the  officer  nearest  to  the  Whitman  station,  acted 
in  a  very  selfish  and  heathenish  manner  towards  the  escaping  Americans;  but 
that  was  accounted  for  by  his  general  meanness  of  character  as  a  man.  Mc- 
Loughlin,  Ogden,  and  all  others  but  McBean  made  common  cause  with  tlie 
Americans  in  denouncing  the  outrage  and  in  rescuing  the  unfortunate  pri* 
oners  in  the  hands  of  the  Indians.  As  to  the  Catholics,  the  Indians  well  knew 
of  the  difference  between  and  the  strife  between  the  Catholics  and  Protestants: 
and  like  all  the  little-minded  of  mankind  they  doubtless  thought  thej^  would 
secure  the  favor  of  the  Catholics  by  killing  off  the  Protestants. 

If  the  golden  rule  or  any  other  of  the  generally  accepted  precepts  of  the 
Christian  religion  had  been  observed  by  the  Catholic  priests  in  their  propaganda 
of  Christianity  among  the  Indians,  they  would  have  left  Whitman  alone  in  the 
mission  he  had  founded  with  gi-eat  labor  and  personal  sacrifice.  If  they  had  done 
so  the  massacre  would  in  all  reasonable  probability  not  have  been  executed. 
There  were  thousands  of  Indians  in  widely  separated  fields  where  each  sectarian 
could  have  exercised  their  labors  and  righteous  purposes  without  intruding  the  one 
upon  the  other.  And  if  such  non-aggi-essive  policy  had  been  pursued  each  mis- 
sionary would  have  had  greater  influence  over  the  Indians  and  effected  a  greater 
measure  of  good  works  for  the  heathen,  and  at  the  same  time  safe-guarded  the  lives 
of  those  who  trusted  to  the  good  will  of  the  natives.  So  far  as  is  known  the  Catho- 
lic missionaries  did  not  in  any  way  antagonize  the  Indians  or  condemn  the  mur- 
ders of  Whitman  and  his  family.  And  in  return  for  such  course  the  Catholics 
were  in  no  wise  molested  or  inconvenienced  by  the  Indians.    In  the  bitter  feeling 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  379 

wliich  arose  out  of  these  atrocious  murders,  eertaiu  Protestants  undertook  to 
prove  by  the  Indiaus  themselves  that  the  Indians  liad  been  urged  to  murder  Whit- 
man by  the  Catholic  priest  Father  Brouillet;  and  the  statements  of  the  In- 
dians were  taken  upon  that  point;  but  the  charge  could  never  get  any  other 
support  than  the  statement  of  the  rascal  Joe  Lewis  (Indian)  who  said  the 
priests  told  him  Whitman  was  giving  poison  to  the  Indians  to  kill  them  off. 
And  after  this  question  was  raised,  Chief  Umhowlish,  a  friend  and  believer  in 
Whitman,  and  other  Indians  of  good  character  investigated  the  report  among 
the  Indians,  and  none  could  be  found  that  ever  heard  Brouillet  make  such  a 
statement  but  Joe  Lewis — who  was  not  worthy  of  belief.  But  this  investi- 
gation among  the  Indians  uncovered  the  statements  made  by  Brouillet  to  a 
number  of  Indians,  that  "Dr.  Whitman  was  a  bad  man,  and  if  they  believed 
what  he  told  them  they  would  all  go  to  hell,  for  he  was  telling  them  lies." 
And  such  a  statement  as  this  to  unreasoning  passionate  savages,  agitated  by 
the  death  of  their  children,  was  in  itself  enough  to  precipitate  a  massacre. 

THE  MASSACRE  AND  THE  11.  B.   CO. 

News  of  the  massacre  reached  Fort  Vancouver  seven  days  after  the  event 
by  a  special  messenger  sent  by  McBean,  Hudson  Bay  Co.  's  agent  at  Walla  Walla. 
James  Douglas-,  Chief  Factor  of  the  Company,  immediately  sent  off  a  special 
messenger  to  Oregon  City  to  notify  Governor  Aberuethy  of  the  Provisional  Gov- 
ernment; and  then,  without  waiting  to  see  what  the  Americans  would  do, 
Peter  Skene  Ogden,  an  old  and  influential  factor  of  the  Company,  started  im- 
mediately from  Vancouver  with  an  armed  party  determined  to  rescue  the  un- 
fortunate prisoners  in  the  hands  of  the  Indians.  In  this  expedition  Ogden  ex- 
hibited his  energy  and  ability  iu  a  most  extraordinary  manner.  Knowing  the 
horrors  the  unfortunate  white  women  must  suffer  he  pushed  through  night  and 
day  until  he  reached  the  wrecked  and  ruined  Whitman  Mission,  beiug  only 
seven  days  on  the  road  iu  the  winter  season.  On  reaching  Walla  Walla  Ogden 
sent  our  couriers  to  all  the  chiefs  and  Indians  having  any  of  the  captives  in 
their  possession  demanding  an  immediate  council,  within  four  days. 

This  summons  from  Ogden  whom  the  Indians  knew  to  be  the  "Big  Medicine" 
fighting  man  of  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company,  aroused  intense  excitement  at  once 
among  all  the  Indians,  of  the  Cayuse  and  Nez  Perces  tribes.  For  while  the  Nez 
Perces  had  no  part  in  the  murders  they  were  fearful  of  the  consequences  of 
arousing  the  Americans  to  the  fighting  point,  and  did  not  want  an  armed  force 
sent  into  their  counti-y.  And  here  is  seen  some  shrewd  diplomacy,  showing  that 
though  the  Indian  may  be  stupid  in  some  things,  and  his  religion  very  much 
of  a  cloak  to  get  favors  out  of  the  white  man,  yet  when  it  comes  to  saving  his 
neck  he  is  quite  as  smart  as  his  white  bi'other.  Their  first  move  was  to  seize 
Rev.  Spalding,  friend  of  the  murdered  Whitman,  and  hold  him  prisoner  as  a 
hostage  for  peace.  Then  they  compelled  Spalding  to  write  a  letter  to  Catholic 
Vicar  General  Blanchet  telling  him  the  "Nez  Perces  wished  the  Americans  to 
be  on  friendly  terms  with  the  Cayuses  and  not  come  into  their  country  to  pun- 
ish them  for  the  mui'der  of  Whitman ;  giving  as  a  i-eason  that  the  Cayuses  had 
forgiven  the  killing  of  a  son  of  Cayuse  Chief  Peu-peu  mox-mox  in  California, 
for  which  the  killing  of  thirteen  Americans  was  no  more  than  a  reasonable 


380  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

offset."  Further,  they  impressed  Spalding  with  the  threat  that  if  he  did  not 
arrange  the  settlement  the  Indians  wanted  they  would  kill  him,  too.  Blanchet 
was  instructed  to  convey  all  this  information  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company, 
and  to  Governor  Abernethy,  which  the  Vicar  General  did. 

But  when  Ogden  suddenly  appeared  on  the  scene  with  his  fighting  men, 
and  called  all  the  Chiefs  together  at  the  house  of  Bishop  Blanchet  the  whole 
scheme  was  gone  over  again,  and  the  influence  of  the  Bishop  earnestly  sought  to 
protect  the  Cayuses.  Matters  began  to  look  serious  for  the  murdering  Cayuses ; 
and  Camaspelo,  a  Nez  Perce  chief  of  high  rank,  made  a  long  plea  to  the  Bishop 
for  his  aid  to  keep  back  the  Americans.  Blanchet  informed  him  that  peace 
might  be  hoped  for,  but  all  the  chiefs  must  meet  Ogden  and  make  a  clean  breast 
of  the  whole  business.  The  Bishop's  house  was  packed  full  of  Indians,  big 
chiefs  and  sub-chiefs.  Camaspelo  opened  the  council  with  a  speech  deprecat- 
ing the  ignorance  and  blindness  which  caused  him  to  despair  of  the  life  of  his 
people.  He  was  followed  by  Chief  Tiloukaikt  who  confessed  that  the  mission- 
aries had  given  them  teaching  for  their  good ;  but  wound  up  by  recounting  ttie 
death  of  their  chief  who  accompanied  Gray  in  1837 ;  and  to  the  death  of  Elijah 
in  California,  endeavoring  to  found  an  excuse  for  what  had  been  done,  hoping 
the  Americans  would  consider  these  things,  and  call  it  square.  Then  Edward 
the  son  of  Tiliukaikt  made  a  speech  bringing  forward  the  charge  of  Joe  Lewis 
that  Whitman  had  poisoned  the  Indians;  and  then  sprung  a  surprise  on  the 
whole  council  by  showing  a  blood  stained  "Catholic  Ladder,"  which  he  de- 
clared had  been  shown  to  the  Indians  by  Whitman,  with  the  remark:  "You 
see  this  blood!  it  is  to  show  you  that  now,  because  you  have  priests  among 
you,  the  country  is  going  to  be  covered  with  blood ; ' '  thus  placing  all  the  blame 
for  trouble  on  the  Catholics.  Then  the  Indians  submitted  their  ultimatum, 
asking,  "first  that  the  Americans  should  not  go  to  war  with  the  Cayuses;  sec- 
ond, that  they  should  forget  the  murder  of  Whitman  and  the  others,  and  the 
Cayuses  will  forget  the  murder  of  the  chief's  son  in  California;  that  two  or 
three  great  Americans  come  up  to  Walla  Walla  and  make  a  peace;  that  then 
after  making  the  peace  the  Americans  may  take  away  with  them  all  the  women 
and  children  and  other  prisoners ;  that  thereafter  no  more  Americans  shall  pass 
through  the  Cayuse  country  for  fear  their  young  men  may  do  them  harm. ' ' 

Peter  Skene  Ogden  had  now  the  whole  Indian  scheme  before  him,  which  was 
substantially — we  will  keep,  torture,  outrage  and  kill  these  prisoners  at  our  will 
and  pleasure  unless  you  make  this  peace  with  us.  Their  relations  with  the 
Fur  Company  had  been  pleasant  and  profitable  for  many  years,  and  they 
expected  Ogden  to  take  up  their  views  and  champion  their  cause.  Never  were 
savage  men  more  mistaken.  Ogden  knew  the  Indian  character  through  and 
through.  He  knew  it  was  to  be  his  own  stern,  unyielding  will  against  5,000 
Indians.  He  was  a  man  that  no  power  could  bluff ;  and  rising  to  the  full  dig- 
nity of  his  magnificent  manhood,  he  delivered  to  the  assembled  chiefs  the  fol- 
lowing vigorous  speech : 

"We  have  been  with  you  for  thirty  years  without  the  shedding  of  blood; 
we  are  traders  and  of  a  different  nation  from  the  Americans.  But  recollect; 
we  supply  yoia  with  ammunition,  not  to  kill  Americans,  who  are  of  the  same 
color,  speak  the  same  language,  and  worship  the  same  God  as  ourselves,  and 
whose  cruel  fate  causes  our  hearts  to  bleed.    Why  do  we  make  you  chiefs  if  you 


OREGON    PLAN 

Being  tlie  old  house  at   the  Cascades   of  the   Columbia   river, 
uiiderniiued   liy   tlie   river   and   waslied   away   in   1867 


Th 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  381 

cannot  control  your  young  men?  Besides  this  wholesale  butchery  you  have 
robbed  the  Americans  jiassing  through  your  country,  and  have  insulted  their 
women.  If  you  allow  your  young  men  to  govern  you,  I  say  you  are  not  men,  or 
chiefs,  but  women  who  do  not  deserve  the  name.  Your  hot-headed  young  men 
plume  themselves  on  their  bravery;  but  let  them  not  deceive  themselves.  If 
the  Americans  begin  war,  they  will  have  cause  to  repent  their  rashness ;  for  the 
war  will  not  end  until  every  man  of  you  is  cut  from  the  face  of  the  earth ;  I 
am  aware  that  many  of  your  people  have  died ;  but  so  have  others.  It  was  not 
Dr.  Whitman  who  poisoned  them;  but  God  who  commanded  that  they  should 
die.  You  have  the  opportunity  to  make  some  reparation.  I  give  you  only  ad- 
vice and  promise  you  nothing  should  war  be  declared  against  you.  The  Fur 
Company  has  nothing  to  do  with  your  quarrel.  If  you  wish  it,  on  my  return  I 
will  see  what  can  be  done  for  you ;  but  I  do  not  promise  to  prevent  war.  Deliver 
to  me  the  prisoners  you  hold  to  deliver  them  to  their  friends,  and  I  will  pay  you 
a  ransom,  and  that  is  all  I  -^dll  do." 

The  white  man  had  brushed  aside  all  their  excuses,  and  all  their  scheming  was 
for  nothing.  The  determined  vnll  of  one  man  towered  above  them  as  an  im- 
movable mountain.  They  yielded  at  once;  accepted  the  ransom  offered,  of 
blankets,  clothing  and  a  few  guns  and  delivered  all  the  prisoners  to  Ogden  who 
safely  delivered  them  to  Governor  Abernethy  at  Oregon  City  in  ten  days  there- 
after. The  murderers  were  not  given  up  by  their  tribesmen  and  were  not 
arrested  until  Governor  Lane  came  into  office  under  the  Territorial  Government 
and  then  five  Indians  participating  in  the  bloody  deed  were  tried,  and  con- 
victed, and  hung  by  United  States  Marshal  Sleek  at  Oregon  City  on  June  3, 
1850,  four  of  them  confessing  to  the  murders  before  the  execution,  and  the 
fifth  admitting  that  he  was  present  at  the  murdering,  but  claimed  he  took  no 
part  in  it. 

THE  SEQUEL 

Saving  and  excepting  the  organization  of  the  Provisional  Government,  no 
single  act  in  the  history  of  the  state  was  ever  followed  by  so  many  exciting  in- 
fluences as  the  murder  of  Marcus  Whitman.  First,  it  practically  broke  up  and  an- 
nihilated all  missionary  efforts  to  teach  and  convert  the  Indians  to  Christianity 
for  a  space  of  twenty  years  thereafter.  Second,  it  precipitated  an  Indian  war, 
and  planted-  the  leaven  of  hatred  and  enmity  that  resulted  in  wars  and  bloody 
reprisal  from  both  sides  that  sacrificed  hundreds  of  lives  and  wasted  millions 
of  dollars  in  property  loss  and  military  expense.  Third,  it  planted  sectarian 
animosities  between  professedly  Christian  peoples  that  are  active  and  unrelent- 
ing to  this  day.  Fourth,  it  proved  the  substantial  value  and  vital  force  of  the 
Provisional  Government  which  could  and  did  organize  an  army  and  defend  the 
people.  Fifth,  it  hastened  the  action  of  the  United  States  Congress  to  organize 
Oregon  into  a  Territorial  Government  under  the  care  and  protection  of  the 
United  States.  Sixth,  it  showed  most  effectively  that  the  elevation  of  the 
native  race  was  not  and  could  not  be  the  work  of  an  evanescent  religious  en- 
thusiasm carried  on  by  unreliable  contributions  of  kind  hearted  church  mem- 
bers; but  must  be  a  work  of  evolution  developed  and  carried  out  under  the 
certain  and  reliable  support  of  the  National  Government  which  would  guaranty 


382  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

peace  and  security  to  the  Indian  while  teaching  him  useful  arts  from  genera- 
tion to  generation.  To  sum  up  and  express  the  underlying  principle  of  this 
thought,  the  writer  will  quote  a  sentiment  uttered  by  the  Rev.  Elkanah 
Walker,  who  had  spent  ten  years  in  teaching  Indians  on  the  Spokane  river  from 
'1837  to  1847.  Mr.  Walker  preached  his  last  sermon  in  this  life  at  the  little 
union  church  at  Gaston,  Oregon;  during  the  course  of  which  he  referred  to  his 
experience  among  the  Indians,  and  closed  his  address  with  this  remark:  "It 
will  take  a  long,  long,  long  time  to  make  a  white  man  out  of  an  Indian,  but 
it  takes  but  a  very  brief  time  to  make  an  Indian  or.t  of  a  white  man." 

THE  INDIAN  WAES 

It  is  impracticable  to  include  in  this  history  the  long  and  tedious  account 
of  the  Indian  wars  of  Oregon.  The  narrative  would  crowd  out  other  and  more 
important  matter.  And  whilst  the  personal  experiences  of  beleaguered  settlers, 
the  courage  of  reckless  Indian  fighters,  and  the  hair-breadth  escapes  from  sav- 
age brutality  would  be  to  many  readers  interesting  in  some  ways,  yet  it  would 
not  teach  any  useful  lesson.  But  leading  examples  of  the  Indian  war  game  will 
be  given,  which  will  fully  illustrate  the  whole  period  of  the  wars;  and  im- 
portant battles  upon  which  depended  the  fate  of  the  dying  Indian  tribes  and 
confederacies  mil  be  given. 

The  Whitman  Massacre  was  the  opening  chapter  of  seven  years  of  more  or 
less  uninterrupted  warfare  with  the  Indian  tribes  of  Oregon.  The  first  call 
for  men  to  punish  the  Cayuses  for  the  murder  of  Whitman  and  safeguard  the 
immigration  to  Oregon  was  made  by  Governor  Abernethy  of  the  Provisional 
government.  The  news  of  the  massacre  reached  Oregon  City  on  December  8th 
after  the  horrible  deed,  being  communicated  to  the  governor  by  a  letter  from 
Fort  Vancouver  carried  by  a  special  messenger.  That  night  a  meeting  was 
called  for  volunteers  to  go  to  the  Dalles  and  defend  that  Mission  and  stop  any 
marauding  party  that  might  attempt  to  descend  the  Columbia  and  attack  the 
white  settlers.  The  meeting  resulted  in  a  volunteer  company  of  forty-five  men, 
who  adopted  the  name  of  "Oregon  Rifles"  as  the  name  of  their  organization. 
Most  of  the  men  had  their  own  rifles,  but  those  who  lacked  arms  were  furnished 
by  Dr.  McLoughlin  on  their  own  credit.  H.  A.  G.  Lee  was  made  captain;  J. 
Magone,  1st  lieutenant;  and  John  E.  Ross,  2nd  lieutenant.  This  being  the  first 
military  force  called  in  to  existence  to  defend  the  infant  state  of  Oregon,  the 
names  of  all  these  brave  men  going  out  to  defend  their  homes  and  the  homes 
of  their  neighbors  and  furnishing  their  own  arms  and  rations  without  pay, 
deserve  to  be  mentioned  here  as  "The  First  Defenders"  and  have  their  names 
recorded  here  as  follows : 

Joseph  B.  Proctor,  George  Moore,  W.  M.  Carpenter,  J.  S.  Rinearson,  H.  A.  G. 
Lee,  Thomas  Purvis,  J.  Magone,  C.  Richardson,  J.  E.  Ross,  I.  Walgamoutts,  John 
G.  Gibson,  B.  B.  Rogers,  Benj.  Bratton,  Samuel  K.  Barlow,  Wm.  Berry,  John 
Lassater,  John  Bolton,  Henry  W.  Coe,  William  Beekman,  Nathan  Olney,  Joel 
Witchey,  John  Fleming,  John  Little,  A.  J.  Thomas,  Geo.  Westby,  Edward  Rob- 
son,  Daniel  P.  Barnes,  J.  Kestor,  D  Everest,  J.  H.  McMillen,  Jno.  C.  Danford, 
Ed.  Marsh,  Joel  McKee,  H.  Levalley,  J.  W.  Morgan,  0.  Tupper,  R.  S.  Tupper, 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  383 

C.    II.    Devoiidort',   Jdliii    Kiiuicr,    V.    W.    Savage,    Shannon,    (i.    II.    Bosworlli, 
Jaeol)  Johnson,  Stephen  Ciuninings,  Geo.  Weston. 

As  forty-five  men  eouhl  not  make  war  upon  the  powerful  tribe  of  the  Cay- 
nses,  or  do  more  than  hold  the  "pass"  at  The  Dalles,  as  the  Greeks  had  the 
Thermopylae  "in  the  brave  days  of  old,"  Governor  Abernethy  submitted  the 
exigeney  to  the  Provisional  Legislature  then  in  session;  which  at  once  took  up 
the  weighty  matter  and  passed  laws  providing  for  an  army  of  fourteen  com- 
panies with  Field,  Staff  and  Line  officers  as  follows : 

Colonel,  Cornelius  Gilliam  (accidentally  killed). 

Lieutenant-Colonel,  James  Waters  (promoted  to  Colonel). 

Major,  H.  A.  G.  Lee. 

Adjutant,  B.  F.  Burch. 

Surgeon,  W.  M.  Carpenter. 

Assistant  Surgeons,  P.  Snyder  and  H.  Satfarans. 

Commissary,  Joel  Palmer. 

Quartermaster,  Berryman  Jennings. 

Paymaster,  L.  B.  Knox. 

Judge  Advocate,  Jacob  S.  Rinearson. 

Company  A — 55  men — Captain,  Lawrence  Hall;  "First  Lieutenant,  Hugh  D. 
0 'Bryant;  Second  Lieutenant,  John  Engent. 

Company  B — 43  men — Captain,  John  W.  Owens;  First  Lieutenant,  A.  F. 
Rogers;   Second  Lieutenant,  T.  C.  Shaw. 

Company  C — 84  men — Captain,  H.  J.  G.  Maxon;  First  Lieutenant,  I.  N. 
Gilbert;  Second  Lieutenant,  Wm.  P.  Pugh. 

Company  D— 36  men — Captain,  Thomas  McKay;  First  Lieutenant,  Charles 
McKay ;    Second  Lieutenant,  Alex.  McKay. 

Company  D — 52  men — Captain,  Phil  F.  Thompson;  First  Lieutenant,  Jas. 
Brown;   Second  Lieutenant,  Joseph  M.  Garrison. 

Company  E — 44  men — Captain,  Levi  N.  English;  First  Lieutenant,  Wm. 
Shaw;  Second  Lieutenant,  F.  M.  Munkers. 

Company  E — 36  men — Captain,  Wm.  Martin;  First  Lieutenant,  A.  E. 
Garrison ;  Second  Lieutenant,  David  Waters. 

Company  E — 63  men — Captain,  W.  P.  Pugh;  First  Lieutenant,  N.  R.  Doty; 
Second  Lieutenant,  Maxwell  Ramsby. 

Company  G — 66  men — Captain,  James  W.  Nesmith ;  First  Lieutenant,  J.  S. 
Snook;  Second  Lieutenant,  M.  Gilliam. 

Company  H — 49  men — Captain,  George  W.  Bennett ;  First  Lieutenant,  J.  R. 
Bevin ;  Second  Lieutenant,  J.  R.  Payne. 

Company  I — 36  men — Captain,  William  Shaw;  First  Lieutenant,  D.  Craw- 
ford; Second  Lieutenant,  B.  Dario. 

Company  No.  7 — 27  men — Captain,  J.  M.  Garrison;  First  Lieutenant,  A.  E. 
Garrison ;  Second  Lieutenant,  John  Hersen. 

F.  S.  Water's  Guard — 57  men — Captain,  Wm.  Martin;  First  Lieutenant, 
David  Weston ;  Second  Lieutenant,  B.  Taylor. 

Reorganized  Company — Captain,  John  E.  Ross;  First  Lieutenant,  D.  P. 
Barnes;  Second  Lieutenant,  W.  W.  Porter. 


384  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

The  following  brief  of  the  operations  of  Colonel  Gilliam  is  taken  from  Himes ' 
History  of  the  Willamette  Valley : 

"Colonel  Gilliam  reached  The  Dalles  on  the  twenty-third  of  February,  with 
fifty  men,  followed  a  few  days  later  by  the  remainder  of  the  regiment.     On  the 
twenty-seventh  he  moved  to  the  Des  Chutes  with  one  hundred  and  thirty  men, 
crossed  to  the  east  bank,  and  sent  Major  Lee  up  that  stream  about  twenty  miles 
on  a  reconnoisance,  where  he  found  the  enemy,  engaged  them,  killed  one,  lost 
some  of  his  horses  and  returned  to  report  progress.     On  the  twenty-ninth  Col- 
onel Gilliam  moved  up  to  the  Des  Chutes  to  Meek's  Crossing,  at  the  mouth  of 
the  canyon  in  which  Major  Lee  had  met  the  Indians.     The  next  morning,  on 
entering  the  canyon,  a  skirmish  followed,  in  which  were  captured  from  the  hos- 
tiles,  forty  horses,  four  head  of  cattle  and  $300  worth  of  personal  property, 
all  of  which  was  sold  by  the  Quartermaster  for  $1,400.     The  loss  of  the  In- 
dians in  killed  and  wounded  was  not  known.    There  was  one  white  man  wounded. 
The  result  was  a  treaty  of  peace  with  the  Des  Chutes  Indians.    The  command 
pushed  immediately  forward  to  the  Walla  Walla  country  and  reached  the  Mis- 
sion prior  to  March  4.    On  the  way  to  that  place  a  battle  occurred  at  Sand  Hol- 
low, on  the  emigrant  road,  eight  miles  east  of  the  Well  Springs.     It  commenced 
on  the  plain  where  washes  in  the  sand  made  natural  hiding  places  for  a  foe,  and 
lasted  until  towards  night.'    The  volunteer  force  was  arranged  with  the  train 
in  the  road,  protected  by  Captain  Hall's  company.     The  companies  of  Captain 
Thompson  and  Maxon,  forming  the  left  flank,  were  on  the  north  side  of  the 
road,  and  those  of  Captains  English  and  McKay,  as  the  right  flank,  were  on  the 
south,  or  right  side  of  the  command.     Upon  McKay's  company  at  the  extreme 
right  the  first  demonstration  was  made.    Five  Crows,  the  head  chief  of  the  Cay- 
uses,  made  some  pretentions  to  the  possession  of  wizard  powers,  and  declared 
to  his  people  that  no  ball  from  the  white  man's  gun  could  kill  him.     Another 
chief  of  that  tribe  named  'War  Eagle,'  or  'Swallow  Ball,'  made  similar  pro- 
fessions, and  stated  that  he  could  swallow  all  the  bullets  from  the  guns  of  the 
invading  army  if  they  were  fired  at  him.     The  two  chiefs  promised  their  peo- 
ple  that   Gilliam's   command   should   never   reach  the   Umatilla   river,   and   to 
demonstrate  their  invulnerability  and  power  as  medicine  chiefs,  they  dashed 
out  from  concealment,  rode  down  close  to  the  volunteers  and  shot  a  little  dog 
that  came  out  to  bark  at  them.     Captain  McKay,  although  the  order  was  not 
to  fire,  could  hold  back  no  longer,  and  bringing  his  rifie  to  bear,  took  deliberate 
aim  and  shot  War 'Eagle  through  the  head,  killing  him  instantly.     Lieutenant 
Charles  McKay  brought  his  gun  down  to  the  hollow  of  his  arm,  and  firing  with- 
out sighting  it,  so  severely  wounded  Five  Crows  that  he  gave  up  the  command 
of  his  warriors.    This  was  a  serious,  chilling  opening  for  the  Indians — two  chiefs 
gone  at  the  first  onset  and  their  medicine  proved  worthless — but  they  continued 
to  battle  in  a  skirmishing  way,  making  dashing  attacks  and  masterly  retreats 
until  late  in  the  afternoon.    At  one  time  during  the  engagement.  Captain  Max- 
on's  company  followed  the  enemy  so  far  that  it  was  surrounded,  and  a  sharp  en- 
counter followed,  in  which  a  number  of  volunteers  were  disabled,  in  fact,  eight 
of  the  eleven  soldiers  wounded  that  day  were  of  Maxon 's  company.     Two  In- 
dians were  known  to  have  been  killed,  but  the  enemy's  loss  could  not  be  known 
as  they  removed  all  their  wounded  and  dead  except  two. 

"That  night  the  regiment  camped  on  the  battlefield  without  water,  and  the 


VILDEM   FGUMDf.TlOISr., 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  885 

liitliaiis  built  large  ami  iiuiiiorous  fires  along  tiie  blulYs,  or  high  lauds,  some  two 
miles  iu  advance.  The  next  day  Colonel  Gilliam  moved  on,  and  without  inci- 
dent worthy  of  note,  reached  Whitman's  mission,  the  third  day  after  the 
battle.  The  main  body  of  Indians  fell  back  towards  Snake  river,  and  a  fruit- 
less attempt  followed  to  induce  them  to  give  up  the  parties  who  had  committed 
the  murders  at  Waiilatpu.  Colonel  Gilliam  at  last  determined  upon  making  a 
raid  into  the  Snake  river  country,  and  in  carrying  out  this  programme  sur- 
prised a  camp  of  Cayuses  near  that  stream,  among  whom  were  some  of  the  mur- 
derers. The  captured  camp  professed  friendship,  however,  and  pointed  out  the 
horses  of  Indians  on  the  hill,  which  they  said  belonged  to  the  parties  whom 
the  Colonel  was  anxious  to  kill  or  capture,  stating  that  their  owners  were  on  the 
north  side  of  the  Snake  river  and  beyond  reach.  So  well  was  their  part  acted  that 
the  officers  believed  their  statements,  proceeded  to  drive  ofE  the  stock  indicated, 
and  started  on  their  return.  They  soon  found  that  a  grievous  error  had  been 
made  in  releasing  the  village,  whose  male  population  was  soon  mounted  upon 
war  horses,  and  assailed  the  volunteers  on  all  sides,  forcing  them  to  fight  their  way 
as  they  fell  back  to  the  Touchet  river.  Through  the  whole  day  and  even  into  the 
night  after  their  arrival  at  the  latter  stream  the  contest  was  maintained — a 
constant  harrassiug  skirmish.  The  soldiers  drove  the  Indians  back  again  and 
again,  but  as  soon  as  the  retreat  was  resumed,  the  enemy  were  upon  them  once 
more.  Finally,  after  going  into  camp  on  the  Touchet,  Colonel  Gilliam  ordered 
the  captured  stock  turned  loose ;  and  when  the  Indians  got  possession  of  it,  they 
returned  to  Snake  river  without  molesting  the  command  any  further.  In  the 
struggle  on  the  Touchet,  when  the  retreating  soldiers  first  reached  that  stream. 
William  Taylor  was  mortally  wounded  by  an  Indian  who  sprang  up  in  the 
flushes  by  the  stream  and  fired  with  but  a  few  yards  between  them.  Nathan 
Olney,  afterwards  Indian  agent,  seeing  the  act,  rushed  upon  the  savage,  snatched 
from  his  hand  a  war  club  in  which  was  fastened  a  piece  of  iron,  and  dealt  him  a 
blow  on  the  head  with  it  with  such  force  as  to  cause  the  iron  to  split  the  club,  and 
yet  failed  to  kill  him.  He  then  closed  with  his  antagonist  in  a  hand-to-hand  strug- 
gle, and  soon  ended  the  contest  with  a  knife.  There  were  no  other  casualties  re- 
ported. 

"Colonel  Gilliam  started  from  the  Mission  on  the  twentieth  of  March,  with  a 
small  force  destined  to  return  from  The  Dalles  with  supplies,  while  he  was  to  con- 
tinue to  the  Willamette  and  report  to  the  governor.  While  camped  at  Well 
Springs  he  was  killed  by  an  accidental  discharge  of  a  gun,  and  his  remains  were 
taken  to  his  friends  west  of  the  Cascades  by  Major  Lee.  This  officer  soon  returned 
to  his  regiment  with  a  commission  as  Colonel,  but  finding  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Waters  had  been  elected  by  the  regiment  to  that  position  in  his  absence,  he  re- 
signed and  filled  a  subordinate  office,  for  the  remainder  of  his  term  of  enlistment. 
The  attempt  by  commissioners,  who  had  been  sent  with  the  volunteers,  as  re- 
quested by  the  Indians  in  a  memorial  to  the  Americans  at  the  time  the  captives 
were  ransomed,  to  negotiate  a  peaceful  solution  of  the  difficult  problem,  failed. 
They  wanted  the  Indians  to  deliver  up  for  execution  all  those  who  had  imbued 
their  hands  in  blood  at  Waiilatpu ;  they  wished  the  Cayvises  to  pay  all  damages 
to  imigrants  caused  by  their  being  robbed  or  attacked  while  passing  through  the 
Cayuse  country.  The  Indians  wished  nothing  of  the  kind.  They  wanted  peace 
and  to  be  let  alone;  for  the  Americans  to  call  the  account  balanced  and  drop  the 


386  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

matter.  The  failure  to  agree  had  resulted  in  two  or  three  skirmishes,  one 
of  them  at  least  a  severe  test  of  strength,  in  which  the  Indians  had  received  the 
worst  of  it,  and  in  the  other  the  volunteers  had  accomplished  nothing  that  could 
be  accounted  a  success.  The  Cayuses,  finding  that  no  compromise  could  be  ef- 
fected, abandoned  their  country,  and  most  of  them  passed  east  of  the  Rocky 
mountains.  Nothing  was  left  for  the  volunteers  but  to  leave  the  country  also, 
which  they  did,  and  the  Cayuse  War  had  practically  ended. 

' '  The  Cayuses,  as  a  tribe,  had  no  heart  in  the  war,  Joe  Lewis  told  them  imme- 
diately after  the  massacre  that  now  they  must  fight,  and  advised  them  to  send  him 
to  Salt  Lake  with  a  band  of  horses,  to  trade  for  ammunition  with  the  Mormons. 
He  started  with  a  select  band  of  animals,  accompanied  by  two  young  braves; 
and  a  few  days  later  one  of  them  returned  with  the  intelligence  that  Joe  Lewis 
had  killed  his  companion  and  decamped  with  the  horses;  and  this  was  the  last 
the  Cayuses  saw  of  the  scheming  villain.  Thus  matters  stood  until  the  spring  of 
1850,  when  the  Cayuses  were  given  to  understand  that  peace  could  be  procured 
by  delivering  up  the  murderers  for  punishment.  At  that  time  Tam-su-ky  and  his 
supporters,  including  many  relatives  who  had  not  in  any  manner  participated  in 
the  massacre,  were  hiding  in  the  mountains  at  the  head  of  John  Day  river.  The 
Indians  who  desired  peace  went  after  the  murderers,  and  a  fight  ensued,  ending 
in  the  capture  of  nearly  all  of  the  outlawed  band.  In  this  fight  'Cutmouth 
John,'  an  Indian  well  known  in  Umatilla,  while  endeavoring  to  capture  one 
of  the  murderers,  received  the  wound  which  gave  rise  to  his  peculiar  appellation. 
Only  one  of  the  five  actually  engaged  in  the  bloody  work  at  Waiilatpu  (so  the 
Whitman  Indians  assert)  was  captured,  and  he  was  Ta-ma-has,  and  ugly  villain 
whom  his  countrymen  called  'The  Murderer.'  It  was  he  who  commenced  the 
work  of  death  at  Waiilatpu  by  biirying  a  hatchet  in  Dr.  Whitman's  brain.  Tak- 
ing him  and  four  others,  several  of  the  older  men  and  chiefs  went  to  Oregon  City 
to  deliver  them  up  as  hostages.  They  were  at  once  thro\\Ti  into  prison,  condemned 
and  executed  at  Oregon  City  on  June  3,  1850 ;  and  even  the  ones  who  had  escorted 
them,  in  view  of  this  summary  proceeding,  congratulated  themselves  upon  their 
safe  return.  They  believed  that  Ta-ma-has  should  have  been  hanged,  but  not  the 
others.  So  that  it  was  the  peaceful  Indians  that  finally  brought  the  murderers 
to  trial  and  the  hangman's  rope." 

There  have  been  recently  rescued  from  dust  and  oblivion  some  of  the  docu- 
ments which  show  the  manner  of  furnishing  the  first  army  of  Oregon.  Yamhill 
county  sent  the  following:  Andrew  Hembree,  600  lbs.  pork,  and  20  bushels  of 
wheat ;  Eli  Perkins,  one  horse,  2  lbs.  powder,  2  boxes  caps,  5  lbs.  lead ;  William  J. 
Martin,  1  horse  loaded  with  provisions;  Benj.  Stewart,  2  boxes  caps,  2  lbs.  lead, 
1  blanket;  John  Baker,  1  horse;  Thomas  McBride,  $5.00  cash;  James  Ramsey, 
3  lbs.  powder,  8  lbs.  lead;  Samuel  Tustin,  $5.00  cash,  5  lbs.  lead,  2  lbs.  powder; 
Joel  J.  Hembree,  1  horse,  200  lbs.  pork,  20  bu.  wheat;  James  McGinnis,  $3.00 
in  orders;  James  Johnson,  $7.75  on  Abernethy,  4  lbs.  lead;  T.  J.  Hubbard,  1 
rifle,  1  pistol;  Hiram  Cooper,  1  rifle,  1  musket,  60  rounds  ammunition;  A.  A. 
Skinner,  1  blanket,  1  lb.  powder;  Jas.  Fenton,  3  pairs  shoes ;  J.  M.  Cooper,  2  boxes 
caps,  two  gims ;  James  Green,  2  boxes  caps,  2  lbs.  lead ;  C.  Wood,  1  rifle ;  J.  Row- 
land, 1  outfit ;  W.  T.  Newby,  1  horse ;  Carney  Goodridge,  5  bu.  wheat,  100  lbs. 
pork;  John  Manning,  1  pair  shoes;  John  Richardson,  1  Spanish  saddle-tree; 
Solomon  Allen  6  bars  lead;  Felix  Scott.  1  gray  horse;  O.  Risley,  1  rifle,  3  boxes 


THE  CENTENNIAL  IllSTOIv'Y  OF  OREGON  ;!.s7 

caps,  100  lbs.  flour;  M.  Burton,  1  pair  pants;  RiL-liard  Miller,  1  horse,  6  boxes  caps' 
Amos  Harvey,  1  guu;  James  Burton,  1  sack  and  stirrups.  Salem  Mercury,  in 
Albany  State  Rights  Democrat,  Oetobci'  12.  1S77.  Says  Abernetliy  to  Lee,  "We 
are  now  getting  lots  of  pork  and  some  wheat .  Or.,  Archives,  MSS.,  103.  Thomas 
Cox,  Avlio  had  lironslit  a  stock  of  goods  across  the  plains  the  jjrevious  summer, 
had  a  coiisidcralilc  (|uantitv  of  anununilion  which  was  manufactured  by  himself 
ill  Illinois,  and  winch  lir  now  freely  furnished  to  the  volniifeers  without  charge. 
Or.  Literary  Vidilt,.  A])ril,  1879.  The  "Caps"  mentioned  in  the  above  muni- 
tions of  war  wci-c  "percussion  caps"  to  fire  the  guns. 

JOE    JIKKK's   1MIS8ION    TO    WASHINGTON 

As  a  part  and  parcel  of  the  whole  country-wide  uproar  over  the  murder  of 
Whitman,  the  Provisional  Government  decided  to  send  a  special  messenger  far- 
H-way  over  the  mountains  to  President  Polk  beseeching  aid  to  the  colony.  All 
niiiuls  turned  at  once  to  one  and  the  same  man — Joseph  L.  Meek,  for  the  danger- 
ous mission.  Meek's  knowledge  of  the  mountains,  plains,  Indians  and  dangers 
of  every  sort  between  Oregon  and  the  Missouri  river  identified  him  as  the 
man  to  undertake  the  hazardous  trip ;  and  besides  all  this,  his  cousin,  James 
K.  Polk,  whom  he  had  not  seen  since  boyhood,  had  been  elected  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  it  was  believed  that  the  extraordinary  trip  of  such  a  delegate 
over  the  Rocky  mountains  in  the  depth  of  winter  would  arouse  the  President 
and  Congress  to  immediate  action.  Meek  resigned  his  membership  in  the  Pro- 
visional Government  Legislature,  accepted  the  commission  to  Washington  and 
made  speedy  arrangements  for  his  departure.  For  company  and  aid  in  trouble 
he  took  along  with  him  as  far  as  St.  Louis  his  old  mountaineer  friends,  John 
Owen  and  George  W.  Ebberts.  They  packed  their  pack  horses  and  took  saddle 
horses  and  left  Oregon  City  for  the  east  by  the  way  of  the  Barlow  road  around 
Mt.  Hood  on  January  4,  1848;  Meek  carrying  with  him  authority  from  the 
legislature  and  governor  to  present  Oregon's  ease  to  the  President  and  Congress 
of  the  United  States.  And  it  must  now  be  recorded  here  that  by  this  commission 
to  Meek,  Oregon  had  so  far  as  its  governor  had  authority,  put  two  delegates  to 
Congress  on  the  w'ay  to  Washington  City.  After  much  consideration  and  advice 
from  interested  parties  Governor  Abernethy  had  on  the  18th  of  October,  1847, 
appointed  and  commissioned  J.  Quinn  Thornton  to  go  to  Washington  City  and 
advocate  the  cause  of  Oregon  with  the  president  and  congress.  Thornton  was 
at  the  time  Supreme  Judge  of  the  Provisional  Government,  a  smooth,  plausible 
man  and  popular  with  the  Methodist  mission.  But  his  appointment  by  tlie 
governor  was  not  relished  by  the  legislature,  which  passed  resolutions  indi- 
rectly condemning  the  appointment  as  the  " offieiousness  of  secret  actions." 
Thornton  sailed  from  Portland  October  18,  1847,  on  his  mission  to  Washing- 
ton by  the  ocean  route  on  the  bark  Whittou,  whose  captain  contracted  in  con- 
sideration of  certain  voluntary  contributions  of  flour  and  very  little  money,  to 
carry  the  Oregon  delegate  down  to  Panama.  But  on  this  ship  and  contract 
Thornton  got  no  farther  than  San  Juan  on  the  coast  of  Lower  California,  where 
the  United  States  Sloop  of  War  Portsmouth  picked  up  the  stranded  Thornton 
and  carried  around  Cape  Horn  and  landed  him  at  Boston  on  May  2,   1848. 

Returning  now  to  the  Meek  party  we  find  'it  delayed  tw^o  weeks  at  the  Dalles 


388  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

to  allow  the  provisioual  army  to  drive  back  the  hostile  Indians.  Then  as  soon  as 
the  hostiles  were  out  of  the  way  Meek  proceeded  to  the  wrecked  Whitman  station 
and  decently  re-interred  the  murdered  victims  of  the  massacre,  the  hasty 
burial  by  the  Catholic  Priest  Brouillet  not  having  been  sufficient  to  protect  the 
bodies  of  the  slain  from  the  ravages  of  the  wolves.  At  this  time  Meek,  with 
thoughtful  tenderness,  saved  some  tresses  of  the  golden  hair  of  Mrs.  Whitman 
to  carry  to  relatives  in  the  states,  and  one  of  which  was  carefully  preserved  and 
turned  over  to  the  Oregon  Pioneer  Association,  and  is  now  in  the  rooms  of  the 
Oregon  Historical  Society,  City  Hall,  Portland.  And  notwithstanding  these 
unavoidable  delays,  such  was  the  tireless  energy  of  these  sturdy  pioneers  that 
within  sixty  days  after  leaving  Oregon  City  the  partj'  safely  reached  St. 
Joseph  on  the  Missouri  river.  If  one  stops  to  think,  and  can  think  of  all 
the  dangers,  trials  and  sufferings  those  men  had  to  endure  and  overcome  on 
that  trip  through  the  snows  in  the  dead  of  winter,  shooting  some  wild  animals 
and  packing  scanty  supplies  of  food  for  themselves,  sleeping  under  any  tempo- 
rary shelter  of  brush  or  trees  while  their  horses  pawed  the  snow  from  dried 
grass  for  feed,  over  a  trackless  winter  waste  for  two  thousand  miles,  they  can 
get  some  idea  of  the  fiber,  the  courage  and  the  real  heroism  of  the  men  who 
founded  the  state  of  Oregon  and  saved  it  to  the  United  States,  and  who  in  truth 
and  deed  stand  "unrival'd  in  the  glorious  lists  of  fame." 

It  was  not  an  exploit  that  necessarily  incurred  great  personal  dangei*,  hard- 
ship or  sacrifice  for  a  Csesar  to  cross  the  Rubicon  and  devastate  Gaul ;  nor  for 
Napoleon  to  scale  the  Alps  and  pounce  down  upon  Italy ;  nor  for  Grant  to  hang 
to  the  flanks  of  the  rebel  armies  until  they  were  penned  up,  exhausted  and  forced 
to  lay  down  their  arms  at  Appomattox;  but  it  was  a  mighty  different  propo- 
sition to  freeze  and  starve  and  bleed  with  Washington  at  Valley  Forge ;  or  to 
march  and  freeze  and  wade  and  fight  with  George  Rogers  Clark  at  Old  Vin- 
cennes  and  save  the  Ohio  valley  to  the  United  States ;  or  to  trudge  and  fight  and 
starve  and  freeze  with  Joe  Meek  and  the  Oregon  pioneers  to  save  three  great 
states  to  the  American  Union  and  secure  a  foothold  on  the  great  western  ocean. 
And  it  is  a  labor  of  love  as  well  as  duty  to  see  that  these  real  heroes  and  hero- 
ines of  the  Great  West  have  justice  done  their  names  as  far  as  words  and  histori- 
cal records  will  suffice. 

Although  Thornton  had  started  for  Washington  City  three  months  before 
Meek  started,  he  reached  the  city  only  one  week  before  Meek  got  there;  and 
Meek  had  the  advantage  of  three  months'  later  news  from  the  west  and  all  the 
thrilling  events  of  the  Whitman  massacre.  On  this  account  and  his  superior 
address  and  his  kinship  to  the  President,  he  quite  overshadowed  the  educated 
lawyer  and  judge,  Delegate  Thornton.  The  bill  to  organize  the  Oregon  terri- 
tory was  then  before  Congress,  and  the  report  that  Meek  was  able  to  make  suf- 
ficed to  load  up  Senator  Tom  Benton  with  one  of  the  best  of  the  many  speeches 
he  made  for  Oregon.  On  May  31,  1848,  Benton  in  advocacy  of  the  Oregon  Bill 
delivered  an  address  in  the  senate  from  which  is  taken  the  following  extract : 

"Only  three  or  four  years  ago  the  v/hole  United  States  seemed  to  be  in- 
flamed with  a  desii'e  to  get  possession  of  Oregon.  It  was  one  of  the  absorbing 
and  agitating  questions  of  the  continent.  To  obtain  exclusive  possession  of  Ore- 
gon, the  greatest  efforts  were  made,  and  it  was  at  length  obtained.  What  next  ? 
After  this  actual  occupation  of  the  entire  continent,  and  having  thus  obtained 
exclusive  possession  of  Oregon  in  order  that  we  might  govern  it,  we  have  seei\ 


No.    1      Cuiirnil    Cruok  Xu.   ::-    (hirf    .lulm    of    t|„.    ■Koguc    Ki 

No.  3 — Col.  .John  Ross,  Indian   Fighter 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  ;!h9 

si'ssiou  after  session  oi'  Congress  pass  away  witliout  a  single  thing  being  (lun<'  for 
tlie  government  of  a  country  to  obtain  possession  of  whieh  we  were  willing  to  go 
to  war  with  England! 

"Year  after  year,  and  session  after  session  have  gone  by,  and  to  this  <lay  tlie 
laws  of  the  United  States  have  not  been  extended  over  that  territory.  In  the 
meantime,  a  gi-eat  community  is  gi-owing  up  there,  composed  at  this  time  of 
twelve  thousand  souls — persons  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  from  Asia,  as  well 
as  from  Europe  and  America — and  which,  till  this  time,  have  been  preserved  in 
order  by  compact  among  themselves.  Great  efforts  have  been  made  to  preserve 
order — most  meritorious  efforts,  which  have  evinced  their  anxiety  to  maintain 
their  own  reputation  and  that  of  the  country  to  which  they  belong.  Their  ef- 
forts have  been  eminently  meritorious;  but  we  all  know  that  voluntary  govern- 
ments cannot  last — that  they  are  temporary  in  their  very  nature,  and  must  en- 
counter rude  shocks  and  resistance,  under  which  they  must  fall.  Besides  the  in- 
convenience resulting  from  the  absence  of  an  organized  government,  we  are  to 
recollect  that  there  never  yet  has  been  a  civilized  settlement  in  territory  occu- 
pied by  the  aboriginal  inhabitants,  in  which  a  war  between  the  races  has  not 
occurred.  Down  to  the  present  moment  the  settlers  in  Oregon  had  escaped  a 
conflict  with  the  Indians.  Now  the  Avar  between  them  is  breaking  out ;  and  I 
cannot  resist  the  conviction  that  if  there  had  been  a  regularly  organized  govern- 
ment in  that  counti-y,  immediately  after  the  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  with  a 
military  force  to  sustain  it — for  a  government  in  such  a  region  so  remote  would 
be  nothing  without  military  force — the  calamities  now  impending  over  that 
country  might  have  been  averted. 

But  no  government  was  established,  and  now  all  these  evils  are  coming  upon 
these  people,  as  everybody  must  have  foreseen  they  would  come ;  and  in  the  depth 
of  winter,  they  send  to  us  a  special  messenger,  who  makes  his  wa,y  across  the 
Rocky  mountains  at  a  time  when  almost  every  living  thing  perished  in  the  snow 
— when  the  snow  was  at  such  a  depth  that  nothing  could  penetrate  to  the  bottom 
of  it.  He  made  his  way  across,  however,  and  brings  these  complaints  which  we 
now  hear.  They  are  in  a  suffering  condition.  Not  a  moment  of  time  is  to  be 
lost.  If  the  bill  were  pa.ssed  this  instant — this  morning,  as  I  hoped  it  would  be — 
it  would  require  the  utmost  degree  of  vigor  in  the  execution' of  it  to  be  able  to 
send  troops  across  the  Rocky  mountains  before  the  season  of  deep  snow.  They 
should  cross  the  mountains  befoi-e  the  month  of  September.  I  was  in  hopes, 
then,  that  on  this  occasion  there  would  be  nothing  to  delay  action — that  we 
should  all  have  united  in  deploring  that  for  years  the  proposition  to  give  these 
people  government  and  laws  has  been  defeated  by  the  introduction  of  questions 
of  no  practical  conseciuence,  but  which  have  had  the  effect  of  depriving  these  peo- 
ple of  all  government  and  bringing  about  the  massacres  which  have  taken  place, 
and  in  which  the  benevolent  missionary  has  fallen  in  the  midst  of  his  labors. 
All  the  calamities  which  have  taken  place  in  that  country  have  resulted  from 
mixing  up  this  question,  which  has  not  a  particle  of  practical  value,  with  all  the 
measures  which  have  been  introduced  for  the  organization  of  a  government  in 
Oregon.  All  the  laws  passed  by  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  can  have  no 
effect  on  the  question  of  slavery  there.  In  that  country  there  is  a  law  superior 
to  any  which  Congress  can  pass  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  There  is  a  law  of 
climate,  of  position,  and  of  Nature  herself,  against  it.     Besides,  the  people  of  the 


390  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON     . 

country  itself,  by  far  the  largest  number  of  whom  have  gone  out  from  slave- 
holding  states,  many  of  them  from  the  state  of  Missouri,  in  their  organic  law, 
commumcated  to  Congress  more  than  a  year  ago,  and  printed  among  our  docu- 
ments at  the  last  session,  declare  that  the  law  of  nature  is  against  slavery  in  that 
region. ' ' 

Thus  it  is  seen  that  Meek's  record-breaking  dash  across  the  continent  in  the 
dead  of  winter,  and  Benton's  speech  quoted  are  necessary  incidents  from  the 
murder  of  the  martyr  missionary.  Whitman  had  himself  made  a  journey  from 
Oregon  to  Washington  in  the  winter  season  of  1842-3 ;  but  he  was  six  months  on 
the  way,  about  twice  the  time  consumed  by  Meek.  But  it  was  considering  the 
antecedents  and  knowledge  of  the  two  men,  quite  as  great  a  feat  of  physical 
prowess  for  Wliitman  as  for  Meek.  That  both  men  did,  each  in  his  way  largely 
influence  the  fate  of  Oregon  there  can  be  no  doubt.  The  career  of  Whitman  and 
his  wife,  and  their  brutal  murder  is  the  most  affecting,  exciting  and  dramatic 
chapter  of  history  of  the  United  States.  Even  down  to  the  arrest  and  execiition 
of  the  savages  the  pathos  and  the  horror  of  the  scene  keep  hand  in  hand,  and 
the  brutal  murderers  that  could  not  be  reached  and  arrested  by  white  men  were 
hunted  down  and  delivered  up  for  trial  and  execution  by  their  own  blood  and 
kindred,  for  the  purpose  of  putting  an  end  to  the  white  man's  war  against  the 
Cayuse  tribe. 

THE  BATTLE  OP  THE  ABIQITA 

The  Cayuse  war  east  of  the  Cascade  mountains  came  to  an  end  more  from 
the  inability  of  the  Indians  to  get  powder  than  from  being  whipped  out  by  the 
volunteers ;  which  is,  however  no  reflection  on  the  volunteer  soldiers,  as  they  had 
faithfully  put  in  their  time  with  short  rations  and  on  their  own  equipment  of 
clothing  and  arms  in  patrolling  the  Oregon  trail  and  making  travel  safe.  The 
murderers  reduced  to  poverty  and  destitute  of  ammunition  had  to  keep  out  of 
the  way  of  an  even  half  dozen  men  with  good  guns  and  plenty  of  powder  and  bul- 
lets. 

But  the  story  of  the  fighting  had  spread  far  and  wide  among  the  Indians  as 
if  by  wireless  telegraph,  and  restless  spirits  among  them  were  everywhere  eager 
to  give  the  whites  all  the  trouble  they  could  inflict.  And  among  these  wander- 
ing bands  were  some  Molallas  and  Klamaths  who  ranged  about  the  head  of  the 
Willamette  valle.y,  and  skulked  along  down  the  foothills  where  the  towns  of 
Brownsville,  Lebanon,  Scio  and  Stayton  are  now  located.  These  marauders  be- 
lieving all  the  warriors  among  the  white  settlers  had  gone  away  to  fight  the  Cay- 
uses,  took  advantage  of  the  situation  to  rob  and  steal  whatever  came  liandy,  and 
in  one  instance  attacked  and  abused  a  young  woman  in  Lane  county,  stole  a  lot 
of  cattle  in  Benton  county,  and  attacked  the  house  of  Richard  Miller  near  Cham- 
poeg  in  Marion  county.  The  mail  carrier — the  only  mail  carrier  in  Oregon  at 
that  time — came  up  with  the  robbers  and  immediately  scattered  the  alarm  and 
soon  collected  a  force  of  150  men  and  boys  at  the  house  of  Miller  to  pursue  and 
punish  the  Indians.  This  volunteer  force  organized  immediately  by  the  election 
of  Daniel  Waldo  as  colonel,  and  R.  C.  Geer,  Allen  Davy,  Richard  Miller  and 
Daniel  Parker  as  captains.  The  Indian  encampment  was  on  Abiqua  creek  where 
it  enters  the  valley   from  the   Cascade   IMountains  about  where   Silverton   is 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORV  OF  OREGON  391 

uovv;  and  toward  this  poiut  llic  vdluiilcfrs  iiuiiiediately  marched  with 
their  shooting  irous;  tlie  nioiuitcd  nicii  pi'dcccdinK-  up  the  uorth  side  of  the  ereek, 
and  the  footmen  on  tlie  south  side.  R.  L\  (ieer  wrote  an  aceoimt  of  this  affair 
which  was  pi'intcd  in  the  Oregon  Statesman  in  August,  1877.  He  mentions  the 
lolh)wing  settlers  as  taking  part  in  the  liattle  which  took  place:  William  Parker, 
James  Harpole,  Wilburn  King,  James  Brown,  S.  D.  Maxon,  L.  A.  Bird,  Israel 
Shaw.  Robert  Shaw,  King  Ilibbard,  William  Brisbane,  —  Winchester,  Port 
(iilliam,  William  Thomas  Howell,  George  Howell  (founders  of  Howell  Prairie), 
William  Hendricks.  Lew  Goff,  Leander  Davis,  G.  W.  Hunt,  James  Williams,  J. 
Warnnck.  J.  \V.  Shrum.  Thomas  Shrum,  Elias  Cox,  Cyrus  Smith,  T.  B.  Allen, 
lit'nry  Shrum,  antl  Jacol)  Caplinger.  The  volunteers  overtaking  the  Indians 
before  dark,  they  retreated  up  the  creek  after  exchanging  a  few  shots  with  the 
attacking  party.  Night  coming  on.  those  who  had  families  to  protect  returned 
home,  leaving  the  single  men  and  boys  to  watch  the  enemy.  At  daybreak  the 
next  morning  pursuit  of  the  foe  was  commenced  and  a  running  fight  kept  up 
for  most  of  the  day.  Seven  warrior  Indians,  one  of  whom  was  a  woman,  were 
killed  and  two  Indian  women  wounded.  But  when  the  battle  was  over  it  was  dis- 
covered that  the  volunteers  liad  not  engaged  the  fighting  marauding  Indians, 
but  those  who  had  suffered  were  the  families  and  camp  guards,  while  the  real  rob- 
bers and  fighters  had  escaped  entirely.  The  easy  victory  was  not  a  matter  to  be 
proud  of  and  was  never  much  referred  to  for  thirty  j-ears  afterwards,  when  it 
was  all  threshed  out  in  the  public  press  again.  But  thfere  can  be  no  doubt  that 
if  prompt  resistance  had  not  been  made  to  the  raids  of  these  Indians,  the  ma- 
rauders, emboldened  by  success,  might  have  brought  in  all  the  warriors  of  the 
Klamath  tribe,  a  nation  of  fighters,  as  proved  by  Capt.  Jack  in  the  ^Modoc  war. 
and  many  lives  would  have  been  lost  and  homes  burned  out. 

WIDESPRE.VD    DEMORALIZ.\TION   OF   THE   INDIANS 

The  raid  into  the  Willamette  valley  and  the  battle  of  the  Abiqua,  trifling  in 
itself,  was  however,  important  as  an  indication  of  widespread  unrest  and  demor- 
alization of  the  Indians  in  Oregon.  The  provisional  government  being  forced  to 
act  to  defend  its  own  citizens,  was  compelled  to  face  and  deal  with  the  wider  and 
greater  (piestion  of  maintaining  the  peace  with  all  the  Indian  tribes  within  the 
ten-itory  now  covered  by  the  States  of  Oregon,  W^a.shington  and  Idaho.  Steps 
nuist  be  taken  at  once  to  control  the  supplies  of  powder  and  balls  to  the  Indians 
throughout  this  vast  region;  for  if  ammunition  was  freely  on  sale  at  any  point 
within  this  territorj',  Indian  runners  would  distribute  it  throughout  the  whole 
region.  There  were  by  this  time  twenty-six  Catholic  priests,  with  schools  and 
stations  scattered  over  this  widely  extended  region,  all  of  whom,  and  especially 
the  Indians  attached  thereto,  must  be  provided  with  food,  the  principal  part  of 
which  was  the  wild  game.  This  all  required  ammunition,  and  the  priests  pro- 
vided the  same  just  as  they  would  any  other  supply.  This  enraged  the  Ameri- 
cans, as  they  believed  the  Indians  would  use  this  ammunition  to  make  war  on 
tlie  American  settlers.  And  so  the  line  of  cleavage  and  battle  was  drawn;  the 
lU'iests  and  the  Indians  on  one  side,  and  the  Protestant  preachers,  American  set- 
tlers and  the  provisional  government  on  the  other.  It  was  passing  strange  that 
peace  was  maintained  at  all. 


392  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

MISSIONARIES  OF  MURDER 

The  military  forces  of  Col.  Gilliam  had  not  been  able  to  capture  the  mur- 
derers of  Dr.  Whitman,  nor  to  force  the  Cayuses  into  a  decisive  battle ;  but  they 
had  succeeded  in  breaking  up  the  existing  tribal  community  of  the  Cayuses  and 
scattering  them  far  and  wide  from  the  Columbia  to  California  and  from  the 
Cascade  mountains  to  the  Rockies ;  and  everywhere  the  Cayuse  had  gone  he  was 
a  preacher  of  murder  and  destruction  of  the  white  men,  telling  how  they  had 
been  driven  away  from  their  lands,  homes  and  graves  of  their  fathers.  It  was 
a  hard  case  to  meet,  and  the  Cayuse  war  was  substantially  the  parent  of  all  the 
other  Oregon  Indian  Wars. 

ROGUE  RIVER  WARS 

Whether  justlj-  or  unjustly,  the  community  of  tribes  and  families  of  Indians 
inhabiting  the  southwest  corner  of  the  state,  and  classed  by  the  Ethnologists 
as  the  Shastan,  Takelman  and  Athapaskan  families,  commenced  their  inter- 
course with  the  white  man  under  the  reputation  of  being  a  bad  lot ;  so  bad  that 
they  were  named  the  "Rogues;"  and  the  disreputable  appellation  attached  to 
their  beautiful  river.  The  author  is  aware  that  some  writers  claim  that  the  river 
got  its  name  from  red  or  "rouge"  clay  found  along  its  banks,  and  with  which 
the  Indians  always  painted  themselves  before  going  into  battle.  But  as  he  has 
been  up  and  down  the  river  from  its  source  in  Mt.  McLoughlin  to  its  discharge 
into  the  Pacific  ocean  at  Gold  Beach,  and  never  saw  or  heard  of  any  such  red  or 
"rouge"  clay,  the  unfortunate  name  will  stick  to  the  river  long  after  the 
last  rogue  of  an  Indian  has  departed  to  the  happy  hunting  grounds  beyond 
this  vale  of  tears.  The  unimaginable  titanic  forces  concealed  in  the  crust  of  our 
little  globe  of  an  earth  never  produced  anywhere  on  its  surface  a  more  beautiful 
home  for  a  nomadic  race  of  men  than  is  to  be  found  in  the  clustered  valleys  of  the 
Umpqua,  Rogiie  river,  Illinois,  Applegate,  Klamath,  Scott  and  Shasta,  with 
their  intervening  timber  and  picturesque  mountains.  Having  been  all  over  that 
region,  and  knowing  of  all  the  hatred  with  which  the  early  miners  and  settlers 
regarded  the  native  Indian  owners  of  that  land,  yet  the  impartial  judge  might 
well  be  justified  in  paraphrasing  and  applying  to  the  Rogue  River  Indian  wars 
the  famous  speech  of  Tom  Corwin  (senator  from  Ohio)  on  the  Mexican  war,  and 
say,  "  If  I  were  an  Indian  as  I  am  an  Amei-ican,  I  would  welcome  the  white  men 
with  bloody  hands  to  hospitable  graves." 

To  comprehend  the  historical  lesson  of  the  Indian  wars,  or  any  war,  the 
reader  should  "put  himself  in  their  place."  The  Indian  had  been  living  in  these 
beautiful  valleys,  untouched  by  the  hands  of  man,  for  thousands  of  years.  His 
untutored  mind  seeing  God  onlj^  in  clouds,  or  hearing  Him  only  in  the  wind, 
could  no  more  comprehend  the  white  man's  desire  for  land  to  dig  gold  out  of, 
or  produce  food  from,  that  he  could  explain  the  apparent  daily  round  of  sun, 
moon  and  stars.  Lee,  Whitman,  Walker  and  Spalding  had  laboriously  sought 
to  enlighten  that  untutored  mind  in  the  Cayuse  and  Nez  Perce,  and  in  a  little 
measure  prepared  the  Indian  to  comprehend  the  white  man.  But  the  Rogue 
River  Indian  had  received  no  such  light ;  and  all  he  knew  of  the  white  man  was 
as  an  uninvited  intruder  on  his  peaceful  home,  a  taker  of  his  land  and  game 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HfSTORY  OF  OREGON  393 

without  liis  coiiseut  or  without  even  asking  for  it ;  aud  so  from  the  very  hrsl  it  was 
war  to  the  knife,  and  knife  to  the  hilt  between  the  two  oecupiers  of  those  val- 
leys. • 

When  -Joseph  Ijjiui',  tlir  lirst  yovernor  of  Oregon  under  L'nited  States  author- 
ity, reaehed  Oregon  City  on  ilareh  2,  184!J,  he  found  the  Cayuse  war  practically 
ended  by  Governor  Abernethy  and  the  provisional  government  troops.  Whit 
man's  murderers  had  been  captured  but  not  yet  ti'ied  for  the  murder.  The 
desultory  border  warfare  between  the  miners  and  settlers  of  Southern  Oregon 
had  been  going  on  for  years  as  occasion  offered  to  attack  emigrant  trains,  or 
parties  passing  between  Oregon  and  California.  Gold  had  been  discovere«'  be- 
fore Lane  reaehed  Oregon,  and  he  quickly  sized  up  the  importance  of  peace  with 
the  Indians  of  the  Southern  Oregon  valleys,  through  which  the  gold  seekers  must 
pass  and  repass  with  their  pack  trains  and  treasure.  A  party  of  gold  miners 
returning  from  California  had  been  attacked  at  Rocky  Point  on  Rogue  river  and 
barely  escaped  with  their  lives  into  the  woods,  while  the  Indians  seized  their 
camp  outfit  and  poured  all  their  gold  dust  into  the  river.  Governor  Lane  was 
not  a  man  to  halt  between  two  opinions,  and  quicklj-  calling  to  his  aid  fifteen  ex- 
perienced white  men  and  taking  along  with  him  also  Klickitat  Indian  Chii'f 
Quatley  and  fifteen  of  his  warriors,  the  expedition  set  out  for  Rogue  river  valhy 
in  May,  1850.  Reaching  the  neighboi-hood  of  the  Indian  village  at  Sam's  Valley 
not  far  from  Rock  Point  about  the  middle  of  June,  1850,  Lane  sent  a  message 
to  the  Indian  chief  to  come  to  his  (Lane's)  camp  for  a  talk,  as  he  had  come 
to  make  a  treaty  of  peace  and  friendship.  The  Indian  returned  an 
answer  that  he  and  his  people  would  come  unarmed  as  directed,  in  two  days. 
,Vnd,  according  to  promise,  the  two  principal  chiefs  and  seventy-five  war- 
riors came  and  crossed  over  the  river  to  Lane's  camp.  Lane  had  already 
coached  Chief  Quatley  and  his  warriors  as  to  what  they  were  to  do ;  whicii 
was  to  help  to  make  a  treaty  of  peace;  and  not  to  fight  unless  fighting  was 
necessary.  A  cii'cle  was  formed,  with  the  Rogue  river  warriors  forming  one- 
half  thereof,  and  the  white  men  and  Quatley  and  his  warriors  forming  the  other 
half,  with  Governor  Lane  and  the  Rogue  river  chiefs  in  the  centre.  But  before 
these  high  contracting  parties  got  down  to  business,  a  second  band  of  Rogue 
river  warriors  as  large  as  the  first  appeared  on  the  scene  fully  armed  with  bows 
and  arrows,  and  the  outlook  was  much  more  like  fighting  than  peace-making. 
Here  were  150  Indian  warriors  on  one  side,  and  fifteen  white  men  aud  fifteen 
Klickitats  on  the  other  side.  It  took  a  man  of  superb  courage,  immovable  nerve 
and  supreme  confidence  in  himself  to  face  the  situation ;  and  yet  Governor  Joe 
Lane  proved  equal  to  the  occasion.  The  first  move  was  to  order  the  second  band 
of  Indians  to  deposit  all  their  arms  behind  the  outside  circle  and  sit  down  on 
the  grass.  Then  Lane  directed  Quatley  with  two  of  his  men  to  take  a  position 
next  to  the  head  Rogue  river  chief,  to  be  ready  for  an  emergency.  Then  Gov- 
ernor Lane  made  an  address  to  the  Indians  through  an  interpreter  in  which  ho 
explained  his  position  as  head  man  among  the  whites,  and  reminded  them  of 
their  acts  in  killing  and  I'obbing  white  men.  and  that  he  wanted  all  such  conduct 
stopped,  and  wanted  the  whites  and  Indians  to  live  at  peace  with  each  other  as 
brothers ;  and  that  if  the  Indians  respected  his  wishes  aud  advice  and  beliaved 
well  that  they  would  all  be  paid  for  their  land,  and  have  an  agent  and  teachers 
to  instruct  them  in  all  the  ways  and  knowledge  of  white  men.    In  reply  to  this, 


394  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

when  Lane  was  done  speaking,  the  Rogue  River  chief  addressed  his  warriors  in 
a  loud  voice,  in  deliberate  words  with  menacing  gestures,  when  instantly  every 
Indian  sprang  to  his  feet,  raised  the  war  cry  and  seized  their  weapons.  Klickitat 
Chief  Quatlej'  instantly  seized  the  Rogue  River  chief  and  held  him  fast.  And 
Governor  Lane  ordering  his  men  not  to  fire,  with  revolver  in  hand  dashed  at  the 
armed  Rogue  Rivers  and  knocked  their  guns  and  bows  out  of  their  hands,  com- 
manding them  to  sit  down  again.  And  as  their  chief  was  a  prisoner,  with  Quat- 
ley's  knife  at  his  throat,  tliej^  quickly  obeyed  Lane's  order.  Lane  then  com- 
manded the  captive  Chief  to  send  his  warriors  away  or  they  would  be  shot 
on  the  spot,  and  not  to  come  back  for  two  days,  while  their  big  Chief  was  re- 
tained in  Lane's  camp  as  a  prisoner.  During  the  absence  of  the  warriors  Lane 
used  evei-y  means  to  impress  the  chief  with  the  power  of  the  white  man,  their 
great  numbers,  guns,  etc.,  and  succeeded  in  convincing  him  that  it  was  best  to 
make  a  treat.y  of  peace.  And  when  the  warriors  returned  at  the  end  of  the  two 
days  the  chief  advised  them  to  accept  the  terms  which  the  great  white  Chief  of- 
fered, which  they  finally  agi*eed  to.  The  treaty  being  concluded.  Lane  gave  the 
Indians  slips  of  paper  announcing  the  fact,  and  warning  white  men  to  do  them 
no  injur}-.  These  little  papers,  bearing  Lane's  signature,  became  a  talisman 
among  all  the  Indians,  who  on  meeting  a  white  man  would  hold  the  paper  up, 
crying  out  ' ' Jo  Lane  1 "  "Jo  Lane ! ' '  the  only  English  words  they  knew.  This 
treaty  was  fairly  well  kept  by  both  sides  for  about  a  j'car.  The  old  Chief  and 
Lane  became  fast  friends,  the  Chief  asking  Lane  to  bestow  his  name"  upon  him, 
saying  he  had  seen  no  man  equal  to  "Jo  Lane." 

The  governor  consented  to  give  him  half  his  name,  and  thereafter  the  Indian 
went  b.y  the  name  of  "Jo,"  and  in  the  last  treaty  with  the  Rogue  Rivers  is  named 
"Joseph."  The  governor  also  named  the  chief's  wife,  calling  her  Sally.  And 
these  two  royal  heads  of  the  Rogue  River  nation  had  a  son  and  daughter  which 
Lane  also  gave  names  to,  naming  the  son  "Ben"  and  to  the  daughter,  who  is 
represented  bj'  Lane  to  have  been  ciuite  a  qvieen  in  beauty  and  manners,  he  gave 
the  gentle  name  of  "Mary."  This  Mary  was  an  unusual  Indian.  She  never 
married  into  the  tribe,  and  when  after  five  years  of  war  the  remainder  of  the 
tribe  was  placed  on  the  Siletz  Reservation,  Mary  chose  her  life  among  the  white 
people  of  Rogue  river  valley,  and  lived  and  died  with  them ;  and  of  her,  gowned 
in  the  gorgeous  dress  of  beads,  silks  and  lace  she  had  made  with  her  own  hands, 
and  in  which  she  was  buried,  is  given  a  fine  photo-engraved  picture  on  another 
page. 

Having  now  given  the  opening  chapter  of  the  Rogue  River  wars,  let  us  for  a 
moment  compare  the  leading  incident  of  this  chapter  with  a  similar  scene  in  the 
Cayuse  war.  When  Peter  Skene  Ogden  suuuuoned  the  Cayuse  chiefs  before  him 
to  give  an  account  of  themselves  and  their  station  in  connection  with  the  Whitman 
massacre  he  knew  that  he  had  to  deal  with  the  whole  of  the  three  Caj'use,  Nez 
Perce  and  Snake  tribes.  For  while  the  Nez  Perces  and  Snakes  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  murders,  they  were  not  friendly  to  Whitman  because  of  the  immi- 
gration of  the  white  men  and  not  disposed  to  hunt  down  his  murderers.  Ogden 
could  not  go  out  and  find  and  arrest  the  murderers  or  recover  the  unfortunate 
prisoners.  If  he  succeeded  in  his  mission  it  must  be  thi'ough  the  moral  and 
mental  forces  of  his  personality.  In  this  he  was  of  course  supported  by  the  fact 
that  he  represented  the  all-powerful  fur  company.     But  he  made  the  demand 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OK  OREGON  ;j'.)5 

I'or  the  prisoners  in  tlu^  fiice  of  ;ill  this  taeit  opposition,  aiid  in  Ihr  I'jiee  of  the 
J'ear  of  the  Jiidiaii  Chiefs  th;it  they  iniglit  themselves  lie  pnnishcd  if  tliey  yiehled 
to  tlie  white  Ciiief 's  (lein.-iinl.  But  i)i'otesting  their  own  innoceuee  while  pleading 
that  the  nuirders  were  more  tiuui  eondoned  fof  ]>y  Ihe  idlling  of  Indians  by 
white  men  in  California,  they  suri-endered  to  the  une«iuivocal  demand  of  a  single 
white  man.  That  was  a  great  triumph  of  moral  over  brute  force,  represented  by 
the  personality,  culture  and  intellectual  powers  of  Ogden. 

Now  shift  the  scene  from  the  Umatilla  to  Rogue  River.  The  Rogue  River 
Indians  had  been  robbing  and  killing  inoffending  white  men  passing  through 
their  country  for  more  than  twenty  years,  and  had  escaped  any  punishment  for 
their  savage  brutalities.  The  first  man  in  authority,  and  tbe  first  man  of  any 
station  to  appear  on  the  scene  and  demand  a  settlement  was  Joseph  Lane,  then 
territorial  governor.  The  Rogue  River  Indians  knew  no  more  about  Lane  or  his 
ofiScial  position  than  they  knew  about  Christopher  Columbus.  To  them  Governor 
Lane  was  only  a  man  like  any  other  white  man.  That  he  was  the  big  chief  they 
had  only  his  word  for  it.  And  yet  he  calls  them  in  for  a  council — 150  warriors, 
half  of  them  armed,  with  their  big  chief,  sullen,  unyielding,  demanding  war  and 
swift  killing  of  all  white  men.  And  yet,  with  his  slender  force  of  thirty  men, 
half  of  them  Indians,  and  surrounded  by  the  savages,  he  boldly  arrests  their 
chief  before  their  eyes,  binds  him  a  prisoner,  and  then  with  his  own  single 
weapon  proceeds  to  knock  their  bows,  arrows  and  guns  out  of  their  hands,  in- 
dignantly dismisses  the  council,  ordering  the  Indian  army  to  begone  and  not 
return  for  two  days — and  they  obey  his  orders  and  leave  their  chief  in  his  hands 
without  an  efi'ort  to  release  him.  The  feat  of  Governor  Lane  was  greater  than 
that  of  Ogden :  for  he  had  twenty  times  as  many  Indians  in  his  presence  to  deal 
with ;  he  had  not  the  prestige  of  the  great  fur  company  to  back  him,  and  he  of- 
fered no  ransom  of  presents  or  plunder  to  secure  peace.  And  yet  he,  by  sheer 
force,  of  his  own  demonstration  and  natural  superiority  over  the  red  men, 
forced  the  Rogue  Rivers  into  a  peace  treaty  that  was  observed  for  more  than  a 
year. 

After  making  this  treaty.  General  Lane  passed  on  down  to  California  and 
engaged  in  gold  mining,  having  learned  that  he  was  to  be,  as  it  turned  out  that 
he  was,  sujierseded  as  governor  of  Oregon  by  the  api)ointnient  of  John  P.  Gaines 
as  governor. 

In  1850  Congress  passed  an  Act  to  extinguish  the  Indian  title  to  all  lands 
west  of  the  Cascade  mountains,  and  President  ]Millard  Fillmore  appointed  Anson 
P.  Dart  superintendent  of  Indian  affairs  for  Oregon.  A  commission  was  also 
created  by  congress  consisting  of  the  newly  appointed  Governor  Gaines,  Alonzo 
A.  Skinner  and  Beverly  S.  Allen,  to  make  treaties  with  the  Indians  west  of  the 
Cascades.  Superintendent  Dart  soon  had  plenty  of  trouble.  For  without  any- 
body being  able  to  point  out  the  exciting  cause  of  it,  during  the  latter  part  of 
1850  and  the  summer  of  1851  there  was  a  general  outbreak  of  the  Indian  war 
spirit  from  the  Snake  river  region  down  to  the  California  line.  Many  persons 
blamed  the  troiible  upon  the  instigation  of  the  ^Mormons,  and  others  upon  the 
general  unrest  of  the  Indians  by  the  increasing  settlements  of  the  white  people. 
The  latter  cause  was  all-sulificient.  The  Indian  could  see  that  he  could  not  com- 
pete with  the  white  man :  and  that  he  must  become  subject  to  him  or  go  down  in 
the  contest,  and  he  resolved  to  fight  first.     On  the  Oregon  trail  through  Idaho 


396  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

the  immigration  of  1851  suffered  the  most  fiendish  outrages  at  the  hands  of  the 
Snakes,  who  regarded  neither  age,  sex  or  condition.  Thirty-four  persons  were 
killed,  many  wounded,  and  many  thousand  dollars  worth  of  horses  and  cattle 
stolen.  The  road  to  California,  now  constantly  traveled  by  going  and  returning 
gold  miners,  could  not  be  safely  passed  over  without  constant  danger  of  Indian 
ambuscades  with  frequent  murders.  David  Dilley  was  murdered  and  his  camp 
robbed  of  much  gold  dust  by  two  professedly  friendly  Rogue  Rivers ;  Dr.  James 
McBride,  of  Yamhill  county,  with  thirty-one  men  returning  from  California, 
were  attacked  at  Rogue  river  by  two  hundred  Indians,  half  of  whom  were  armed 
with  rifles,  the  ilcBride  party  having  only  seventeen  guns.  The  battle  lasted 
four  hours,  and  until  the  Indian  Chief  Chucklehead  was  killed,  when  the  In- 
dians drew  off.  The  white  men  lost  sixteen  hundred  dollars  worth  of  gold  dust 
and  other  property,  but  no  men ;  the  Indian  loss  not  known.  At  the  time  of  this 
battle  Major  Philip  S.  Kearney  had  a  party  of  United  States  dragoons  explor- 
ing out  a  road  through  the  Umpqua  canyon  to  Rogue  river,  and  receiving  infor-, 
mation  of  the  fight  made  a  forced  march  with  twenty-eight  men  to  the  scene  of 
the  trouble,  reaching  Rogue  river  five  miles  below  Table  Rock,  the  ancient  In- 
dian stronghold.  Here  he  divided  his  force  and  sending  one-half  of  the  men  up 
the  south  bank  of  the  river  under  Captain  James  Stuart  and  leading  the  other 
half  up  the  north  bank,  he  soon  found  plenty  of  Indians  who  were  prepared  for 
and  expecting  an  attack.  The  men  had  tied  their  sabers  to  their  saddles  to  pre- 
vent noise  and  when  they  struck  the  Indian  camp  they  dismounted  so  quicklj^ 
they  forgot  their  sabers  and  dashed  into  the  Indians  firing  their  carbines  and 
charging  with  revolvers.  The  Indians — 200  of  them — fled  from  twenty-eight 
soldiers,  leaving  eleven  dead  on  the  ground;  the  only  loss  of  the  whites  being- 
Captain  Stuart  who  was  shot  through  the  kidneys  by  an  arrow  fired  by  an  In- 
dian he  had  knocked  down,  dying  the  next  daj^  from  the  wound,  and  being 
buried  at  the  mouth  of  a  creek  emptying  into  Rogue  River,  and  which  from  that 
incident  received  the  name  of  Stuart  creek. 

Fi-om  the  Stuart  creek  battlefield,  the  Indians  fell  back  to  their  natural  forti- 
fication at  Table  Rock,  which  is  a  high,  flat-topped  promontory  overlooking 
Rogue  River  valley,  and  from  which  signals  can  be  given  for  many  miles.  Find- 
ing his  force  too  small  to  attack  the  Indians  in  this  position  he  made  a  camp  to 
observe  the  enemy  and  wait  for  the  balance  of  his  force  with  volunteers  to  come 
in  and  prepare  to  attack  the  Indian  stronghold.  Here  he  was  soon  reinforced 
by  thirty  miners  going  to  the  Willow  Springs  mines,  and  by  General  Lane  and 
forty  men  making  a  second  venture  to  the  California  mines.  And  with  this 
combined  force  of  about  one  hundred  men.  Major  Kearney  attacked  the  Indians 
behind  their  log  defenses  on  Table  Rock  on  June  23,  1851.  Two  attacks  were 
made  on  the  24th,  one  in  the  morning  and  one  in  the  afternoon.  General  Lane's 
old  friend.  Chief  "Jo"  being  in  command  of  the  Indians,  and  boasting  that 
while  he  had  not  many  guns,  he  had  bows  enough  ' '  to  keep  a  thousand  arrows 
in  the  air  all  the  time. ' '  There  had  then  been  practically  four  days  of  fighting, 
and  Kearney  then  offered  to  treat  for  peace,  and  if  no  peace  attack  the  Indians 
again  on  June  25th.  The  morning  of  the  25th  came  and  found  the  Indians  run- 
ning down  the  river,  which  they  crossed  seven  miles  below  Table  Rock  and  fled 
up  Sardine  creek.  As  soon  as  the  course  of  the  Indians  was  discovered,  the  reg- 
ulars and  volunteers  mounted  their  horses  and  all  joined  in  hot  pursuit  of  the 


^l-r*" 


g.o 


I  3       H 

.J-    r 


P  3  K 
O  CO  r 
p.         ^ 


TO  2;      o 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  397 

flying  enemy,  which  was  soon  overtaken,  the  warriors  running  without  stopping 
to  fight,  scattering  in  tlie  forest,  and  leaving  their  women  and  children  to  be 
captured  and  fed  by  the  soldiers.  After  scouring  among  the  hills  for  two  days 
and  finding  no  Indians,  Kearney  was  compelled  to  abandon  the  chase,  taking 
back  to  camp  thirty  Indian  women  and  their  children.  Here  General  Lane  gal- 
lantly and  generously  offered  to  relieve  Kearnej'  of  his  captives,  he  having  no 
means  of  taking  cai-e  of  them,  and  take  them  to  Oregon  Citj'  and  deliver  them  up 
to  Governor  Gaines.  With  this  charge  he  started  and  proceeding  north  he  met 
Governor  Gaines  in  the  vicinity  of  where  Grant's  Pass  is  located,  and  there  on 
July  7,  1851,  delivered  the  captives  to  the  governor.  And  by  means  of  the  pos- 
session of  the  prisoners,  the  governor  was  enabled  to  get  eleven  of  the  head  men 
of  the  Indians  and  about  one  hundred  of  their  followers  to  come  in  and  make 
peace.  These  treaty-makers  belonged  to  the  Peace  Party  among  the  Rogue  Riv- 
ers, and  always  came  to  the  front  when  the  fighting  Indians  got  thrashed  in  a 
battle;  and  for  years  afterward  they  were  alternately  fighting  or  peacemaking, 
according  as  the  fortunes  of  war  ran  for  or  against  them. 

From  the  beautiful  Rogue  River  valley  the  bloody  scenes  now  shift  to  the 
sea  coast.  About  June  1st,  1851,  the  steam  coaster  Sea  Gull,  Captain  William 
Tichenor,  master,  landed  a  party  of  nine  men  at  Port  Orford  in  Curry  county, 
as  the  first  installment  of  a  force  that  was  intended  to  establish  a  trading  estab- 
lishment at  that  point,  and  open  a  pack  trail  from  there  to  the  gold  mines  in 
Jackson  count}'.  The  names  of  these  men  were,  J.  M.  Kirkpatrick,  J.  H.  Eagan, 
John  T.  Slater,  George  Ridoubs,  T.  D.  Palmer,  Joseph  Hussey,  Cyrus  W.  Hed- 
den,  James  Carigan,  and  Erastus  Summers.  Tichenor  was  under  contract  with 
the  men  to  give  them  supplies,  rifles  and  ammunition  for  defense  in  case  of  an 
attack  from  the  Indians :  but  on  landing  the  men  found  they  had  only  three  old 
flint-lock  muskets,  an  old  sword  and  a  few  pounds  of  lead  and  powder  and  one 
rifle  owned  by  one  of  the  men.  Complaining  of  this  miserable  outflt,  the  gallant 
captain  assured  them  they  needed  no  arms  at  all,  but  these  w'ould  do  to  show  and 
scare  the  Indians  as  well  as  good  gims.  But  to  make  sure  of  more  efficient  de- 
fense in  case  of  an  attack,  the  men  carried  off  the  signal  gun  f  I'om  the  ship  which 
was  about  a  four-pound  cannon.  Soon  after  the  men  were  landed  the  Indians 
gathe)-ed  around  and  by  signs  warned  them  to  leave.  This  intimation  of  danger 
proved  their  salvation,  for  they  at  once  set  about  making  ready  for  an  attack. 
Tiie  old  cannon  was  dragged  up  the  sloping  end  of  an  immense  rock  rising  out  of 
the  edge  of  the  ocean.  And  upon  this  rock  the  men  took  their  outfit  of  food  and 
lilankets,  loaded  the  old  cannon  with  powder  and  slugs  of  lead  and  awaited  the 
attack  they  felt  was  coming.  As  soon  as  the  ship  sailed  the  Indians  again  or- 
dered the  men  to  leave.  There  was  now  no  chance  to  leave.  The  next  morning, 
June  10,  1851,  the  great  rock  was  surrounded  on  the  land  side  with  a  hundred 
yelling  Indians.  Their  chief  made  a  loud  speech  to  his  warriors,  after  which 
with  a  chorus  of  yells  fifty  Indians  made  a  rush  for  the  rock  and  the  balance  of 
them  filled  the  air  with  arrows  aimed  at  the  nine  white  men.  The  rock  is  so 
shaped  Ihat  before  the  Indians  could  reach  the  Avhite  men  they  would  have  to 
crowd  upon  and  along  a  narrow  space  for  thirty  feet.  The  old  cannon  had  been 
trained  to  sweeji  that  approach,  and  as  the  first  Indian  reached  the  muzzle  of  the 
cannon,  and  the  narrow  approach  was  crowded  with  yelling  Indians,  Captain 
Kirkpatrick  applied  the  match  and  thirty  Indians  were  hurled  into  eternity  in 


398  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OEEGON 

the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  Besides  the  outright  killing  of  half  the  attacking  party, 
the  balance  of  the  Indians  on  the  rock  were  so  shocked  by  the  loud  explosion  that 
they  tumbled  off  into  the  ocean  or  rolled  down  the  sides  in  deadly  terror.  This 
terrific  repulse  sent  the  whole  band  remaining  alive  or  vinmangled  back  to  their 
camp  in  wailing.  And  that  night  the  defenders  packed  their  pockets  and  knap- 
sacks with  food  and  set  out  in  the  night  on  foot  to  reach  the  white  settlements 
in  Umpcjua  valley  more  than  a  hundred  miles  distant ;  and  finally  after  incred- 
ible hardships  in  hiding  from  the  pursuing  Indians,  wading  streams,  sleeping 
on  the  ground  in  wet  clothing  and  living  on  snails  and  wild  berries  they  all  safely 
reached  the  houses  of  white  men.  The  great  rock  has  ever  since  gone  by  the 
name  of  Battle  Rock,  a  photo  of  it  and  a  spirited  sketch  of  the  battle  appears  on 
another  page. 

lane's  second  treaty 

The  first  treaty  of  peace  made  bj'  General  Lane  with  the  Rogue  River  Indians 
was  tolerably  respected  for  a  year ;  and  then  desultory  fighting  with  miners  and 
travelers  and  stealing  stock  from  the  farmers  was  resumed ;  so  that  by  1853  all 
the  tribes  of  that  region  were  again  practically  on  the  war  path.  The  settlers 
got  together  as  well  as  they  could  a  small  body  of  volunteers.  General  Lane 
brought  over  fifty  men  from  Umpqua  valley  where  he  had  settled  on  a  farm,  and 
assumed  command  of  the  whole  force ;  Colonel  John  Ross,  of  Jackson  county,  and 
Captain  Alden,  of  the  regular  army,  serving  under  Lane.  Old  "Jo" — the  "Jo" 
Lane  "  Jo "  Chiefs  John  and  Sam  were  leaders  of  the  Indians  who  had  collected 
a  large  force  of  warriors  and  made  their  headquarters  in  the  rough  mountains 
and  heavy  timbers  on  Evans  creek,  and  making  a  fortified  camp  of  fallen  tim- 
bers on  Evans  creek,  and  making  a  fortified  camp  of  fallen  timber  with  plenty  of 
arms  and  ammimition  made  a  formidable  foe  to  attack.  Nevertheless,  on  reach- 
ing the  ground  Lane  charged  the  breastwork  of  the  Indians,  and  received  a  shot 
in  one  arm,  while  Captain  Alden  received  a  wound  from  which  he  never  fully 
recovered.  Several  other  volunteers  were  badly  wounded  and  died,  and  Pleas- 
ant Armstrong,  an  old  and  respected  citizen  of  Yamhill  county,  was  shot  dead  on 
the  ground.  In  this  fight  the  Indians  and  white  men  were  so  close  together  in 
the  charge  on  the  log  fort,  that  they  could  easily  talk  back  to  each  other,  and 
the  Indians  bitterly  reproached  Lane  for  the  attack,  and  asked  him  to  come  into 
their  camp  and  arrange  another  peace.  And  surprising  as  it  was  to  all  his  men, 
General  Lane  stopped  the  battle,  and  in  his  wounded  condition  marched  alone 
into  the  Indian  stronghold  Avhere  he  saw  many  dead  and  wounded  Indians, 
showing  clearly  they  had  got  the  worst  of  the  battle.  And  after  a  talk  with  the 
Chiefs  it  was  agreed  that  both  whites  and  Indians  should  all  go  back  to  Table 
Rock  and  there  make  a  permanent  peace.  And  upon  that  temporary  arrange- 
ment both  sides  retired  from  the  Evans  creek  battlefield  and  did  go  back  to 
Table  Rock,  both  parties  marching  over  the  same  trail — the  Indians  preceding 
the  white  men, 

When  this  outbreak  occurred  couriers  were  sent  off  for  aid  by  the  regular 
U.  S.  soldiers  and  volunteers.  To  this  appeal  Colonel  James  W.  Nesmith  re- 
sponded with  75  volunteers  raised  quickly  in  Polk,  Marion  and  Linn  counties: 
Capt.  A.  J.  Smith  marched  at  once  with  Company  C  of  the  First  U.  S.  Dra- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  ;!99 

goons,  while  ('apt.  August  A'.  Ivautz,  tlicu  just  out  of  West  Point  and  ai'ler- 
wards  a  Major  General  in  the  I'liion  army,  brought  up  the  rear  with  a  twelve 
pound  howitzer  and  fixed  animunitiou.  These  forces  all  reached  Fort  Lane 
on  Rogue  river  ou  September  18,  1853,  making  a  combined  force  of  about  250 
men  as  against  an  estimated  Indian  force  of  700  warriors.  Now  for  the  bal- 
ance of  the  story  of  this  second  treaty  of  peace  the  account  of  Col.  Nesmith 
is  given  in  full,  describing  a  thrilling  drama,  never  safely  executed  by  any 
otiier  man  than  General  Joseph  Lane,  of  Douglas  county,  Oregon. 

"The  encampment  of  the  Indians  was  on  the  side  of  the  mountains,  of 
which  Table  Rock  forms  the  summit,  and  at  night  we  could  plainly  see  their 
camp  fires,  while  they  could  look  directly  down  upon  us.  The  whole  command 
was  anxious  and  willing  to  fight,  but  General  Lane  had  pledged  the  Indians 
that  an  effort  should  be  made  to  treat  for  peace.  Superintendent  Palmer  and 
Agent  Culver  were  upon  the  ground.  The  armistice  had  not  yet  expired,  and 
the  10th  was  fixed  for  the  time  of  the  council.  On  the  morning  of  that  day 
General  Lane  sent  for  me,  and  desired  me  to  go  with  him  to  the  council  ground 
inside  the  Indian  encampment,  to  act  as  interpreter,  as  I  was  master  of  the 
Chinook  jargon.  I  asked  the  general  upon  what  terms  we  were  to  meet  the 
Indians.  He  replied  that  the  agreement  was  that  the  meeting  should  take 
place  within  the  encampment  of  the  enemy,  and  that  he  would  be  accompanied 
by  ten  other  men  of  his  own  selection,  unarmed. 

■"Against  those  terms,  I  protested,  and  told  the  general  that  I  had  traversed 
that  country  five  years  before,  and  fought  those  same  Indians;  that  they  were 
notoriously  treacherous,  and  in  early  times  had  earned  the  designation  of 
'Rogues,'  by  never  permitting  a  white  man  to  escape  with  his  scalp  when 
once  in  their  power;  that  I  knew  them  better  than  he  did,  and  that  it  was 
criminal  folly  for  eleven  unarmed  men  to  place  themselves  voluntarily  within 
the  power  of  seven  hundred  well-armed,  hostile  Indians  in  their  own  secure 
encampment.  I  reminded  him  that  I  was  a  soldier  in  command  of  a  company 
of  cavalry  and  was  ready  to  obey  his  order  to  lead  my  men  to  action,  or  to  dis- 
charge any  soldierly  duty,  no  part  of  which  was  to  go  into  the  enemy's  camp 
as  an  unarmed  interpreter.  The  general  listened  to  my  protest  and  replied 
that  he  had  fixed  upon  the  terms  of  meeting  the  Indians  and  should  keep  his 
word,  and  if  I  was  afraid  to  go  I  could  remain  behind.  When  he  put  it  upon 
that  ground,  I  responded  that  I  thought  I  was  as  little  acquainted  with  fear 
as  he  was,  and  that  I  would  accompany  him  to  what  I  believed  would  lie  our 
slaughter. 

"Early  on  the  morning  of  the  10th  of  September,  1853,  we  mounted  our 
horses  and  rode  out  in  the  direction  of  the  Indian  encampment.  Our  party 
consisted  of  the  following  named  persons :  Gen.  Joseph  Lane ;  Joel  Palmer, 
Superintendent  of  Indian  affairs,  Samuel  P.  Culver,  Indian  agent,  Capt.  A. 
J.  Smith,  1st  Dragoons;  Capt.  L.  P.  jMosher,  Adjutant;  Col.  John  E.  Ro.ss; 
Capt.  J.  W.  Nesmith;  Lieut.  A.  V.  Kautz ;  R.  B.  Metcalf,  J.  D.  Mason,  T.  T. 
Tiemey. 

"After  riding  a  couple  of  miles  across  the  level  valley,  we  came  to  the  foot 
of  the  mountain  where  it  was  too  steep  for  horses  to  ascend.  We  dismounted 
and  hitched  our  horses  and  scrambled  up  for  half  a  mile  over  huge  rocks  and 
through  brush,  and  then  found  ourselves  in  the  Indian  stronghold,  just  under 


400  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

the  perpendicular  cliff  of  Table  Rock,  aud  surrounded  by  seven  hundred 
fierce  and  well  armed  hostile  savages,  in  all  their  gorgeous  warpaint  and 
feathers.  Captain  Smith  had  drawn  out  his  company  of  dragoons  and  left 
them  in  line  in  the  plain  below.  It  was  a  bright,  beautiful  morning,  and  the 
Rogue  River  valley  lay  like  'a  panorama  at  our  feet ;  the  exact  line  of  dragoons 
sitting  statue  like  upon  their  horses,  with  their  white  belts  and  burnished 
scabbards  and  carbines,  looked  like  they  were  engraven  upon  a  picture,  while 
a  few  paces  in  our  rear  the  huge  perpendicular  wall  of  the  Table  Rock  towered, 
frowningly,  many  hundred  feet  above  us.  The  business  of  the  treaty  commenced 
at  once.  Long  speeches  were  made  bj^  General  Lane  and  Superintendent  Pal- 
mer; they  had  to  be  translated  twice.  When  an  Indian  spoke  in  the  Rogue 
River  tongue  it  was  translated  by  an  Indian  interpreter  into  Chinook  or  jar- 
gon to  me,  when  I  translated  it  into  English;  when  Lane  or  Palmer  spoke,  the 
process  was  reversed,  I  giving  the  speech  to  the  Indian  interpreter  in  Chinook, 
and  he  translating  it  to  the  Indians  in  their  own  tongue.  This  double  trans- 
lation of  long  speeches  made  the  labor  tedious,  and  it  was  not  until  late  in 
the  afternoon  that  the  treaty  was  completed  and  signed.  In  the  mean  time  an 
episode  occurred  which  came  near  terminating  the  treaty  as  well  as  the  repre- 
sentation of  one  of  the  'high  contracting  parties'  in  a  sudden  and  tragic  man- 
ner. About  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  a  young  Indian  came  running  into 
camp  stark  naked,  with  the  perspiration  streaming  from  every  pore.  He  made 
a  brief  harangue,  and  threw  himself  upon  the  ground  apparently  exhausted. 
His  speech  had  created  a  great  tumult  among  his  tribe.  General  Lane  told 
me  to  inquire  of  the  Indian  interpreter  the  cause  of  the  commotion;  the  In- 
dian responded  that  a  company  of  white  men  down  at  Applegate  Creek,  and 
under  the  command  of  Captain  Owen,  had  that  moz'ning  captured  an  Indian 
known  as  Jim  Taylor,  and  had  tied  him  to  a  tree  and  shot  him  to  death.  The 
hubbub  and  confusion  among  the  Indians  at  once  became  intense,  and  murder 
glared  from  each  savage  visage.  The  Indian  interpreter  told  me  that  the  In- 
dians were  threatening  to  tie  us  up  to  trees  and  serve  us  as  Owen's  men  had 
served  Jim  Taylor.  I  saw  some  Indians  gathering  up  lass-ropes  while  others 
drew  skin  covers  from  their  guns,  and  the  wiping  sticks  from  their  muzzle. 

"There  appeared  a  strong  probability  of  our  party  being  subjected  to  a 
sudden  volley.  I  explained  as  briefly  as  I  could  •what  the  interpreter  had  com- 
municated to  me,  in  order  to  keep  our  people  from  huddling  together,  and 
thus  make  a  better  target  for  the  savages,  I  used  a  few  English  words,  not 
likelj^  to  be  understood  by  the  Indian  intei*preter,  such  as  ■ '  disperse '  and 
'segregate.'  In  fact,  we  kept  so  close  to  the  savages,  and  separated  from  one 
another  that  any  general  firing  must  have  been  nearly  as  fatal  to  the  Indians 
as  to  the  whites. 

"While  I  admitted  that  I  thought  that  my  time  had  come,  and  hurriedly 
thought  of  wife  and  children,  I  noticed  nothing  but  coolness  among  my  com- 
panions. General  Lane  sat  upon  a  log  witli  his  arm  bandaged  in  a  sling,  the 
lines  about  his  mouth  rigidly  compressing  his  lips,  while  his  eyes  flashed  fire.  He 
asked  brief  questions,  and  gave  me  sententious  answers  to  what  little  the  Indians 
said  to  us.  Capt.  A.  J.  Smith,  who  was  prematurely  gray-haired,  and  was  afflicted 
with  a  nervous  snapping  of  the  eyes,  leaned  upon  his  cavalry  saber,  and  looked 
anxiously  down  upon  his  well  formed  line  of  dragoons  in  the  valley  below.    His 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  101 

eyes  snapped  more  vigorously  than  usual,  and  muttered  words  escaped  from  under 
the  old  dragoon's  mustache  that  did  not  sound  like  prayers.  His  squadron  looked 
beautiful,  but  alas,  they  could  render  us  no  assistance.  I  sat  down  on  a  log  close 
to  old  Chief  Jo,  and  having  a  sharp  hunting  knife  under  my  hunting  shirt,  kept 
one  hand  near  its  handle,  determined  that  there  would  be  one  Indian  made 
■good"  about  the  time  the  tiring  commenced. 

In  a  few  moments  General  Lane  stood  up  and  commenced  to  speak  slowly 
but  very  distinctly.  He  said:  'Owens  who  has  violated  the  armistice  and 
killed  Jim  Taylor,  is  a  bad  man.  He  is  not  one  of  my  soldiers.  When  I  catch 
him  he  shall  be  punished.  I  promised  in  good  faith  to  come  into  your  camp 
with  ten  other  unarmed  men  to  secure  peace.  Myself  and  men  are  placed  in 
your  power;  I  do  not  believe  that  you  are  such  cowardly  dogs  as  to  take  advan- 
tage of  our  unarmed  condition.  I  know  that  you  have  the  power  to  murder  lis, 
and  you  can  do  as  quickly  as  you  please,  but  what  good  will  our  blood  do 
you?  Our  murder  will  exasperate  our  friends  and  your  tribes  will  be  hunted 
from  the  face  of  the  earth.  Let  us  proceed  with  the  treaty,  and  in  place  of  war, 
have  la.sting  peace. '  Much  more  was  said  in  this  strain  by  the  general,  all  rather 
defiant,  and  nothing  of  a  begging  character.  The  excitement  gradually  sub- 
sided, after  Lane  promised  to  give  a  fair  compensation  for  the  defunct  Jim  Tay- 
lor in  shirts  and  blankets. 

The  treaty  of  the  10th  of  September,  1853,  was  completed  and  signed  and 
peace  restored  for  the  next  two  years.  Our  party  wended  their  way  among  the 
rocks  down  to  where  our  horses  were  tied,  and  mounted.  Old  A.  J.  Smith  gal- 
loped up  to  his  squadron  and  gave  a  brief  order.  The  bugle  sounded  a  note  or 
two.  and  the  squadron  wheeled  and  trotted  off  to  camp.  As  General  Lane  and 
party  rode  back  across  the  valley,  we  looked  up  and  saw  the  rays  of  the  setting 
sun  gilding  the  summit  of  Table  Rock.  I  drew  a  long  breath  and  remarked 
to  the  old  general  that  the  next  time  he  wanted  to  go  unarmed  into  a  hostile 
camp  he  must  hunt  up  some  other  one  besides  myself  to  act  as  interpreter. 
With  a  benignant  smile  he  responded,  'God  bless  you,"  'luck  is  better  than 
science. " 

"I  never  hear  the  fate  of  General  Canby  at  the  Modoc  camp,  refen-ed  to, 
that  I  do  not  think  of  our  narrow  escape  of  a  similar  fate  at  Table  Rock. 
Kickreall.  April  20,  1879.'" 

Of  this  account,  General  Lane  wrote  to  Colonel  Nesmith  as  follows: 

"RosEBURG,  Monday  April  28,  1879. 

"My  Dear  Sir — Your  note  of  the  23rd  instant,  ent-losing  a  copy  of  an  ar- 
ticle giving  an  account  of  our  council  or  treaty  with  the  Rogue  River  Indians 
on  September  10,  1853,  was  received  two  or  three  days  ago  and  would  have 
l)een  answered  on  receipt,  had  I  not  been  too  feeble  to  write.  I  am  feeling 
quite  well  this  morning,  though  my  hand  trembles.  You  will  get  this  in  a  day 
or  two,  and  the  article  will  be  published  in  the  Star  on  Friday  and  will  reach 
you  an  Saturday.  Dates  and  incidents  in  the  article  are  in  the  main  correct. 
You  could,  however,  very  truly  have  said,  that  neither  you  nor  myself  had  a 
single  particle  of  fear  of  any  treachery  on  the  part  of  the  Indians  toward  us, 
and  the  proof  was  they  did  not  harm  us. 

"We  had  at  all  times  been  ready  to  fight  them,  and  to  faithfully  keep  and 


402  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

maintain  oui*  good  faith  with  them.  AVe  never  once,  on  any  occasion,  lied  to 
them,  and  as  you  know,  when  the  great  Indian  war  of  1855-6  broke  out,  and 
you  were  again  on  the  field  fighting  them,  poor  old  Jo  was  dead,  and  you,  or 
some  other  commander,  at  old  Sam's  request,  sent  him  and  his  people  to  Grand 
Round  Reservation. 

"Old  John  and  Adam,  and  all  others  except  Jo's  and  Sam's  people  fought 
you  hard,  but  the  Rogues,  proper,  never  forgot  the  impression  we  made  upon  them 
in  the  great  Council  of  September  10,  1853.  It  was  a  grand  and  successful 
Council,  the  Rogue  Rivers  proper,  fought  us  no  more ;  they  did  not  forget  their 
promises  to  us. 

"Very  trul.y  your  friend  and  obedient  servant, 

"Joseph  Lane." 

CHIEF  John's  last  battle 

Notwithstanding  the  second  treaty  made  by  Lane,  the  treaty  of  1853,  the 
Rogue  Rivers  were  all  again  on  the  war  path  killing  and  robbing  the  settlers 
in  1855  and  1856.  The  widely  scattered  settlements  of  the  mountainous  region 
of  Southern  Oregon  could  not  be  successfully  defended  by  any  reasonable 
force  of  white  men,  because  they  could  not  live  and  fight  and  travel  through 
the  mountains  as  the  Indian  could.  Chief  John  was  the  leader  and  hero  of  this 
last  Indian  Avar,  and  an  Indian  better  cpialified  for  guerilla  warfare  could  not 
have  been  found.  It  is  impossible  to  record  in  this  work  all  the  battles,  routs, 
murders  and  toilsome  marches  of  a  dozen  separated  commands  of  volunteers 
and  regulars  endeavoring  to  keep  the  Indians  so  continually  on  the  move  from 
one  hiding  place  to  another  that  they  would  be  exhausted,  surrender  and  go  on 
the  then  provided  Indian  Reservation.  By  this  strenuoiis  effort  nearly  all  the 
old  men,  women  and  children  of  the  Indian  tribes  were  gathered  up,  but  the  able- 
bodied  warriors  still  roved  about  the  country  murdering  and  robbing  wherever 
there  was  an  opportunity.  The  Indians  had  made  the  jimction  of  the  Illinois 
and  Rogue  river  streams  their  headquarters;  for  while  this  location  was  diffi- 
cult of  access  by  regular  United  States  soldiers  and  their  equipment,  it  was  an 
ideal  point  for  the  Indians  to  convene  at  and  run  away  from  if  attacked, 
furnishing  three  water-level  valleys  in  three  different  directions  as  line  of  ac- 
cess or  escape.  To  this  point  Lieutenant  Colonel  Buchanan  in  command  of 
the  United  States  regailara,  directed  his  efforts  in  hopes  of  convening  there  all  the 
warring  chiefs  for  the  purpose  of  inducing  them  to  go  on  the  Indian  Reser- 
vations in  Benton  or  Yamhill  counties.  Word  was  sent  out  in  all  directions 
inviting  the  outstanding  warriors  to  meet  Buchanan  at  Big  Meadows  near  the 
mouth  of  the  Illinois  river.  Chief  John  accepted  the  invitation  and  came  May 
21,  1856,  with  all  his  men,  and  Chief  George,  Limpy  and  other  minor  chiefs. 
John  was  invited  into  the  white  soldiers'  camp  for  a  talk,  and  assured  of  pro- 
tection. He  came  and  had  a  long  talk  with  Colonel  Buchanan,  and  which 
was  finally  ended  by  John's  speech  to  Buchanan,  saying:  "You  are  a  great  chief; 
so  am  I.  This  is  my  country.  I  was  in  it  when  those  large  trees  were  very 
small,  not  higher  than  my  head.  My  heart  is  sick  with  fighting ;  but  I  want  to 
live  in  my  country.  If  the  white  people  are  willing  I  will  go  back  to  Deer 
creek  and  live  among  them  as  I  used  to  do.     They  can  visit  mj^  camp,  and  I  will 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  403 

visit  tlicirs;  l)u1   I  will  not  lay  dowu  my  ai-nis  ami  go  witli  you  to  the  Ri'servc. 

I  will  light.  (tOOcIIiv."  'riicii  he  returned  unrostraiiicd  to  liis  owu  camp  as  had 
been  agreed. 

Aft(M-   imieh   argiiiiient    ami    |)roiiiis('.s   oi'   iiiauy    presents   all    the   ehiel's    hut 
John  raiiie  in   four  days  after  and  gave  up  their  arms  and  were  escorted  by 

II  pait  of  tiie  sokliers  to  Fort  Lane  on  their  way  to  the  reservation.  Captain  A.  J. 
Smith  liad  given  notice  that  in  three  or  four  days  he  would  be  back  again  at) 
the  common  rendezvous  with  his  men  to  receive  the  remainder  of  the  Indian  wiir- 
riors;  and  to  hasten  their  decision  had  told  them  that  if  he  found  any  of  them 
roaming  around  the  country  with  fire  arms  he  would  hang  them.  But  when  he 
got  back  to  camp  no  Indians  appeared,  but  instead  thereof,  two  peaceably  dis- 
posed Indian  women  came  in  and  informed  Smith  that  he  might  expect  an 
attack  from  Chief  John  on  the  next  day.  Smith  immediately  hurried  otf  a 
courier  to  Colonel  Buchanan  asking  for  reinforcements  to  meet  this  sudden 
change  in  John's  disposition,  and  then  immediately  moved  his  camp  to  higher 
ground,  but  further  away  from  water,  and  had  to  leave  his  cavalry  horses 
in  the  meadows  below  him.  The  men  worked  all  night,  getting  no  sleep,  dig- 
ging rifle  pits  with  their  tin  cups,  having  not  a  single  spade  in  camp,  and 
planting  their  howitzer  so  it  would  command  one  approach  to  their  position 
while  the  men  lying  flat  in  their  shallow  pits  could  protect  the  other  approach 
with  their  carbines.  John's  first  move  was  to  send  forward  forty  armed  war- 
riors for  a  talk  with  Captain  Smith,  and  as  they  advanced  to  the  east  approach 
they  called  on  Smith  to  come  out  and  talk.  The  Captain  was  too  well  aware  of 
Indian  tactics  to  trust  himself  in  their  possession,  and  so  ordered  them  to  retire 
and  deposit  their  arms  at  the  edge  of  the  timber.  Thus  finding  Smith  prepai-ed 
to  fight,  and  no  chance  to  capture  him  by  strategj^,  the  warrioi's  returned  to 
their  camp,  and  ^vithin  an  hour,  on  May  27,  1856,  was  commenced  the  last 
pitched  battle  of  the  Rogue  River  Indian  war.  The  Indians  simultaneously 
attacked  both  sides  of  Smith's  camp,  firing  their  guns  and  rushing  up  the  de- 
fending slopes  with  hideous  yells.  They  were  met  at  short  range  with  the 
deadly  fire  of  the  carbines  on  both  sides  and  compelled  to  fall  back  to  the  tim- 
ber. (See  the  drawing  on  another  page.)  Not  being  able  to  get  at  the  soldiers 
by  these  approaches,  the  Indians  made  desperate  attempts  to  scale  the  unpro- 
tected sides  with  perpendicular  banks,  and  the  regulars  were  compelled  to 
abandon  their  rifle  pits  and  hurl  back  the  desperate  foe  with  shots  at  short 
range,  and  even  some  Indians  with  clubbed  muskets.  The  Indians  exhibited 
the  most  reckless  daring  and  bravery  in  repeated  attacks  thi'oughout  the  day 
in  attempts  to  get  into  Smith's  camp,  but  all  to  no  purpose  but  the  loss  of  life 
to  the  attacking  party.  Thus  the  long  day  of  May  27,  was  spent;  followed  by 
hard  work  all  the  succeeding  night  digging  more  rifle  pits  and  erecting  breast- 
works, without  food,  water  or  sleep.  On  the  28th  the  Indians  renewed  the 
attack;  and  to  the  white  men  was  added  not  only  the  labor  and  dangers  of 
defense,  but  also  the  fatigue  from  loss  of  sleep  and  the  torture  of  thirst.  The 
Indians  understood  the  frightful  condition  of  the  white  men,  and  from  their 
covert  in  the  edge  of  the  timber,  tauntingly  called  out  "Mika  hyas  ticka  chuck" 
(You  very  much  want  water?)  ;  "Halo  chuck  Boston"  (No  water  for  white 
man.)  And  to  this  taunt  they  added  another  (referring  to  Captain  Smith's 
threat   to   hang   all    Indians   he   found   roaming   over   the   country    with    arms 


404  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

in  their  hands)  "that  they  had  ropes  to  hang  every  trooper,  the  soldiers  not 
being  worth  the  powder  and  ball  to  shoot  them ; ' '  and  occasionally  a  rope  would 
be  hung  out  on  a  bush  and  Captain  Smith  was  told  to  come  out  and  hang  him- 
self. All  sorts  of  insulting  epithets  in  tolerable  English  were  hurled  at  the  sol- 
diers from  the  nearest  fringe  of  timber.  This  terrible  strain  continued  until 
four  o'clock  the  second  day  of  the  battle,  when  one-third  of  Smith's  command 
was  killed  and  wounded.  About  sundown  the  Indians  held  a  council,  and  rely- 
ing on  the  exhausted  condition  of  the  white  men  planned  to  charge  Smith's 
camp  with  the  whole  force.  "It  was  an  hour  never  to  be  forgotten" — says  the 
letter  of  one  of  the  soldiers — "  a  silent  and  awful  hour,  in  the  expectation  of 
speedy  and  cruel  death."  Suddenly  an  infernal  chorus  of  yells  burst  forth 
from  John's  camp,  the  whole  Indian  army  joining  in  one  blood-curdling  roar 
of  demoniac  fury;  they  rushed  upon  Smith's  poor  camp  from  all  sides.  The 
life  of  every  white  man  hung  in  the  balance ;  and  the  yelling,  and  savage  thirst 
for  the  white  man's  blood  had  prevented  the  Indian  chief  from  discovering 
that  at  that  same  instant  Captain  Augur,  responding  to  Smith's  call  for  aid, 
had  silentlj^  crept  through  the  surrounding  timber,  and  as  the  Indians  charged 
down  upon  the  beleagured  whites  Augur's  men  rushed  upon  the  rear  of  the  In- 
dian attack  firing  at  short  range  and  then  charging  with  the  bayonets,  and  the 
battle  was  over  in  fifteen  minutes,  the  Indians  wildly  fleeing  in  all  directions, 
abandoning  their  camp  entirely.  Thus  ended  May  28,  1856,  the  last  battle  of 
Chief  John  and  the  Rogue  Rivers. 

Chief  John  was  a  very  unusual  Indian.  He  is  described  as  a  bolder,  braver 
and  stronger  man  mentally  than  any  chief  west  of  the  Cascade  mountains. 
When  dressed  in  white  men's  costume  he  might  have  been  easily  taken  for 
a  hard  working,  sun  burnt  farmer  of  the  western  states.  A  good  likeness  of 
him  is  given  upon  another  page.  With  slight  resistance  after  his  last  battle 
he,  with  all  his  warriors,  came  in  and  surrendered  to  Captain  Smith,  and 
Joel  Palmer,  Svipt.  of  Indian  affairs,  on  June  1,  1856,  thus  ending  the  Rogue 
River  Indian  wars  for  all  time.  The  final  result  was  that  about  2,700  Indians 
old  and  young  were  removed  from  the  Southern  Oregon  country  to  the  Siletz 
and  Grande  Ronde  Reservations,  and  shoAving  that  before  the  war  commenced 
there  must  have  been  an  Indian  population  of  fuUj'  5,000  in  that  region.  Many 
minor  events,  bloodj^  reprisals,  and  isolated  murders  from  both  sides  have  been 
recorded,  but  Avhich  have  not  been  referred  to,  but  which  are  well  worth  pre- 
serving. These  have  been  collated  by  the  Hon.  Wm.  M.  Colvig,  and  given  to 
present  day  readers  in  an  address  by  him  to  the  reunion  of  Indian  war  veterans 
at  Medford  on  July  26,  1902 ;  and  all  of  this  Indian  war  historj'  compiled  in  the 
above  address,  and  which  has  not  been  already  recorded  herein,  will  now  be 
given  and  credited  to  the  careful  work  of  Mr.  Colvig. 

The  first  recorded  fight  between  the  Indians  and  whites  in  any  portion  of 
southei-n  Oregon  occurred  in  1828  when  Jedediah  S.  Smith  and  seven  other  trap- 
pers were  attacked  by  the  Indians  on  the  Umpqua  River,  and  fifteen  of  the  whites 
were  slain,  only  Smith  and  three  of  his  companions  escaping.  The  next  fight  of 
which  we  have  any  account  was  in  June,  1836,  at  a  point  just  below  the  Rock 
Point  Bridge,  where  the  barn  on  the  W.  L.  Colvig  estate  stands.  In  this  fight 
there  were  Dan  Miller,  Edward  Barnes,  Dr.  W.  J.  Bailey,  George  Gay,  Saunders, 
Woodworth,  Irish  Tom,  and  J.  Turner  and  Squaw.    Two  trappers  were  killed. 


I 


(Thanks   to  Major  Lee    Moorhoiise) 


INDIANS    ON    RESERVATIONS 


No.   1 — Sac-a-jawea 

No.  3. — Fishhawk,  war  i-liiof  of  Cayuses 


No.  2 — An  ag<?d  S(|uaw 

No.    4 — Alice    Pat-e-\va.    Umatilla    belle 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTOK'Y  ()!■'  OREGON  405 

iiiid  nearly  all  were  wounded.  Within  my  recollectiou,  Doctor  Bailey  visited 
the  scene  of  the  fight,  and  pointed  out  to  my  father  its  location.  In  September, 
1837,  at  the  mouth  of  Foot's  Creek,  in  Jackson  county,  a  party  of  men  who  had 
been  sent  to  California  by  the  Methodist  mission  to  procure  cattle,  while  on  their 
return  were  attacked  by  the  Rogue  River  Indians  and  had  a  short,  severe  tight, 
in  which  several  of  the  whites  were  badly  wounded  and  some  twelve  or  fourteen 
of  the  Indians  killed.  In  May,  1845,  J.  C.  Fremont  had  a  fight  with  the  Indians 
in  the  Klamath  country;  it  may  have  been  a  little  over  the  line  in  Califoniia. 
Four  of  Fremont's  men  were  killed  and  quite  a  large  number  of  the  Indians. 
Kit  Carson  was  a  prominent  figure  in  this  battle. 

A  few  bold  adventurers  had  located  in  Rogue  River  Valley  as  early  as  De- 
cember, 1851.  During  the  spring,  summer,  and  fall  of  that  year  there  was  a 
considerable  amount  of  travel  by  parties  from  northern  Oregon  going  to  and  re- 
turning from  the  great  mining  excitement  of  California.  Fights  between  these 
travelers  and  the  Indians  were  of  frequent  occurrence.  On  the  fifteenth  of  May, 
1851,  a  pack  train  was  attacked  at  a  point  on  Bear  Creek,  where  the  town  of 
Phoenix  is  now  situated,  and  a  man  by  the  name  of  Dilley  was  killed. 

At  the  massacre  of  emigrants  at  Bloody  Point,  Klamath  Coimty,  in  1852, 
thirty-six  men,  women  and  children  were  murdered.  Capt.  Ben  Wright,  and 
twenty-seven  men  from  Yreka  and  Col.  J.  E.  Ross  and  some  Oregonians  went  out 
to  punish  these  Modocs.  Old  Sconchin,  who  was  afterwards  hung  at  Fort  Klam- 
ath in  1873,  at  the  close  of  the  Modoc  war,  was  the  leader.  Wright  gave  them 
no  quarter.  He  and  his  men,  infuriated  at  the  sight  of  the  mangled  bodies  of 
the  emigrants,  killed  men,  women  and  children  without  any  discrimination. 

I  can  not  give  you  the  names  of  all  who  were  killed  in  Rogue  River  Vallej' 
during  the  years  1851  and  1852,  and  1853.  I  will  mention  some  that  were  killed 
in  1853.  In  August  of  that  year  Edward  Edwards  was  killed  near  Medford; 
Thomas  Wills  and  Rhodes  Nolan,  in  the  edge  of  the  town  of  Jacksonville;  Pat 
Dunn  and  Carter,  both  wounded  in  a  fight  on  Neil  Creek  above  Ashland.  In  a 
light  with  the  Indians  on  Bear  Creek,  in  August,  1853,  Hugh  Smith  was  killed, 
;iud  Howell  Morris,  Hodgins,  Wittemore,  and  Gibbs.  wounded,  the  last  named 
three  dying  from  their  wounds  soon  after. 

These  murders,  and  many  more  that  could  be  mentioned,  brought  on  the  In- 
dian war  of  1853.  Southern  Oregon  raised  six  companies  of  volunteers,  who 
served  under  the  following  named  captains,  viz.,  R,  L.  Williams,  J.  K.  Lamerick, 
John  F.  Miller,  Elias  A.  Owens,  and  W.  W.  Fowler.  Capt.  B.  F.  Alden,  of  the 
Fourth  U.  S.  Infantry,  with  twenty  regulars,  came  over  from  Fort  Jones,  Cali- 
fornia, and  with  him  a  large  number  of  volunteers  under  Capt.  James  P.  Goodall 
and  Capt.  Jacob  Rhoades,  two  Indian  fighters  of  experience.  Captain  Alden  was 
given  the  command  of  all  the  forces.  The  first  battle  of  the  war  was  fought  on 
the  twelfth  day  of  August,  1853,  and  was  an  exciting  little  fight  between  about 
twenty  volunteers  under  Lieut.  Burrell  Griffin,  of  Miller's  company,  and  a  band 
of  Indians  under  Chief  John.  The  volunteers  were  ambushed  at  a  point  near 
the  mouth  of  Williams  creek,  on  the  Applegate.  The  whites  were  defeated  with 
ii  loss  of  two  killed,  and  Lieutenant  Griffin  severely  wounded.  There  were  five 
Indians  killed  and  wotmded  in  the  battle.  On  August  10,  1853.  John  R.  Hard- 
ing and  Wm.  R.  Rose,  of  Captain  Lamerick  "s  company,  were  killed  near  Willow 
Springs. 


406  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

The  war  of  1855-56  was  preceded  by  a  great  many  murders  and  depredations 
by  the  Indians  in  different  parts  of  southern  Oregon.     I  will  mention  a  few : — 

—  Dyar  and McKew,  were  killed  on  the  road  from  Jacksonville  to  Josephine 

County  on  June  1,  1855.  About  the  same  time  a  man  by  the  name  of  — — Phil- 
pot  was  killed  on  Deer  Creek,  Josephine  Countj"^,  and  James  ]\Iills  was  wounded 
at  the  same  time  and  place.    Granville  Keene  was  killed  at  a  point  on  Bear  Creek, 

above  Ashland,  and  J.  Q.  Paber  was  wounded.    Two  men, Fielding,  and 

Cunningham,  were  killed  in  September,  1855,  on  the  road  over  the  Siskiyou 
mountains. 

On  account  of  these  various  depredations,  Maj.  J.  A.  Lupton  raised  a  tem- 
porary force  of  volunteers,  composed  of  miners  and  others,  from  the  vicinity 
of  Jacksonville,  about  thirty-five  in  number,  and  proceeded  to  a  point  on  the 
north  side  of  Rogue  River,  opposite  the  mouth  of  Little  Butte  Creek.  There 
he  attacked  a  camp  of  Indians  at  a  time  when  they  were  not  expecting  trouble. 
It  is  said  that  about  thirty  men,  women  and  children  were  killed  by  Lupton 's 
men.  The  Major  himself  received  a  mortal  wound  in  the  fight.  This  fight  has 
been  much  criticised  by  the  people  of  southern  Oregon,  a  great  many  of  them 
believing  that  it  was  unjustifiable  and  cowardly.  Two  days  after  this  affair 
a  series  of  massacres  took  place  in  the  sparsely  settled  country  in  and  about 
where  Grants  Pass  is  now  situated.  On  the  ninth  of  October,  1855,  the  Indians, 
having  divided  up  into 'small  parties,  simultaneously  attacked  the  homes  of  the 
defenseless  families  located  in  that  vicinity.  I  will  name  a  few  of  those  tragic 
events.  On  the  farm  now  owned  by  James  Tuffs,  Mr.  Jones  was  killed,  and  his 
wife,  after  receiving  a  mortal  wound,  made  her  escape.  She  was  found  by  the 
volunteers  on  the  next  day  and  died  a  few  days  afterwards.  Their  house  was 
burned  down.  Mrs.  Wagner  was  murdered  by  the  Indians  on  the  same  day. 
Her  husband  was  away  from  home  at  the  time,  but  returned  on  the  following 
day  to  find  his  wife  murdered  and  his  home  a  pile  of  ashes.  The  Harris  family 
consisting  of  Harris  and  wife  and  their  two  children,  Mary  Harris,  aged  twelve, 
and  David  Harris,  aged  ten,  and  T.  A.  Reed,  who  lived  with  the  family  were 
attacked.  J\Ir.  Harris  was  shot  down  while  standing  near  his  door,  and  at  a 
moment  when  he  ^little  suspected  treachery  from  the  Indians  with  whom  he  was 
talking.  His  wife  and  daughter  pulled  his  body  within  the  door,  and  seizing 
a  double-barrelled  shotgun  and  an  old-fashioned  Kentucky  rifle,  commenced 
firing  through  the  cracks  of  the  log  cabin.  They  kept  this  up  till  late  in  the 
night,  and  by  heroic  bravery  kept  the  Indians  from  either  gaining  an  entrance 
into  the  house  or  succeeding  in  their  attempts  to  fire  it.  Just  back  of  the  cabin 
was  a  dense  thicket  of  brush  and  during  a  lull  in  the  attack  the  two  brave  women 
escaped  through  the  back  door  and  fled  through  the  woods.  They  were  found 
the  next  day  by  the  volunteers  from  Jacksonville,  our  late  friend,  Henry  Klippel 
"being  one  of  the  number.  Mrs.  Harris  lived  to  a  good  old  age  in  this  coiuitry.  Mary 
who  was  wounded  in  the  fight,  afterwards  became  the  wife  of  Mr.  G.  M.  Love, 
and  was  the  mother  of  George  Love  of  Jacksonville,  and  Mrs.  John  A.  Hanley 
of  Medford.  David  Harris,  the  boy,  was  not  in  the  house  when  the  attack  was 
made,  but  at  work  on  the  place.  His  fate  has  never  been  ascertained,  as  his 
body  was  never  found.  The  Indians  stated,  after  peace  was  made,  that  they 
killed  him  at  the  time  they  attacked  the  Harris  house.  Reed,  the  young  man 
spoken  of,  was  killed  out  near  the  house. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OliEGON  407 

On  October  ;}1,  l,S:j;j,  the  battle  of  Hungry  Hill  was  fouj^ht  near  the  present 
railway  station  of  Lelaud.  Capt.  A.  J.  Smith  oi'  the  United  States  army  was 
at  that  battle,  and  a  large  number  of  citizen  soldiery.  The  result  of  the  battle 
was  very  undecisive.  There  were  thirty-one  whites  killed  and  wounded,  nine 
of  them  killed  oiitright.  It  is  not  known  how  many  of  the  Indians  were  killed, 
but  after  the  treaty  was  made  they  confessed  to  fifteen.  The  Indians  were  in 
heavy  timber  and  were  scarcely  seen  during  the  two  days'  battle. 

In  April,  1856.  after  peace  had  been  concluded  between  the  whites  and  In- 
dians, the  Ledford  nuissacre  took  place  in  Raucherie  Prairie,  near  Mount  Mc- 
Loughlin,  in  this  county,  in  which  five  white  men  were  killed.  This  event  was 
the  last  of  the  "irrepressible  conflict."  Soon  afterwards  the  Indians  were  re- 
moved to  the  Siletz  reservation,  where  their  descendants  now  live  and  enjoy  the 
favors  of  the  government  which  their  fathers  so  strongly  resisted. 

The  war  in  Rogue  River  Valley  had  not  virtually  ended.  "Old  Sam's" 
band,  with  an  escort  of  one  hundred  United  States  troops,  was  taken  to  the 
coast  reservation  at  Siletz.  Chiefs  "John"  and  "Limpy,"  with  a  large  number 
of  the  most  active  warriors,  who  had  followed  their  fortunes  during  all  these 
struggles,  still  held  out  and  continued  their  depredations  in  the  lower  Rogue 
River  country  and  in  connection  with  the  Indians  of  Curry  County. 

Gen.  John  E.  Wool,  commander  of  the  Department  of  the  Pacific,  in  Novem- 
ber, 1855,  had  stopped  at  Crescent  City  while  on  his  way  to  the  Yakima  coun- 
try. He  received  full  information  while  here  of  the  military  operations  in 
southern  Oregon.  Skipping  many  details,  it  is  sufficient  to  state  that  he  ordered 
Capt.  A.  J.  Smith,  to  move  do\\ii  the  river  from  Port  Lane  and  form  a  junction 
with  the  United  States  troops  under  Captain  Jones  and  E.  0.  C.  Ord  (after- 
wards a  major-general  in  United  States  army)  who  were  prosecuting  an  active 
campaign  in  the  region  from  Chetco,  Pistol  River,  and  the  Illinois  River  Valley. 
Captain  Smith  left  Fort  Lane  with  eighty  men — fifty  dragoons  and  thirty  in- 
fantry. I  can  only  take  the  time  to  mention  a  few  of  the  fights  in  that  region 
during  the  spring  of  1856.  On  ]\Iarch  8th,  Captain  Abbott  had  a  skirmish  with 
the  Chetco  Indians  at  Pistol  River.  He  lost  .several  men.  The  Indians  had  his 
small  force  completely  sun-ounded  when  Captain  Ord  and  Captain  Jones  with 
one  himdred  and  twelve  regular  troops  came  to  his  relief.  They  charged  and 
drove  the  Indians  away  with  heavy  loss.  On  March  20,  1855,  Lieutenant-Colonel 
l^uchanan,  assisted  by  Captain  Jones  and  Ord,  attacked  an  Indian  village  ten 
miles  above  the  mouth  of  Rogue  River.  The  Indians  were  driven  away,  leaving 
several  dead  and  only  one  white  man  wounded  in  the  fight.  A  few  days  later  Cap- 
tain Augur's  company  (United  States  troops)  fought  John  and  " Limpy 's" 
band  at  the  mouth  of  the  Illinois  River.  The  Indians  fought  desperately,  leaving 
five  dead  on  the  battlefield.  On  March  27,  1855,  the  regulars  again  met  the  In- 
dians on  Lower  Rogue  River.  After  a  brisk  fight  at  close  quarters  the  Indians 
fled,  leaving  ten  dead  and  two  of  the  soldiers  were  severely  wounded.  On  April 
1,  1855,  Captain  Creighton,  with  a  company  of  citizens,  attacked  an  Indian  vil- 
lage near  the  mouth  of  the  Coquille  River,  killing  nine  men,  wounding  eleven 
and  taking  forty  squaws  and  children  prisonei-s.  About  this  time  some  volun- 
teers attacked  a  party  of  Indians  who  were  moving  in  canoes  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Rogue  River.  They  killed  eleven  men  and  one  squaw.  Only  one  man  and  two 
s(iua-«\s  of  the  party  escaped.    On  April  29,  1855,  a  party  of  sixty  regulars  es- 


408  THE  CENTENNIAL. HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

corting  a  pack  train  were  attacked  near  Chetco.  In  this  tight  three  soldiers 
were  killed  and  wounded.     The  Indians  lost  six  killed  and  several  wounded. 

The  volunteer  forces  of  the  coast  were  three  companies  known  by  the  name 
of  "Gold  Beach  Guards,"  the  "Coquille  Guards,"  and  the  "Port  Orford  Min- 
ute Men. ' ' 

On  May  31st,  Governor  Curry  ordered  the  volunteer  forces  to  disband — 
nearly  all  the  Indians  had  surrendered.  About  one  thousand  three  hundred 
of  the  various  tribes  that  had  carried  on  the  war  were  gathered  in  camp  at  Port 
Orford.  About  July  1,  1856,  "John"  and  thirty-five  tough  looking  warriors, 
the  last  to  surrender,  "threw  down  the  hatchet." 

A  large  number  of  the  pioneer  Oregonians  rendered  valuable  and  distin- 
guished services  in  this  long,  bitter  and  sanguinary  contest  with  the  native  red 
men.  General  Joseph  Lane,  Col.  John  E.  Ross,  Capt.  Wm.  H.  Packwood,  Capt. 
Ben.  Wright,  J.  H.  Lamerick,  John  F.  Miller,  Elias  Owens,  W.  W.  Fowler,  B.  F. 
Alden,  Burrell  Griffin,  Major  J.  A.  Lupton,  Mrs.  Mary  Harris,  Capt.  A.  J.  Smith, 
Capt.  Creighton,  Major  Latshaw,  Capt.  J.  M.  Kirkpatrick,  Col.  John  Kelsay, 
Col.  W.  W.  Chapman,  Major  James  Bruce,  and  Dr.  Wm.  L.  Colvig ;  all  of  whom 
have  now  passed  over  the  Great  Divide,  except  Major  Bruce,  and  Capt.  Pack- 
wood,  who  are  at  this  writing  (May  1st,  1912)  both  still  in  the  full  vigor  of 
their  mental  faculties  and  good  bodily  health. 

THE  YAKIMA  WAE 

There  can  be  but  little  doubt  that  there  was  an  effort  on  the  part  of  all  the 
Indians  of  the  region  of  Oregon,  Washington,  and  Idaho  to  form  in  1854  a 
general  combination  to  expel  the  white  people  from  all  this  territory  or  to  exter- 
minate them.  And  if  the  Indians  had  possessed  a  great  leader  like  Pontiac  or 
Tecumseh  they  might  well  nigh  have  succeeded.  There  could  not  have  been  more 
than  3,500  men  capable  of  bearing  arms  in  Oregon  at  that  time.  Washington 
was  so  sparsely  settled  that  it  could  not  have  defended  its  own  people ;  and 
[daho  was  still  then  an  Indian  country.  As  against  such  a  combination  the 
men  of  Oregon  would  have  had  to  do  the  fighting,  as  in  fact  thej'  did  do  it.  helped 
out  by  small  detachments  of  the  regular  army.  The  wars  broke  out  simultane- 
ously in  Idaho,  Eastern  Oregon,  on  Puget  Sound  and  in  Southern  Oregon.  It 
was  ascertained  subsequently  that  previous  thereto  the  Indians  in  all  these  sec- 
tions of  the  country  had  been  accumulating  large  quantities  of  powder,  lead 
and  rifles.  The  aggregate  force  of  Indian  warriors  in  these  regions  could  not 
have  been  less  than  eight  thousand.  In  their  wide  extended  attacks  they  had 
many  advantages  over  the  Oregonians.  First,  a  large  force  had  to  be  deployed 
to  Idaho  to  protect  the  incoming  immigration  on  the  Oregon  Trail.  Here  fifty 
Indians  could  keep  500  white  men  busy  scouting  for  them,  and  then  not  catch 
a  single  Indian  and  not  fully  protect  the  immigrants.  Second,  the  Indian  men 
could  all  go  on  the  war  path  and  leave  the  women  to  shift  for  themselves  and 
take  care  of  children.  Third,  the  Indians  needed  no  shelter  tents,  commissary 
train,  baggage  masters,  wagons,  horses  or  wagon  roads.  They  knew  every  nook, 
corner,  defile  and  hiding  place  in  all  the  mountains,  and  could  fire  from  ambush 
and  retreat  in  safety,  while  their  game  hunters  could  supply  them  with  meat 
for  food.    If  all  the  Indians  could  have  combined  they  could  have  exterminated 


'Favor  oJ   Majm-  U'C    Mi.orli..Ms,..  i 

CIIIKF  .MiSKIMl  OV  TlIK   \KZ   I'KIU'ES 
The  sivatcst  Indian  rliaiartcr  sinrc  l',,nti:ir  and  Tr. mn-cli 


I  JH2  NEWYC)i 


U: 


THK  CENTENNIAI;   HISTORY   OF  OREGON  tOU 

the  whites.  l?iil  nature  was  against  tlieni  as  well  as  their  owu  waut  ol'  training 
and  discipline.  Tlie  wide  spread  arid  plains  of  Eastern  Oregon  and  Washington 
kept  them  separated  in  the  summer  season,  and  the  snowy  heights  of  the  Cas- 
cade Mountains  held  them  back  from  any  attack  on  the  Wiljamette  valley  in  the 
winter  season  save  by  the  Columbia  Pass.  But  so  profound  was  the  danger  sup- 
posed to  be  that  preparations  were  made  throughout  the  Willamette  Valley  loi- 
defense  against  j)ossible  Indian  raids.  It  is  said  that  the  ilethodists  on  Tiiahitin 
Plains,  of  Washington  County,  constructed  a  stockade  around  their  church  and 
prepared  foi"  defense  of  their  families  inside  of  the  pickets.  That  there  were 
good  gi-oundsfor  alarm  there  can  be  no  doubt.  There  were  during  the  years  of 
1854-5  and  6  at  different  times  as  many  as  four  thousiind  Indians  on  the  war 
path  in  diflferent  parts  of  the  country  at  the  same  time.  To  have  so  controlled 
that  large  force  of  Indian  desperadoes  so  they  could  do  no  harm  would  have  re- 
quired a  military  force  of  ten  thousand  soldiers  so  distributed  that  they  could 
intercept  or  strike  a  marauding  band  of  Indians  in  any  part  of  Oregon,  Wash- 
ington or  Idaho.  But  as  the  entire  military  forces  of  volunteers  and  regulars 
in  the  entire  Oregon  country  never  exceeded  fifteen  hundred  men  in  actual 
service,  the  result  was  the  abandonment  of  the  outlying  settlements  and  con- 
centrating the  settlers  at  points  where  they  could  be  protected.  Running  battles 
between  white  and  Indians  were  frequent  events  in  the  Eastern  Oregon  Coun- 
try, some  of  them  covering  four  days.  This  was  possible  in  the  open  and  level 
regions  of  Eastern  Oregon,  Washington  and  Idaho,  and  wholly  impossible  in 
the  mountainous  regions  of  Southern  Oregon.  And  to  show  how  completely  the 
Jndians  had  possession  of  the  whole  counti-y  east  of  the  Cascade  mountains, 
the  attack  on  the  people  at  the  Cascades,  where  the  towns  of  Stephenson  and 
Cascades  Locks  are  now  located,  within  forty  miles  of  the  City  of  Portland,  the 
following  account  of  that  attack  is  here  by  Lawrence  W,  Coe,  who  was  an 
eye  witness  of  the  exciting  scenes.  In  a  letter  to  Putnam  Bradford,  who  was  at 
that  time  constructing  the  first  portage  railroad  at  the  Cascades,  Mr.  Coe 
writes : 

' '  On  Wednesday,  March  26,  1856,  at  about  8 :30  A.  M.  the  men  had  gone  to 
their  work  on  the  two  bridges  of  the  new  railway,  mostly  on  the  bridge  near 
Bush's  house,  the  Yakimas  came  down  on  us.  There  was  a  line  of  them  from 
Mill  Creek  above  us  to  the  big  point  at  the  head  of  the  falls,  firing  simultaneous- 
ly on  the  men ;  and  the  first  notice  we  had  of  them  was  the  bullets  and  the  crack 
of  their  guns.  Of  our  men,  at  the  first  fire,  one  was  killed,  and  several  wounded. 
Our  men  on  seeing  the  Indians  all  ran  for  our  store,  through  a  shower  of  bullets, 
except  three  who  stalled  down  stream  for  the  middle  blockhouse,  distant  one 
and  a  half  miles.  Bush  and  his  family  also  ran  into  our  store,  leaving  his  house 
vacant.  The  Watkins  family  came  to  the  store  after  a  Dutch  boy,  who  was  lame 
from  a  cut  in  the  foot, — had  been  shot  in  their  house.  Watkins,  Finlay  and 
Baily  were  at  work  on  the  new  warehouse  on  the  island,  around  which  the  water 
was  now  high  enough  to  run  about  three  feet  deep  under  the  bridges.  There 
was  grand  confusion  in  the  stoi'e  at  first ;  and  Sinclair,  of  Walla  Walla,  going 
to  the  railroad  door  to  look  out,  was  shot  from  the  bank  above  the  store  and 
instantly  killed.  Some  of  us  commenced  getting  the  guns  and  rifles,  which 
were  ready  loaded  and  behind  the  counter.  Fortunately,  about  an  hour  before, 
there  had  been  left  with  us  for  transportation  below,  nine  TTnited  States  gov- 


410  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OKEGON 

eminent  i-ifles  with  cartridge  boxes  and  ammunition.  These  saved  us.  As  the 
upper. story  of  the  house  was  abandoned,  Smith  the  cook,  having  come  below,  and 
as  the  stairway  was  outside  where  we  dare  not  go,  the  stove  pipe  was  hauled 
down,  the  hole  enlarged  with  axes,  and  a  party  of  men  crawled  up  and  the  upper 
part  of  the  house  was  soon  secured-  We  were  surprised  that  the  Indians  had 
not  rushed  into  the  upper  story,  as  there  was  nothing  or  nobody  to  prevent 
them. 

' '  Our  men  soon  got  some  shots  at  the  Indians  on  the  bank  above  us.  I  saw 
Bush  shoot  an  Indian,  the  first  one  killed,  who  was  drawing  a  bead  on  Mrs.  Wat- 
kins  as  she  was  running  for  our  store.  He  dropped  instantly.  Alexander  and 
others  mounted  into  the  gable  under  the  roof,  and  from  there  was  done  most  of 
our  firing,  it  being  the  best  place  of  observation.  In  the  meantime,  we  were  bar- 
ricading in  the  store,  making  portholes  and  firing  when  opportunity  presented. 
But  the  Indians  were  soon  very  cautious  about  exposing  themselves.  I  took 
charge  of  the  store,  Dan  Bradford  of  the  second  floor,  and  Alexander  of  the 
garret  and  roof. 

' '  The  steamer  Marj^  was  lying  in  tlie  mouth  of  Mill  Creek,  and  the  wind  was 
blowing  hard  down  stream.  When  we  saw  Indians  running  toward  her  and  heard 
the  shots,  we  supposed  she  would  be  taken ;  and  as  she  lay  just  out  of  our  sight, 
and  we  saw  smoke  rising  from  her,  concluded  she  was  burning,  but  what  was 
our  glad  surprise  after  a  while  to  see  her  put  out  and  run  across  the  river.  I 
will  give  an  account  of  the  attack  on  her  hex'einafter. 

' '  The  Indians  now  returned  in  force  to  us,  and  we  gave  every  one  a  shot  who 
showed  himself.  They  were  nearly  naked,  painted  red  and  had  guns  and  bows 
and  arrows.  After  a  while  Pinlay  came  creeping  around  the  lower  point  of 
the  island  toward  our  house.  We  halloed  to  him  to  lie  down  behind  a  rock, 
and  he  did  so.  He  called  that  he  could  not  get  to  the  store  as  the  bank  above 
us  was  covered  with  Indians.  He  saw  Watkin's  house  burn  while  there.  The 
Indians  first  took  out  all  they  wanted — blankets,  clothes,  guns,  etc.  By  this 
time  the  Indians  had  crossed  in  canoes  to  the  island,  and  we  saw  them  coming, 
as  we  supposed,  after  Finlay.  We  then  saw  Watkins  and  Bailey  running 
around  the  river  side  towards  the  place  where  Finlay  was,  and  the  Indians 
in  full  chase  after  them.  As  our  own  men  came  around  the  point  in  full  view, 
Bailey  was  shot  through  the  arm  and  leg.  He  continued  on,  and  plunging  into 
the  river,  swam  to  the  front  of  our  store  and  came  in  safely,  except  for  his 
wounds.  He  narrowly  escaped  going  over  the  falls.  Finlay  also  swam  'across 
and  got  in  unharmed,  which  was  wonderful,  as  there  was  a  shower  of  bullets 
around  them. 

"Watkins  next  came  running  around  the  point,  and  we  called  to  him  to  lie 
down  behind  a  rock,  but  before  he  could  do  so  he  was  shot  in  the  wrist, 
the  ball  going  up  the  anu  and  out  above  the  elbow.  He  dropped  behind  a  rock 
just  as  the  'pursuing  Indians  came  following  around  the  point,  but  we  gave 
them  so  hot  a  reception  from  our  house  that  they  backed  out  and  left  poor 
Watkins  where  he  lay.  We  called  to  Watkins  to  lie  still  and  we  would  get  him 
off;  but  we  were  not  able  to  do  so  until  after  the  arrival  from  The  Dalles  of 
the  steamer  Mary  with  troops — two  days  and  nights  afterwards.  During  this 
time  Watkins  fainted  several  times  from  weakness  and  exposure,  the  weather 
being  very  cold,  and  he  was  stripped  down  to  his  underclothes  for  swimming. 
When  he  fainted  he  would  roll  down  the  steep  bank  into  the  river,  and  the 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  411 

ii'(>-c'old  water  reviving  liiiii.  lie  would  cniwi  liaek  under  lire  to  his  retreat  be- 
hind the  rock.  Meautiiue.  his  wile  aud  ciiildren  were  in  the  store  in  full 
view,  and  moaning  piteously  at  his  terrible  situation.  H(>  died  from  cxliaus- 
tion  two  days  after  he  was  rescued. 

•'The  Indians  were  now  piteliing  into  us  'right  smart.'  They  tried  to  Iniru 
us  out;  tlirew  rouks  and  tire  l>rands.  hot  irons,  pitch  wood — everyl  liiriK  on 
the  roof  that  would  burn.  But  you  will  recollect  that  for  a  short  distance 
hack  the  bank  inclined  toward  the  house,  and  we  could  see  and  shoot  the  In- 
dians who  appeared  there.  So  they  had  to  throw  from  such  a  distance  that 
the  largest  rocks  and  bundles  of  fire  did  not  quite  reach  iis;  and  what  did, 
generally  rolled  off  the  roof.  Some  times  the 'roof  got  on  fire,  and  we  cut  it 
out,  or  with  cups  of  brine  drawn  from  pork  barrels  put  it  out  or  with 
long  sticks  shoved  off  the  fire  l)alls.  The  kitchen  roof  troubled  us  tlie  most. 
How  they  did  pepper  us  with  rocks;  some  of  the  big  ones  would  shake  the 
house  all  over. 

"Tliere  were  now  forty  men,  women  and  children  in  the  house — four  women, 
and  eighteen  men  that  could  fight,  and  eighteen  wounded  men  and  children. 
The  steamer  Wasco  was  on  the  Oregon  side  of  the  river.  We  saw  her  steam  up 
and  leave  for  The  Dalles.  Shortly  after,  the  steamer  Mary  also  left.  She  had 
to  take  Atwell  's  fence  rails  for  wood.  So  passed  the  day,  during  which  the  In- 
dians had  burned  Inman  's  two  houses,  your  saw-mill  and  houses,  and  the  lumber 
yards  at  the  mouth  of  Mill  Creek.  At  daylight,  they  set  fire  to  your  new  ware- 
house on  the  Island,  making  it  as  light  as  day  around  us.  They  did  not  attack 
us  at  night,  but  the  second  morning  commenced  as  lively  as  ever.  We  had  no 
water,  but  did  have  about  two  dozen  ale  and  a  few  bottles  of  whiskey.  These 
gave  out  during  the  day.  During  the  night,  a  Spokane  Indian  who  was  travel- 
ing with  Sinclair,  was  in  the  store  with  us  volunteered  to  get  a  pail  of  water 
from  the  river.  I  consented,  and  he  stripped  himself  naked,  jumped  out  and 
down  the  bank,  and  was  back  in  no  time.  By  this  time  we  looked  for  the  steamer 
from  The  Dalles,  and  were  greatl.y  disappointed  at  her  non-arrival.  We  weath- 
ered it  out  during  the  day.  Every  man  keeping  his  post,  and  never  relaxing  in 
vigilance.  Every  moving  object,  shadow,  or  suspicious  bush  on  the  hill,  received 
a  shot.  The  Indians  must  have  thought  the  house  a  bombshell.  To  our  ceaseless 
vigilance  I  ascribe  our  safety.  Night  came  again;  we  saw  Sheppard's  house 
burn ;  Bush 's  house  neai'by,  was  also  fired,  and  kept  us  in  light  until  about  four 
A.  M.,  when  darkness  returning,  I  sent  the  Spokane  Indian  for  water  from  the 
river,  and  he  filled  two  barrels.  He  went  to  and  fro  like  lightning.  We  also 
slipped  poor  James  Sinclair's  body  down  the  slide  outside,  as  the  corpse  was 
quite  offensive. 

"The  two  steamers  now^  having  exceeded  the  length  of  time  we  gave  them  in 
which  to  return  from  The  Dalles,  we  made  up  our  minds  for  a  long  siege  and 
until  relief  came  from  below.  We  could  not  account  for  it,  but  supposed  the 
Ninth  Regiment  had  left  The  Dalles  for  Walla  Walla,  and  had  proceeded  too 
far  to  return.  The  third  morning  dawned,  and  lo!  the  Mary  and  the  Wasco 
blue  with  soldiers,  and  towing  a  flat-boat  with  dragoon  horses,  hove  in  sight: 
such  a  hallo  as  we  gave. 

' '  As  the  steamer  landed  the  Indians  fired  twenty  or  thirty  shots  into  them,  but 
we  could  not  ascertain  with  any  effect.     The  soldiers  as  they  got  ashore  could 


412  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

not  be  restrained,  and  plunged  into  the  woods  in  every  direction,  while  the 
howitzers  sent  grape  after  the  retreating  red  skins.  The  soldiers  were  soon  at 
our  store,  and  we,  I  think  I  maj'  say,  experienced  quite  a  feeling  of  relief  on 
opening  our  doors.  During  this  time  we  had  not  heard  from  below.  A  com- 
pany of  dragoons  under  Colonel  Steptoe  went  on  down.  Dan  went  with  them. 
The  block-house  at  the  middle  Cascades  still  held  out.  Allen's  house  was  burned, 
and  every  other  one  below.  George  W.  Johnson's,  S.  M.  Hamilton's,  P.  A. 
Chenoweth's,  The  wharf  boat  at  Cascades — all  gone  up.  Next  in  order  comes 
the  attack  on  the  Mary.  She  lay  in  Mill  Creek,  no  fires,  and  wind  hard  ashore. 
Jim  Thompson,  John  Woodard  and  Jim  Herman,  were  just  going  up  to  the 
boat  from  our  store  and  had  nearly  reached  her  as  they  were  flred  upon.  Her- 
man asked  if  they  had  any  guns.  No.  He  went  on  up  to  Inman's  house,  the 
rest  staying  to  help  get  the  steamer  out.  Capt.  Dan  Baughman  and  Thompson 
were  ashore  on  the  upper  side  of  the  creek  hauling  on  lines,  when  the  firing  from 
the  Indians  became  so  hot  they  ran  for  the  woods,  passed  Inman's  house-  The 
firemen,  James  Lindsaj*,  was  shot  through  the  shoulder.  Engineer,  Buckminster 
shot  an  Indian  with  his  revolver  on  the  gang-plank,  and  little  Johnny  Chance 
went  climbing  up  on  the  hurricane  deck  with  an  old  dragoon  pistol,  killed  his  In- 
dian; but  he  was  shot  through  the  leg  in  doing  so.  Dick  Turpin,  half  crazy, 
probably,  taking  the  only  gain  on  the  steamboat,  jumped  into  a  flat  boat  lying 
along  side,  was  shot,  and  jumped  overboard  and  was  drowned.  Fires  were 
soon  started  under  the  boiler  and  steam  was  raising.  About  this  time,  Jesse 
Kempton,  shot  while  driving  an  oxteara  from  the  saw-mill,  got  on  board ;  also  a 
half-breed  named  "Bourbon,"  who  was  shot  through  the  body.  After  sufficient 
steam  to  move  was  I'aised,  Hardin  Chenoweth  ran  up  into  the  pilot  house,  and, 
lying  on  the  floor,  turned  the  wheel  as  he  was  directed  from  the  lower  deck.  It 
is  almost  needless  to  say  that  the  pilot  house  was  a  target  for  the  Indians.  After 
the  steamer  was  fairly  backed  out  and  turned  around,  he  did  toot  that  whistle 
at  them  good.  Toot !  Toot !  Toot !  it  was  music  in  our  ears.  The  steamer  picked 
up  Herman  on  the  bank  above.  Inman's  family,  Sheppard,  and  Vanderpool  all 
got  across  the  river  in  skiffs,  and  boarding  the  Mary  went  to  The  Dalles. 

"Colonel  George  Wright  and  the  Ninth  Regiment,  Second  Dragoons,  and 
Third  Artillery,  had  started  for  Walla  AValla,  and  were  out  five  miles,  camped. 
They  received  news  of  the  attack  at  11  P.  M.,  and  by  daylight  were  l3ack  at  The 
Dalles.  Starting  down,  they  only  reached  Wind  Mountain  that  night,  as  the 
Mary's  boiler  was  in  bad  order,  because  of  a  new  fireman  the  day  before.  They 
reached  us  the  next  morning  at  6  o'clock. 

"Now  for  below.  George  Johnson  Avas  about  to  get  a  boat's  crew  of  Indians 
when  Indian  Jack  came  running  to  him,  saying  the  Yakimas  had  attacked  the 
block  house.  He  did  not  believe  it,  although  he  heard  the  cannon.  He  went  up 
to  the  Indian  village  on  the  sand  bar  to  get  his  crew;  saM'  some  of  the  Cascade 
Indians,  who  said  they  thought  the  Yakimas  had  come,  and  George,  now  hearing 
the  muskets  ran  for  home.  E.  W.  Baughman  was  with  him.  Bill  Murphy  had 
left  the  block-house  early  for  the  Indian  camp,  and  had  nearly  returned  before 
he  saw  the  Indians  or  was  shot  at.  He  returned,  two  others  with  him,  and  ran 
for  George  Johnson's,  about  thirty  Indians  in  chase.  After  reaching  Johnson's, 
Murphy  continued  on  and  gave  Hamilton  and  all  below  warning,  and  the  families 
embarked  in  small  boats  for  Vancouver.     The  men  would  have  barricaded  in  the 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  4J;J 

whari'-boat  but  for  want  ol'  aimimiiitioii.  There  was  considerable  goveriiiuenl 
freight  in  tlie  wharf-boat.  They  staid  about  the  wharf-boat  and  schooner  nearly 
all  day,  and  until  the  Indians  coiumenced  tiring  upon  them  from  the  zinc  house 
on  the  bank.  They  then  shoved  out.  Tommy  Price  was  shot  through  the  leg  in 
getting  the  boats  into  the  stream.  Floating  down  they  met  the  steamer  Belle  with 
Phil  Sheridan  and  forty  men  (Sheridan  afterwards  Maj.  Gen.  Sheridan  of  the 
Union  Army)  sent  up  on  report  of  an  express  carried  do^vn  by  Indian  Simpson 
in  the  morning.  George  and  those  with  him  went  on  board  the  steamer  and 
volunteered  to  serve  under  Sheridan,  who  landed  at  George's  place  and  found 
everything  burned.  The  steamer  returned,  and  the  Indians  pitched  into  Sher- 
idan, fought  him  all  day  and  drove  him  with  forty  men  and  ten  volunteers  to  be- 
low Hamilton's,  notwithstanding  he  had  a  small  cannon — one  soldier  killed. 

"The  steamer  Belle  returned  the  next  day  (3rd  of  the  attack)  and  brought  am- 
munition for  the  block-house.  Your  partner.  Bishop,  who  was  in  Portland,  came 
up  on  her.  Steamer  Fashion,  with  volunteers  from  Portland,  came  at  the  same 
time.  The  volunteers  remained  at  the  lower  Cascades.  Sheridan  took  his 
command,  and  with  a  bateaux  loaded  with  ammunition,  crossed  to  Brad- 
ford's Island  on  the  Oregon  side,  where  they  found  most  of  the  Cascade  Indians, 
they  having  been  advised  by  George  Johnson  to  go  on  there  the  first  ^lay  of  the 
attack.  They  were  crossing  and  re-crossing  all  the  time,  and  Sheridan  made 
them  prisoners.  He  pressed  a  boat's  crew,  and  as  they  towed  up  to  the  head  of 
the  Island  and  above,  saw  great  numbers  of  Indians  on  the  Washington  Territory 
side  and  oi)posite  them.  Sheridan  expected  them  to  cross  and  fight  him,  and 
between  them,  and  the  friendly  ( ?)  Indians  in  his  charge,  thought  he  had  his 
hands  full. 

■■Just  then  Sheridan  discovered  Steptoe  and  his  dragoon  infantry  and  volun- 
teers coming  down  from  the  Mary,  surprising  completely  the  Indians,  who  were 
cooking  beef  and  watching  Sheridan  across  the  river.  But  on  the  sound  of  the 
bugle  the  Indians  fled  like  deer  to  the  woods  w'ith  the  loss  of  only  one  killed — 
'Old  Joanum. ■     But  for  the  bugle  they  ought  to  have  captured  fifty. 

' '  The  Ninth  Regiment  are  building  a  block-house  on  the  hill  above  us,  also  at 
George  Johnson 's  and  will  hereafter  keep  a  sti'ong  force  here.  Lieut.  Bissell  and 
twelve  men  who  were  stationed  at  the  Upper  Cascades  were  ordered  awa\-  and 
left  for  The  Dalles  two  days  before  the  attack  w^as  made  upon  us. 

■"The  Indians  Sheridan  took  on  the  Island  were  closely  guarded.  Old  Cheno- 
weth  (Chief)  was  brought  up  before  Colonel  Wright,  tried,  and  sentenced  to  be 
hung.  The  Cascade  Indians,  being  under  treaty,  were  adjudged  guiltj"  of  trea- 
son in  fighting.  Chenoweth  died  game;  was  hung  on  the  upper  side  of  Mill 
Creek.  I  acted  as  interpreter.  He  offered  ten  horses,  two  squaws,  and  a  little 
something  to  every  '  tyee '  for  his  life ;  he  said  he  was  afraid  of  the  grave  in  the 
ground,  and  begged  to  be  put  into  an  Indian  dead  house.  He  gave  a  terrific 
war  whoop  while  the  rope  was  being  put  around  his  neck.  I  thought  he  expected 
the  Indians  to  come  and  rescue  him.  The  rope  did  not  work  well,  and  while 
hanging  he  muttered,  'wake  niki  kwass  kopa  memaloose!'  (I  am  not  afraid 
to  die).  He  was  then  shot.  I  was  glad  to  see  the  old  devil  killed,  being  satisfied 
that  he  was  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  trouble.  B^xt  I  cannot  detail  at  too  great 
length. 

■■The  next  day  Teeoiueoe  anil  Cap.  Jo.  were  hung.     Cap.  Jo.  said  all  tlie  Cas- 


414  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

cade  Indians  were  in  the  fight.  The  next  day,  Toy,  Sim  Lasselas,  and  Four- 
fingered  Johnny  were  hung.  The  next  day  Chenoweth  Jim,  Tumalth,  and  Old 
Skein  were  hung  and  Kanewake  sentenced,  but  reprieved  on  the  scaffold.  Nine 
in  all  were  executed.  Banaha  is  a  prisoner  at  Vancouver  and  decorated  with  ball 
and  chain.  The  rest  of  the  Cascade  Indians  are  on  your  Island,  and  will  be  shot 
if  seen  otf  of  it.  Such  are  Col.  Wright's  orders.  Dow,  Watiquin,  Peter,  Ma- 
hooka  John,  Kotzue,  and  maybe  more  of  them,  have  gone  with  the  Yakimas. 

' '  I  forgot  to  mention  that  your  house  at  the  Lower  Cascades,  also  Bishop 's  was 
burned ;  also  to  account  for  Captain  Dan.  Baughman  and  Jim  Thompson.  They 
put  back  into  the  mountains,  and  at  night  came  down  to  the  river  at  Vanderpool  's 
place,  fished  up  an  old  boat  and  crossed  to  the  Oregon  side.  They  concealed 
themselves  in  the  rocks  on  the  river  bank  opposite,  where  they  could  watch  us ; 
and  at  niglit  went  back  into  the  mountains  to  sleep.  They  came  in  safel}^  after 
the  troops  arrived. 

"We  do  not  know  how  many  Indians  there  were.  They  attacked  the  block- 
house, our  place,  and  drove  Sheridan  all  at  the  same  time.  We  think  there  was 
not  less  than  two  or  three  hundred.  When  the  attack  was  made  on  us  three  of 
our  carpenters  ran  for  the  middle  block-house,  overtook  the  cars  at  the  salmon 
house,  cut^the  mules  loose,  and,  with  the  car  drivers,  all  kept  on.  They  were  not 
fired  on  until  they  got  to  the  Spring  on  the  railroad,  but  from  there  they  ran  the 
gauntlet  of  bullets  and  arrows  to  the  fort.  Little  Jake  was  killed  in  the  run. 
Several  were  wounded." 

This  is  a  sample  of  the  desperate  sort  of  fighting  the  Indians  prosecuted  all 
over  Eastern  Oregon,  Washington,  Idaho,  and  Southern  Oregon  for  the  years 
1855  and  1856 ;  and  only  came  to  an  end  by  the  practical  exhaustion  of  the  Indian 
allies.  The  U.  S.  Government  then  made  a  business  efl:ort  to  extinguish  the  In- 
dian title  to  lands  the  American  settlers  wished  to  occupy.  When  all  the  bills 
and  expenses  the  Government  was  liable  for,  or  should  justly  assume  and  pay 
for  these  years  of  war  was  summed  up,  the  aggregate  was  $6,011,457.36,  as  re- 
ported by  Captains  Rufus  lugalls  and  A.  J.  Smith,  U.  S.  A.,  and  L.  F.  Grover, 
commissioners  appointed  to  audit  these  war  claims.  On  February  7.  1860,  R. 
J.  Atkinson,  Third  Auditor  of  the  United  States  Treasury,  reported  $2,714,808.55 
as  justly  due ;  and  the  greater  part  of  this  sum  was  during  the  early  years  of  the 
Civil  war  in  depreciated  currency.  This  reduction  and  mode  of  payment  bank- 
rupted many  of  the  early  settlers,  from  the  effects  of  which  thej^  never  recov- 
ered. Then  a  peaceable  settlement  was  made  with  the  Indians  for  less  than  one- 
sixth  of  that  expense.  Treaties  and  purchases  of  lands  from  the  Indians  were 
made  as  follows.  Twenty-nine  thousand  square  miles,  covering  Klickitat,  Yak- 
ima, Kittitas,  Spokane,  Lincoln,  Whitman,  BVanklin,  Lincoln,  Douglas.  Adams, 
Columbia,  and  Walla  Walla  counties  in  the  State  of  Washington  and  portions 
of  Union  and  Umatilla  Counties  in  Oregon,  excepting  the  Indian  Reserves  therein, 
were  ceded  to  the  United  States  by  the  allied  Indians  known  as  the  '"Yakima 
Nation. ' '  For  this  vast  tract  the  Indians  were  to  be  paid  $200,000  in  yearly  in- 
stallments, and  $500  a  year  to  the  head  chief  for  twenty  years.  The  Walla 
Wallas,  Cayuses  and  Umatillas  joined  in  another  treaty  by  which  they  were  to 
receive  $100,000,  with  $500  a  year  to  their  head  man  for  twenty  years,  and  re- 
serving the  lands  in  the  Umatilla  Reservation.  The  Nez  Perces,  who  had  always 
been  friendly  to  the  whites,  joined  in  another  treaty  ceding  eighteen  thousand 
square  miles,  and  reserving  one-fourth  of  it  in  one  body  for  their  ovm  Reserve, 


'-.■I   ;-CJiiDATI0N8. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  4ir, 

for  till,'  sum  of  ^2()0,(H)(),  jiiul  $.')()()  a  year  for  tlicif  lirail  man  for  twciily  years, 
f'fty-ci^'lil  Cliii'fs  si<;iiril  this  Ifcaty.  The  h'lal  lirads,  Koolcnais,  and  I'pinT 
l'<>ri(l  d'Orcillcs,  constitiil  iiig  lliat  Klatlicail  Nation,  made  a  treaty  cediiiji:  twenty 
thousand  s(|uaiH'  miles,  reserving  a  large  tract  for  their  e.xehisive  use,  and  for 
whieli  they  were  to  reeeive  $200,000  and  $500  a  year  for  twenty  years  to  their 
head  man.  After  making  all  these  treaties,  buying  over  fifty  million  acres  of 
land  for  less  than  two  cents  an  acre.  Gen.  Joel  Palmer,  who  had  negotiated  all 
these  treaties  returned  to  The  Dalles,  Oregon,  and  there  induced  the  Wascoes, 
Des  Chutes,  and  John  Day  river  Indians  on  June  25,  1855,  to  cede  their  lands 
amounting  to  sixteen  thousand  square  miles,  for  the  sum  of  $150,000.  This 
was  the  best  bargain  of  all,  including  as  it  did  all  the  rich  wheat  lauds,  of  Wasco, 
Sherman,  i\Iorrow,  Crook,  and  Wheeler  Counties  at  one  cent  per  acre,  and  re- 
serving to  the  Indians  the  beautiful  Warm  Springs  Reservation  at  the  east  base 
of  Mt.  Jefferson.  After  making  these  treaties  for  the  ac(iuisition  of  all  these 
millions  of  acres  of  Indian  land.  General  Palmer  published  a  notice  in  which 
Governor  Isaac  I.  Stevens  of  Washington  Territory  concurred,  telling  the  people 
that  all  the  country  east  of  the  summit  of  the  Cascade  Mountains,  except  the 
Reservations,  was  opened  to  settlement.  But  the  Indians  did  not  so  understand  it. 
The  great  body  of  the  Indians  did  not  approve  of  what  their  Chiefs  had  done. 
They  could  not  understand  how  for  a  sum  of  money  they  knew  not  the  value  of, 
the  Chiefs  could  barter  away  their  ancient  hunting  grounds.  And  so  when  the 
first  breath  of  resistance  came  they  were  all  ready  to  repudiate  what  the  Chiefs 
had  done  and  rush  into  a  wide  spread  relentless  war.  So  far  as  money  considera- 
tions were  concerned  the  exhausted  and  impoverished  Rogue  Rivers  fared  worse 
tiian  all  the  other  Indians,  receiving  only  about  $125,000  in  trust  for  all  of  their 
Southern  Oregon  country. 

But  they  fared  better  in  Reservations;  their  homes  being  cast  in  the  mild 
climate  of  Lincoln  and  Yamhill  Counties,  with  very  good  hunting  and  trapping 
grounds  and  an  abundance  of  fish,  with  friendly  white  neighbors  with  whom 
they  could  visit  and  trade. 

In  the  prosecution  of  the  Yakima  war,  many  Oregonians  rendered  distin- 
guished and  valuable  services;  among  whom  should  be  named  Col.  T.  R.  Cor- 
nelius, Col.  James  K.  Kelly,  Col.  Gilliam,  Col.  James  W.  Nesmith,  Major  Sowall 
Truax,  and  many  others. 

THE    MODOC    WAR 

This  Chapter  will  be  clo.sed  with  a  brief  account  of  the  most  bitter  and  sen- 
sational Indian  war  in  the  whole  history  of  the  United  States,  the  leader  of  which 
was  the  youngest  Chief  among  all  the  fighting  Indians;  and  who  for  mental 
ability,  quick  perception,  cunning  and  dare-devil  courage  was  more  than  equal 
to  any  military  officer  sent  out  to  capture  or  kill  him.  Bancroft's  account  of 
the  Modoc  war  covers  183  pages  of  his  history  of  Oregon,  and  its  great  length  of 
detail  forbids  its  inclusion  in  a  single  volume  of  the  State. 

The  word  "^Modoc"  means  "a  stranger"  or  "hostile  sti'aiiger;"  and  that  is 
what  in  fact  and  truth  the  Modoc  Indians  proved  to  be  to  the  people  of  Sonth- 
i^ast  Oregon.  From  the  time  some  of  Fremont's  men  were  killed  on  Klamath 
Lake  in  1843.  down  to  the  making  of  the  first  treaty  with  them  in  1864,  the  Mo- 
docs  were  the  implacable  enemies  of  the  white  race.  They  lived  on  the  border 
land  between  California  and  Oi'egon,  but  mostly  in  Oregon,  on  Sprague  River 


416  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

and  upi^er  Klamath  Lake ;  Sconchin,  the  head  Chief  having  his  original  home  on 
Sprague  river.  Keintpoos,  a  young  sub-chief,  had  his  camp  anywhere  conven- 
ient about  Tule  Lake,  and  ranging  the  countrj'  over  between  the  two  Klamath 
Lakes  to  Yreka,  California.  He  was  called  "Captain  Jack"  by  the  white  set- 
tlers, because  he  had  a  love  for  military  ornaments.  He  was  a  thoroughbred 
savage,  and  as  debased  a  specimen  of  manhood  as  could  be  found,  quickly  taking 
up  all  the  vices  of  eivilizatiou,  and  making  his  easy  money  by  the  prostitution  of 
the  women  of  his  band,  pettj^  thieving  and  do'v^oiright  robbery.  During  the  years 
of  the  civil  war  with  the  Southern  States,  "Jack,"  who  had  acquired  consider- 
able knowledge  of  the  English  language  at  the  mining  camps,  heard  much  of  the 
great  war  among  the  white  men,  and  how  so  many  thousands  were  being  killed 
off.  And  having  no  knowledge  of  the  size  or  population  of  the  United  States, 
conceived  the  idea  that  all  the  white  soldiers  being  now  awaj'  at  war  among  them- 
selves it  would  be  a  good  time  and  an  easy  job  to  kill  off  all  the  white  men  in  the 
Klamath  Lake  region,  and  thus  get  rid  of  them.  But  before  starting  in  on  this 
enterprise  he  sought  out  and  had  an  interview  with  Elijah  Steele,  the  Superin- 
tendent of  Indian  affairs  for  Northern  California.  The  Modocs  being  Oregon- 
ians,  Steele  had  no  authority  to  make  any  treaty  mth  them,  but  he  did  make  a 
sort  of  personal  and  individual  compact  with  Jack  and  his  band  which  amounted 
to  nothing  more  than  abstaining  from  drunkenness,  prostitution,  theft,  murder, 
child-selling  and  killing  the  white  people,  the  only  penalty  for  which  was  the 
loss  of  Steele's  friendship.  This  of  course  amounted  to  nothing  with  the  Indians. 
They  were  free  to  visit  mining  camps,  go  where  they  pleased  and  do  as  they 
please  and  cunningly  cover  up  their  bad  conduct.  Sconchin,  the  head  Chief, 
was  now  an  old  man,  and  "Jack"  speedily  grasped  the  reins  of  authority,  and 
lost  no  time  in  making  himself  master  of  the  Indian  situation,  and  taking  unto 
himself  all  the  joys  and  pleasures  of  an  unrestrained  and  bloodthirsty  savage. 
He  would  not  remain  on  the  Klamath  Indian  Reservation  where  old  Chief  Scon- 
chin had  gone;  nor  would  he  respect  any  authority  of  the  Indian  Agents,  or 
the  advice  or  wishes  of  the  other  Indian  Chiefs,  who  had  become  attached  to  a 
young  chief  named  Allen  David,  and  who  was  striving  to  teach  all  the  Indians 
the  arts  of  peace.  During  the  summer  of  1871  Jack  frequently  visited  the  Kla- 
math Reservation,  defying  the  military  authorities,  and  boasting  that  he  had 
friends  in  Yreka  who  gave  him  passes  to  go  where  he  pleased ;  and  upon  a  chal- 
lenge he  actually  produced  a  pass  signed  by  E.  Steele  confirming  the  boast  of 
the  Indian.  Becoming  so  arrogant  and  puffed  up  with  his  budding  greatness. 
Jack  went  upon  the  Klamath  Reserve  and  killed  an  Indian  doctor,  who  having 
failed  to  save  the  life  of  a  member  of  Jack's  family,  was  according  to  Jack's 
reasoning  guilty  of  the  death  of  the  deceased.  For  this  murder  Ivan  D.  Apple- 
gate,  commissary  at  Camp  Yainax,  made  a  requisition  on  the  commander  of  Fort 
Klamath  to  arrest  Jack  for  murder ;  and  this  effort  to  bring  Jack  to  account  was 
defeated  by  Jack's  white  friends  in  Yreka.  Jack  now  assumed  that  he  was  all- 
powerful;  and  with  this  event  the  trouble  commenced.  If  the  Yrekans  had 
joined  in  demanding  Jack's  punishment  for  the  murder  of  his  own  tribesman, 
he  would  have  been  punished,  and  all  the  bloody  Avork  he  inflicted  thereafter 
would  have  been  prevented.  Jack  now  demanded  a  separate  Reservation  for 
himself,  six  miles  square  lying  on  both  sides  of  the  Oregon  and  California  line 
near  the  head  of  Tule  Lake.     And  Superintendent  of  Indian  Affairs,  A.  B.  Mea- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  417 

cham,  not  knowing  how  to  get  Jack  back  on  the  Klamath  Reserve,  recommended 
that  this  special  favor  be  given  the  ontlaw.  All  this  fed  the  vanity  of  the  savage 
and  made  him  more  insolent  and  dangerous.  A  part  of  the  land  that  Jack  de- 
manded was  claimed  under  U.  S.  laws  as  the  property  of  Jesse  D.  Carr  of  Cal- 
ifornia, and  then  in  ('liarge  of  Carr's  Agent — the  old  pioneer,  Jesse  Apijlegate. 
Of  Applegate,  Jack  demanded  pay  for  occupation,  which  being  refused,  one  of 
Jack's  personal  friends  known  as  Black  Jim  went  on  the  war  path  with  twenty 
warriors,  alarming  the  whole  community.  The  Modoc  war  had  now  practically 
commenced.  Jack  had  repudiated  and  defied  the  U.  S.  authorities,  openly  com- 
mitted murder  on  a  government  reserve,  defied  the  rights  of  white  settlers  to 
their  lands  under  the  laws,  and  put  an  armed  force  in  the  field  to  enforce  his  de- 
mands. About  this  time  there  was  much  confusion  of  authority  on  the  Klamath 
Reservation  by  the  changing  of  Agents,  there  being  four  different  agents  inside  of 
three  years  time ;  and  this  did  not  add  to  any  respect  for  U.  S.  authority.  Jack 
was  invited  to  repeated  conventions  to  settle  differences,  sometimes  he  would 
come  and  sometimes  treat  the  invitation  with  contempt;  and  when  he  did  con- 
descend to  meet  the  white  men  to  talk  peace  he  was  always  accompanied  by  a 
dangerous  retinue  of  fighting  men.  Finally,  on  June  27,  1872,  Jack  sent  a  mes- 
sage to  Agent  L.  S.  Dyer  who  had  invited  Jack  to  meet  him  at  Linkville,  in-, 
structing  Dyar  to  say  to  the  Superintendent:  "We  do  not  wish  to  see  him  (the 
Supt.)  or  talk  with  him.  We  do  not  want  any  white  man  to  tell  us  what  to  do. 
Our  friends  and  counselors  are  men  in  Yreka,  California.  They  tell  us  to  stay 
where  we  are,  and  we  intend  to  do  it,  and  will  not  go  upon  the  Reservation.  I 
am  tired  of  being  talked  to,  and  I  am  done  talking. " 

This  ultimatum  from  the  haughty  son  of  the  forest,  somewhat  humiliating 
to  the  kindly  appeals  of  government  officials,  put  upon  them  the  necessity  of 
either  allowing  a  savage  to  run  at  large  ready  to  commit  any  outrage  his  innate 
hatred  of  the  white  race  might  suggest,  or  take  the  last  resort  and  capture  Jack 
and  all  his  warriors  by  military  force.  The  Superintendent  of  Indian  affairs 
turned  the  whole  matter  over  to  Col.  Green  of  Port  Klamath,  and  that  officer, 
guided  by  Ivan  Applegate,  made  a  forced  march  for  Captain  Jack's  camp,  ar- 
riving there  early  on  the  morning  of  November  29,  1872  with  thirty-six  regular 
troopers.  Arriving  at  the  outskirts  of  Jack's  camp  they  called  on  the  Indians 
to  come  out  and  surrender.  A  part  of  the  Indians  seemed  willing  to  yield  to 
the  command,  but  Scarface  Charley  and  Black  Jim  seized  their  guns  and  stood 
on  the  defensive.  Lieut.  Boutelle  then  advanced  with  a  small  guard  to  arrest 
"Scarface"  and  "Jim",  when  Scarface  fired  a  rifle  shot  at  the  Lieut,  and  missed 
him.  A  volley  of  shots  from  both  sides  followed ;  and  one  trooper  was  killed 
and  seven  wounded,  and  fifteen  Indians  were  killed  outright.  Up  to  the  time 
of  the  firing  Jack  had  remained  silent  in  his  tent;  but  on  the  opening  of  the 
battle  he  came  out  and  led  the  reti-eat  of  the  Indians  numbering  twice  as  many 
as  the  soldiers.  The  Jlodoc  war  was  now  fairly  opened;  and  couriers  were 
sent  off  in  every  direction  warning  the  white  settlers  to  flee  for  their  lives.  Prom 
that  time  the  enraged  Indians  burned,  killed  and  destroyed  in  every  direction, 
to  the  full  extent  of  their  a.bility.  These  murders  and  pillaging  of  property 
aroused  the  Governors  of  both  California  and  Oregon  to  action  and  volunteci-s 
were  called  out  to  aid  the  U.  S.  regulars.  Col.  John  Ross  of  Jacksonville  and 
Capt.  0.  C.  Applegate  of  Klamath  both  raised  companies  which  were  accepted 


418  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

and  mustered  into  the  service.  Applegate's  company  was  made  up  of  seventy 
men,  nearly  half  of  whom  were  selected  Klamaths,  Modocs,  Shoshones  and  Pit 
River  Indians,  and  from  their  training  and  knowledge  of  the  country  proved  to 
be  the  most  alert  and  effective  soldiers  in  the  service. 

Jack's  warriors  were  finally  rounded  up  and  forced  to  retreat  to  the  lava 
beds  on  the  east  shore  of  Tule  Lake,  from  which  it  looked  as  if  nothing  but  an 
earthquake  or  another  outflow  of  lava  would  ever  be  able  to  get  him  out.  Prom 
the  time  Jack  and  his  warriors  retreated  into  this  lava  ^p.d  stronghold  on  De- 
cember 16,  1872,  until  he  was  finally  forced  out  after  the  massacre  of  General 
Canbey  and  the  peace  makers  on  May  30,  1873, — five  ane.  a,  half  months — there 
was  continuous  effort  to  capture  or  destroy  him,  without  success.  The  savage 
Chieftain  never  at  the  best  had  more  than  sixty  warriors  to  support  him,  while 
the  regular  army  and  volunteers  amounted  to  fully  five  hundred  men  equipped 
with  every  then  modern  means  of  effective  gunnery.  And  this  also  shows  that 
the  Indian  must  have  been  preparing  for  such  a  siege  by  laying  in  provisions 
for  a  long  time  before. 

The  massacre  of  the  Peace  Commissioners  by  Jack  and  his  leaders  on  the 
11th  day  of  April,  1873,  was  a  terrible  revelation  to  the  kind-hearted  advocates 
of  justice  to  the  Indian.  And  it  showed  that  there  were  fully  as  many  white 
men  who  did  not  understand  the  Indian  character,  as  there  were  Indians  who 
could  not  comprehend  the  white  man.  When  warned  over  and  over  by  Riddle, 
the  white  husband  of  an  Indian  wife,  that  the  Indians  must  not  be  trusted  in  a 
proposition  for  a  peace  talk  in  their  lava  bed  den.  Rev.  Thomas,  the  Methodist 
minister  who  was  murdered  with  Canby,  replied  "That  God  Almighty  would 
not  let  any  such  a  body  of  men  be  hurt  that  were  on  as  good  a  mission  as  peace 
making."  To  this  Riddle  returned  the  only  sensible  and  safe  reply  that  could 
be  made :  ' '  Mr.  Thomas,  you  may  trust  God  as  much  as  you  please,  but  I  don 't 
trust  any  of  them  Injuns." 

The  sad  record  of  the  treachery  and  murder  of  the  peace  makers  is  briefly 
as  follows:  Commencing  about  the  5th  of  March,  1873,  diplomatic  negotiations 
between  Jack  and  Gen.  Canby  was  carried  on  until  the  10th  of  April;  Jack 
endeavoring  to  get  the  General  and  his  aids  into  his  power  and  murder  them, 
and  the  General  trying  on  his  part  to  secure  honestly  and  fairly,  just  terms  of 
peace  between  Jack  and  his  adherents  and  the  white  settlers.  Dozens  of  mes- 
sages were  passed  to  and  from  the  opposing  camps.  Toby  Riddle,  the  white 
man  with  an  Indian  wife,  and  who  understood  the  Modoc  language  acted  as 
interpreter  and  go-between,  and  repeatedly  warned  Canby  that  it  would  not  be 
safe  for  him  to  meet  Capt.  Jack  in  Council.  The  negotiations  proved  that  the 
Indian  was  more  than  a  match  for  the  educated  army  officers  in  cunning,  saga- 
city and  diplomatic  genius.  Jack  finally  agreed  to  meet  the  Peace  Commission, 
composed  of  Brig.-General  E.  R.  Canby,  Rev.  E.  Thomas,  Supt.  of  Indian  Af- 
fairs, A.  B.  Meacham,  and  Indian  Agent,  L.  S.  Dyer,  and  meet  them  at  a  point 
one  mile  from  the  soldiers,  without  guards,  and  all  to  go  unarmed.  Jack  to  be 
accompanied  by  five  of  his  warriors.  Toby  Riddle  still  opposed  the  meeting, 
and  again  warned  Canby  of  his  danger.  Meacham  and  Dyar  also  both  opposed 
the  meeting  fearing  a  trap,  but  yielded  to  the  wishes  of  Canby  and  Thomas. 
But  so  earnest  was  Riddle  in  his  opposition  to  the  meeting  and  determined  to 
be  not  blamed  for  results,  he  forced  the  Commissioners  to  go  with  him  to  the 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  419 

tent  of  Col.  Gillem  who  was  sick,  and  there  made  before  Gilleni  a  formal  pro- 
test against  meeting  Jack  at  the  place  selected,  and  admitted  that  he  would  go 
along  rather  than  be  called  a  coward;  and  then  urged  each  man  to  arm  him- 
self with  a  small  pistol  concealed  on  his  person,  so  that  if  betrayed  they  would 
have  something  to  defend  themselves  with. 

This  suggestion  was  spurned  by  Canby  and  the  preacher,  but  adopted  by 
Meacham  and  Dyer.  Caiiby  trusted  to  the  army,  and  Thomas  to  God,  to  see 
them  safe  through.  T'he  point  selected  by  Jack  was  a  depression  in  the  lava 
bed  rocks,  favoi'abl  +o  an  ambuscade;  and  into  this  trap  the  Peace  Commis- 
sioners went  like  laniuS  to  the  slaughter  on  the  morning  of  April  11,  1873.  Ar- 
riving at  the  rendezvous  all  sat  down  around  a  camp  fire.  Canby  offered  the 
Modocs  cigars,  which  were  accepted,  and  all  smoked  for  a  while.  The  Genei'al 
opened  the  Council  with  an  address,  talking  in  a  fatherly  way  about  his  desire 
to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  Indians,  and  make  a  permanent  treaty  of  peace. 
Meacham  and  the  Methodist  minister  followed  in  the  same  strain,  urging  the 
Indians  to  trust  the  white  men  and  look  forward  to  happy  and  peaceful  days. 
Jack  replied  in  a  careless  tone  as  to  his  having  given  up  the  Lost  River  country, 
and  did  not  know  anything  about  any  other  countries,  and  that  he  would  de- 
maud  the  Cottonwood  and  Willowcreek  lands,  and  removal  to  the  U.  S.  soldiers 
from  that  country.  And  while  ileaeham  was  making  reply,  and  Sconchin  was 
making  disrespectful  remarks  in  his  own  tongue.  Hooker  Jim  arose  from  the 
ground  and  going  to  Meacham 's  horse,  took  his  overcoat  aud  putting  it  on  with 
mocking  gestures  asked  if  he  wa.s  not  a  good  Meacham.  The  affront  was  under- 
stood by  all  of  them,  but  not  noticed  by  any  of  them.  General  Canby  then 
calmly  arose  and  with  kindly  words  to  the  Indians,  told  them  he  could  not 
remove  the  soldiers  without  the  authority  of  the  President.  Then  Sconchin  reit- 
erated the  demand  for  the  Cottonwood  and  Willow  Creek  lands.  And  while 
Sconchin  was  talking  Jack  arose  from  the  ground  and  took  a  position  in  front 
of  Gen.  Canby ;  and  as  he  took  this  position  two  Indians  suddenly  appeared,  as 
if  rising  out  of  the  ground,  each  carrying  a  number  of  guns.  Every  man  sprang 
to  his  feet  as  Jack  gave  the  word  "all  ready"  in  his  own  language,  and  draw- 
ing a  revolver  from  his  breast  shot  down  Gen.  Canby.  Simultaneously  Sconchin 
fired  on  Meacham,  and  Boston  Charley  on  the  preacher.  At  the  first  motion 
of  Jack  to  fire,  Agent  Dyer  took  to  his  heels  and  run  for  life  pursued  by  Hooker 
Jim,  but  being  hard  pressed  by  the  savage  he  turned  and  fired  on  him  twice 
and  finally  reached  the  picket  line  in  safety.  Riddle  also  escaped  by  running, 
and  his  wife,  Toby,  after  getting  a  blow  on  her  head  from  one  of  the  savages 
was  allowed  to  follow  her  husband.  Canby  and  Thomas  were  shot  dead  and 
both  stripped  and  left  naked.  Meacham  had  five  bullet  wounds  and  a  knife  cut 
on  the  head,  was  thought  dead,  and  stripped  as  the  others;  but  was  not  dead, 
and  was  finally  revived  and  survived  the  terrible  attack.  The  Indians  followed 
up  this  treacherous  advantage  with  efforts  to  decoy  other  officers  beyond  the 
lines  and  murder  them;  but  soon  the  awful  truth  was  known  and  the  soldiers 
rushed  out  to  recover  the  dead. 

This  terrible  chapter  exceeds  in  savage  brutality  anything  in  previous  deal- 
mgs  with  the  Indians,  and  was  followed  up  by  a  campaign  that  never  halted 
or  hesitated,  until  the  last  Modoc  was  captured,  and  Jack  and  his  fellow  mur- 


420  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

derers  hanged  for  their  crimes;  and  all  the  rest  of  the  Modocs  sent  into  per- 
petual exile  from  their  country  at  Quapaw  Agency  in  the  Indian  Territory. 

At  the  outset  Jack 's  warriors  were  estimated  at  sixty ;  and  on  the  final  sur- 
render there  were  fifty  fighting  men  and  boys,  over  fifty  women  and  sixty  chil- 
dren. And  while  Jack  was  on  the  war  path  forty-one  soldiers  had  been  killed, 
fifty-nine  wounded  and  twenty-four  settlers  had  been  killed  and  sixty-three 
wounded.  Jack  is  described  as  rather  small  in  stature,  with  small  hands  and 
feet  and  thin  arms.  His  face  was  round,  forehead  low  and  square,  expression 
serious,  almost  morose,  his  eye  black,  sharp,  watchful,  indicating  cunning,  cau- 
tion, and  a  determined  will,  and  his  age  36  when  executed. 

Thus  ends  the  review  of  the  Indian  wars  of  Oregon.  What  was  called  the 
Shoshone  war  of  1866  and  8  never  amounted  to  a  serious  war.  While  the  In- 
dians committed  many  depredations  on  travelers,  and  isolated  settlements,  it 
was  all  of  the  horse-stealing  character  of  warfare,  and  never  amounting  to  a 
regular  battle  in  any  case  with  either  settlers  or  soldiers.  According  to  Mrs. 
Victor 's  count,  going  over  the  whole  history  of  Indian  troubles  in  Oregon,  Wash- 
ington and  Idaho,  the  total  number  of  white  people  killed  in  this  region  by  In- 
dians from  1828  down  to  1878 — fifty  years — was  1896. 

In  closing  this  chapter  a  few  words  should  be  said  in  order  to  perpetuate  the 
memories  of  three  men — mixed  bloods — who  served  Oregon  well  in  the  Indian 
wars — Captain  Thomas  McKay  and  his  two  sons.  Dr.  William  C.  McKay  and 
his  brother  Donald.  Captain  McKay  was  the  efficient  commander  of  a  company 
of  volunteers  in  the  Cayuse  war,  and  died  at  Scappoose  in  1849.  Dr.  McKay 
and  Donald  were  scouts  in  the  Yakima  war  of  1855-56,  whose  services  were 
invaluable.  It  was  the  skill  of  the  latter,  under  most  hazardous  conditions, 
that  saved  the  lives  of  Major  Haller's  command  of  one  hundred  U.  S.  soldiers 
at  the  time  he  was  defeated  in  Klickitat  county,  Washington,  in  October,  1855. 
In  the  Modoc  campaign  in  1872-1873  Donald  McKay,  with  his  sixty  Warm 
Spring  scouts,  did  more  in  ninety  days  to  rouse  the  Modoc  Indians  from  their 
stronghold  in  the  lava  beds  than  one  thousand  soldiers  of  the  regular  army 
did  in  a  year.  Captain  Thomas  McKay  was  a  son  of  Alexander  McKay,  the 
partner  of  John  Jacob  Astor,  who  went  on  the  Tonquin  from  Astoria,  to 
Queen  Charlotte's  island  in  the  summer  of  1811  and  was  killed  by  the 
Indians  together  •ndth  the  entire  ship's  crew.  He  was  the  father  of  Dr.  McKay 
and  Donald.  The  former  was  born  at.  Astoria  in  March,  1824,  and  the  latter 
near  Walla  Walla  in  1836. 


CHAPTER  XV 

1849—1858 

THE    EVOLUTION    OP    ORGANIZED    GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION    OP    THE    TERRITORIAL 

GOVERNMENT — LOCATION    OP    THE    STATE    CAPITAL THE    CONSTITUTIONAL    CON- 
VENTION   AND    ITS   MEMBERS ORGANIZATION    OP    THE    STATE    GOVERNMENT — THE 

GOVERNORS  AND  REPRESENTATIVES  IN  CONGRESS 

Tlie  organization  and  niaintenanee  of  the  Provisional  Government  for  nearly 
six  years  without  wealth,  arms  or  the  aid  of  the  United  States  during  an  ex- 
pensive Indian  war,  and  administering  justice  by  organized  courts,  showed 
that  the  Pioneers  were  practical  State  builders.  As  a  matter  of  fact  their 
experience  with  the  Provisional  Government  had  largely  qualified  them  to  gov- 
ern themselves  well,  and  to  receive  the  boon  of  National  recognition  and  author- 
ity with  strong  and  capable  hands.  There  was  but  a  single  college  graduate 
in  the  whole  convention  which  organized  the  Provisional  Government,  and  with 
that  exception — Rev.  John  S.  Gritifin — not  a  single  member  of  the  so-called 
learned  professions.  But  their  division  of  the  Oregon  country  into  districts 
and  counties,  and  their  practical  methods  of  ascertaining  and  executing  the 
popular  will  exhibited  their  wisdom  and  capacity  for  self-govennnent. 

The  organization  of  Oregon  into  a  U.  S.  Territorial  Government  had  been 
opposed  in  Congress  for  four  years  by  the  Southern  slave-holding  members  of 
Congress  vainly  trying  to  fasten  the  institution  of  human  slavery  on  the  new 
State.  That  opposition  was  finally  beaten  down  and  exhausted  by  a  Senator 
from  the  slave  state  of  Missouri — Thomas  H.  Benton.  The  opposition  to  a  Ter- 
ritorial Government  was  finally  abandoned  after  an  all  night  session  of  the 
United  States  Senate,  and  the  organization  Bill  passed  on  Sunday  morning 
August  13,  1848.  President  Polk  signed  the  Act  within  a  few  hours  after  its 
passage,  and  soon  after  appointed  General  Joseph  Lane  of  Indiana  the  first 
Governor  of  Oregon  under  U.  S.  authority ;  and  then  appointed  Joseph  L.  Meek 
U.  S.  JIarshall  for  Oregon  and  gave  him  the  Governor's  Commission  to  carry 
to  Lane  at  his  home  in  Indiana.  And  within  three  days  after  ]Meek  delivered 
that  Commission,  Lane  sold  out  his  property  and  started  with  Meek  for  Oregon. 

The  new  Governor  and  Marshal  came  to  Oregon  by  the  way  of  the  Ohio 
and  Mississippi  river  steamboats  from  Indiana  to  Fort  Leavenworth,  Missouri. 
There  they  got  an  outfit  and  followed  the  Santa  Fe  trail  through  New  Mexico, 
Arizona,  and  California  to  old  Los  Angeles,  finally  reaching  the  Pacific  Ocean 
at  San  Pedro.  Here  they  took  passage  on  a  little  sailing  vessel  bound  for  San 
Francisco.  Reaching  San  Francisco  Bay  in  safety  they  found  the  U.  S.  Sloop 
of  war,  St.  Mary,  and  j\Ieek  demanded  that  as  he  and  Lane  were  U.  S.  Gov- 
ernment officials  the  war  ship  should  take  them  aboard  and  carry  them  up  to 

421 


422  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Oregon.  The  Governor  opposed  this  on  the  grounds  of  economy,  telling  Meek 
they  could  go  on  a  cheaper  vessel.  A  little  ship,  the  Jeanette,  was  just  about 
to  sail  for  the  Columbia  river  crowded  with  gold  miners  returning  to  Oregon, 
and  so  the  Governor  and  his  aid.  Meek,  took  passage,  and  arrived  at  Oregon 
City  on  the  2nd  of  March,  1849,  being  eighteen  days  on  the  trip  from  San, 
Francisco  to  Oregon  City,  and  six  months  and  twelve  days  from  Washington 
City  to  Oregon.  The  party  suffered  greatly  in  crossing  the  desert  regions  of 
Arizona,  losing  many  of  their  horses  for  want  of  water,  and  requiring  the  men 
to  travel  on  foot.  Lane  started  from  Leavenworth  with  a  party  of  fifty-five 
men;  two  were  killed  by  Indians  on  the  route,  forty-six  deserted  to  the  mines 
in  California,  and  Lane,  Meek,  Lieut.  Hawkins,  Surgeon  Hayden,  and  three 
soldiers  reached  Oregon. 

General  Lane  lost  no  time  in  issuing  his  proclamation  as  follows : 

PROCLAMATION 

"In  pursuance  of  an  Act  of  Congress,  approved  the  14th  of  August  in  the 
year  of  our  Lord,  1848,  establishing  a  Territorial  Government  in  the  Territory 
of  Oregon :  I,  Joseph  Lane,  was,  on  the  18th  day  of  August,  in  the  years  1848, 
appointed  Governor,  in  and  for  the  Territory  of  Oregon.  I  have  therefore 
thought  it  proper  to  issue  this  my  proclamation,  making  known  that  I  have 
this  day  entered  upon  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of  my  office,  and  by  virtue 
thereof  do  declare  the  laws  of  the  United  States  extended  over,  and  declared 
to  be  in  force  in  said  Territory,  so  far  as  the  same,  or  any  portion  thereof,  may 
be  applicable. 

' '  Given  under  my  hand  at  Oregon  City,  in  the  Territory  of  Oregon,  this  3rd 
day  of  March,  Anno  Domini,  1849. 

"Joseph  Lane." 

In  twenty-four  hours  after  the  above  proclamation  was  issued  President 
Polk's  term  of  office  expired,  so  that  Oregon  was  only  one  day  under  the  ad- 
ministration of  James  K.  Polk.  Along  with  Lane  as  Governor,  and  Meek  as 
Marshal,  the  President  appointed  AVilliam  C.  Bryant,  Chief  Justice,  and  Or- 
ville  C.  Pratt  and  Peter  H.  Burnett  for  Associate  Justices  of  the  Territorial 
Courts.  Other  U.  S.  officials  were  provided  for  afterwards  and  appointed  by 
the  successor  to  Polk — President  Taylor,  fo-wit:  for  Governor,  Jno.  P.  Gaines 
to  succeed  Lane,  Edward  Hamilton,  Secretary;  John  McLean  and  William 
Strong,  Judges;  Amory  Hollrock,  U.  S.  Attorney;  John  Adair,  Collector  of 
Customs  at  Astoria;  H.  H.  Spalding,  Indian  Agent,  and  Joseph  L.  Meek  re- 
tained as  Marshal. 

The  last  officers  under  the  Provisional  Government  were  as  follows:  George 
Abernethy,  Governor ;  S.  M.  Holderness,  Secretary ;  John  H.  Couch,  Treasurer ; 
George  W.  Bell,  Auditor ;  J.  Quinn  Thornton,  Supreme  Judge ;  Alonzo  A.  Skin- 
ner, Circuit  Judge ;  H.  M.  Knighton,  Marshal. 

The  first  general  election  for  public  officials  under  the  Provisional  Govern- 
ment, and  being  the  first  election  in  the  Oregon  country  was  held  May  14, 
1844,  and  is  shown  by  the  following  table. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 


423 


Candidates 

Executive  Committee — 

P.  G.  Stewart  

Osboru  Russell   

Alauson  Beers    

Jesse  Applegate    

Peter  H.  Burnett  

Hugh  Bums   

David  Hill 

W.  J.  Bailey  

William  W.  Doughty 

A.  Lawrence  Lovejoy 

Robert  Newell   

A.  J.  Hembree 

William  Geiger 

Spencer 

Territorial  Recorder  or  Clerk 

Dr.  John  E.  Long 

0.  Johnson  

C.  M.  Walker  

J.  G.  Campbell 

A.  E.  Wilson 

F.  X.  Matthieu  

Supreme  Court  Judge — 

Ira  L.  Babeoek 

J.  W.  Nesmith 

Peter  H.  Burnett   

P.  G.  Stewart  

Osbom  Russell    

0.  Johnson  

Candidates 

Territorial  Treasurer — 

Phil  Foster   

Nineveh  Ford   

P.  H.  Hatch 

A.  E.  W^ilson 

John  E.  Long 

W.  C.  Remick   

Territorial  Shcrijf — 
Joseph  L.  Meek 

B.  Harragus    

William  Holmes   

Legislative  Committee — 

M.  Gilmore    

Peter  H.  Burnett 


UlSTUICTS 
Clackamas         Tualatin         Cliaiiipoi'j 


41 

15 

84 

140 

40 

22 

182 

244 

21 

10 

18 

49 

11 

— . 

— 

11 

10 

— 

— 

10 

6 

__ 

— 

6 

6 

— 

— 

6 

3 

— 

67 

70 

3 

23 

— 

26 

2 

— 

— 

2 

2 

10 

— 

12 

1 

— 

— 

1 

— 

7 

— 

7 

— 

7 

— 

7 

33 

26 

14 

73 

24 

— 

— 

24 

8 

— 

— 

8 

1 

— 

— 

1 

— 

2 

— 

2 

— 

— 

65 

65 





88 

88 

39 

— 

— 

39 

16 

— 

— 

16 

2 

— 

— 

2 

4 

1 

— 

5 

— 

2 

— 

2 

DlSTKICTS 

Clackamas 

Tualatin 

Champoeg 

Totals 

40 

8 

48 

4 

6 

— 

10 

4 

— 

— 

4 

2 

— 

— 

2 

1 

— 

— 

1 

1 

— 

— 

1 

64 



79 

143 

2 

— 

— 

2 

1 

— 

— 

1 



27 



27 

— 

32 

— 

32 

424 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 


Candidates 

David  Hill    

M.  M.  MeCarver 

W.  T.  Perry    

T.  D.  Keiser   

Daniel  Waldo   

Robert  Newell  

W.  H.  Gray 

W.  J.  Bailey   

F.  C.  Cason 

A.  Lawrence  Lovejoy 


Districts 

Clackamas 

Tualitin 

Champoeg 

Totals 

— 

24 

— 

24 

— 

20 

— 

20 

— 

8 

— 

8 

— . 

— 

67 

67 

— 

— 

75 

75 

— 

— 

75 

75 

— 

— 

20 

20 

— 

— 

11 

11 

— 

— 

18 

18 

The  following  table  shows  the  first  Census  taken  in  the  Oregon  Country,  being 
taken  by  authority  of  the  Provisional  Legislature,  Joseph  L.  Meek,  Sheriff,  being 
the  census  taker: 

CENSUS  EETUBNS  OF  OREGON  IN  1845 


P,  No.  of  No.  beads  of 
BOUNTIES                                                            Housekeepers    Families 

Clackamas    18  57 

Champoeg    24  85 

Clatsop    17  29 

Tualatin   14  127 

Yamhill 16  109 

Total   89  405 


Under  32  years  of  age 


Males 

Females 

69 

54 

142 

136 

14 

18 

115 

109 

79 

65 

419 


382 


12  and  under         IS  and  under  45  ^nd  over  Wliole  Number 

Counties  IS  years  4o  years 

Males  Females     Males  Females      Males  Females      Males  Females 

Clackamas 12  15  136  53  15  7  234  129 

Champoeg 45  37  171  114  42  18  400  305 

Clatsop    1  3  42  8  4  1  61  30 

Tualatin 28  24  142  90  26  6  309  229 

Yamhill 31  24  124  57  23  9  257  158 

Total    117         103         615         322         110  41       1259         851 

Counties  Total  Population 

Clackamas .  361 

Champoeg 705 

Clatsop    91 

Tualatin   538 

Yamhill 415 

Total    2110 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 


425 


One  of  the  first  acts  ol'  Geueral  Lane's  brief  administration  as  Governor  was 
I  lie  taking  of  another  Census  which  had  been  authorized  and  provided  for  in 

Ihe  Aet  organizing  the  Territorial  Government.    That  Census  taken  by  Marshals 
a[)pointed  by  Governor  Lane,  is  shown  by  the  following  table  : 

Males  under    Males  21  j  rs.  I'Viiiales  of 

Counties                                                                          21  yrs.  of  age       and  over  all  agea 

Claekamas 401                 390  585 

Tualatin   346                293  468 

Champoeg    465                458  647 

Clatsop    49                100  75 

Yamhill 394                402  557 

Polk    337                327  509 

Lewis    39                  33  37 

Linn  295       269  359 

Benton -^71       229  370 

Vancouver 4        22  20 

Total  2601      2523  3627 

FoREKiNERS 

Males  under  Males  21  yis.  Females 

Counties                                                                                    21  years          and  over  of  all  ages 

Clackamas —                12  5 

Tualitin        4                23  8 

Champoeg 5                 94  13 

Clatsop    —                  3  — 

Yamhill 3                   8  4 

Polk —                   1  — 

Lewis 1                 31  4 

Linn —                —  — 

Benton —                —  — 

Vancouver    2                39  12 

Total   15              211  46 

„                                                                                              Total  No.  of    Total  No.  of  t,„^,„ 

Counties                                                                                    Citizens         Foreigners  ^°^-^'' 

Claekamas 1376                 17  1393 

Tualitin     1107                35  1142 

Champoeg 1570               112  1682 

Clatsop    224                  3  227 

Yamhill 13-53                 15  1368 

Polk 1173                   1  1174 

Lewis 109                36  145 

Linn    923             923 

Benton 870             870 

Vancouver    80                 79  159 

Total    8795              298  9083 


426  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

As  soon  as  the  Governor  had  received  the  reports  on  the  Census  he  issued  a 
proclamation  for  the  election  of  a  Delegate  to  Congress,  and  for  Members  of  a 
Territorial  Council,  and  Representatives  to  a  Territorial  Legislature.  At  this 
election  the  total  vote  cast  for  Delegate  was  943,  of  which  Samuel  R.  Thurston 
received  470 ;  Columbia  Lancaster,  321 ;  James  W.  Nesmith,  104 ;  Joseph  L. 
Meek,  40;  J.  S.  GrifSn,  8.  The  apportionment  of  Councilmen  and  Representa-, 
tives  was  made  by  the  Governor  in  his  proclamation.  The  names  of  the  gentle- 
men elected  the  first  Territorial  Legislature  were  as  follows:  Council  —  W. 
Blain,  Tualatin ;  W.  W.  Buck,  Clackamas ;  S.  Parker,  Clackamas  and  Champoeg ; 
W.  Shannon,  Champoeg;  S.  T.  McKean,  Clatsop,  Lewis  and  Vancouver;  J.  B. 
Graves,  Yamhill;  W.  Maley,  Linn;  N.  Ford,  Polk;  L.  A.  Humphrey,  Benton. 
Representatives — D.  Hill  and  W.  M.  King,  Tualatin ;  A.  L.  Lovejoy,  J.  D.  Hol- 
man  and  Gabriel  Walling,  Clackamas ;  J.  W.  Grimm,  "W.  W.  Chapman,  and  W.  T. 
Matlock,  Champoeg ;  A.  J.  Hembree,  R.  C.  Kinney,  and  J.  B.  Walling,  Yamhill ; 
J.  Dunlap,  and  J.  Conser,  Linn;  H.  N.  V.  Holmes,  and  S.  Burch,  Polk;  M.  T. 
Simmons,  Lewis,  Vancouver  and  Clatsop,  J.  L.  Mulkey  and  G.  B.  Smith,  Ben- 
ton. 

The  members  of  this  first  Legislature  under  the  authority  of  the  United 
States  assembled  at  Oregon  City  on  July  16,  1849,  holding  their  sessions  in 
the  first  Christian  church  in  North  America  west  of  the  Rocky  ilouutains,  that 
being  the  first  Methodist  Church.  This  Legislature  changed  the  names  of  Cham- 
poeg, Tualatin  and  Vancouver  counties,  respectively  to  Marion,  Washington  and 
Clark;  and  organized  all  the  counties  by  providing  what  their  officials  should 
be  and  the  duties  thereof;  and  also  divided  the  Territory  into  three  Jiidicial 
Districts,  and  assigned  the  Jiidges  to  their  respective  Districts.  In  October  fol- 
lowing County  elections  were  held  to  select  and  install  County  officers;  and  this 
completed  the  organization  of  the  Territorial  Government. 

In  December  following  the  Territorial  Legislature  again  convened  at  the 
Capital — Oregon  City — and  proceeded  to  the  more  serious  business  of  enacting 
a  code  of  laws.  The  members  of  this  Legislature  were  nearly  all  Democrats  and 
did  not  work  harmoniously  with  the  Whig  Governor — Gaines.  On  the  4th  of 
December,  Thos.  J.  Dryer  issued  the  first  number  of  the  Oregonian  as  a  Whig 
paper,  and  lost  no  time  in  attacking  the  Legislature  as  a  nest  of  Democratic 
vipers.  Asahel  Bush — and  yet  living  a  multi-millionaire  at  Salem — was  elected 
Territorial  Printer  and  immediately  issued  a  Prospectus  for  the  ' '  Oregon  States- 
man,"  although  he  had  neither  a  press  or  a  stickful  of  type.  But  in  due  time 
he  got  both,  and  the  war  between  the  Statesman  and  Oregonian  commenced  in 
earnest.  Both  papers  were  loaded  to  the  guards  with  politics,  personal  abuse 
and  red-hot  advocacy  of  political  doctrines  dead  and  buried  fifty  years  ago. 
Everything  that  was.  Democratic  was  denounced  as  vile  by  the  Oregonian ;  and 
everything  that  was  Whiggery  was  denounced  by  the  Statesman  as  treason  to 
the  Constitution,  and  its  author  deserving  of  summary  execution. 

At  this  session  of  the  Legislature  there  were  so  many  conflicting  local  in- 
terests scheming  to  secure  the  location  of  the  State  Capital,  that  in  order  to 
get  anything  at  all  enacted  into  law  nearly  every  important  proposition  was 
put  into  one  Bill ;  and  when  it  did  finally  receive  a  majority  of  the  votes  of  the 
Representatives  and  Councilmen,  it  was  called  the  "Omnibus  Bill,"  and  de 
nounced  by  the  Governor  as  a  nullity  because  of  its  many  inconsistent  sections 


lUlii 


npi-nxi 
I"  I 


SI'ATK    CAITI'dLS 

1-    First    .Mi-tli(»li>t    (  liurrli    :it    ( lirj;nii    (itv  LI      A    Stoiv    I'.uildiiiL^    ;ii    (niv:iMi- 

:;■  -I'rrsciit    Capitol   P.uildiiig 
4— lldliiuin's  P,lin-U  ill  Salem  5-  Wilhiiiicttc    liistituti-    at    Salem 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  -l^i? 

and  propositions  relating  to  divei'se  purposes  and  interests.  Tlie  Bill  under- 
took to  please  everybody,  and  resulted  in  satisfying  no  one.  Salem  was  to  be 
the  Capital,  for  there  would  be  wisdom  to  make  the  laws;  Marysville  (now  called 
Corvallis)  was  to  have  the  Territorial  University,  for  there  eould  knowledge 
and  learning  be  obtained ;  and  Portland  was  to  have  the  Penitentiary,  so  as  to 
be  handy  to  the  rascals  deserving  punishment.  But  the  incouoclastic  Governor 
ruefully  smashed  the  whole  bargain-counter  scheme,  and  the  accommodating 
Legislature  pleasantly  acceded  to  the  disposal  of  this  fii-st  "Legislature  job," 
and  passed  a  resolution  providing  for  the  annual  sessions  of  the  Legislative  as- 
sembly "to  be  held  on  the  first  Monday  in  December  at  the  Seat  of  government," 
without  naming  any  seat  of  government. 

"While  there  was  no  law  regulating  the  matter,  the  Legislative  Committee  of 
the  Provisional  Government,  and  subsequently  the  Provisional  Government 
Legislature,  had  held  their  sessions  at  Oregon  City,  and  for  much  of  the  time 
had  convened  at  the  residence  of  private  persons,  and  in  part  of  the  Cliff  House 
Hotel,  and  in  1847  iu  the  ]\Iethodist  Church  building.  But  now  that  the  Federal 
Government  had  lifted  the  little  colony  from  the  position  of  a  straggling  settle- 
ment of  pioneers  fighting  Indians  for  an  existence,  to  the  position  of  a  Federal 
Territory  in  the  community  of  sovereign  States,  it  v:as  necessary  to  establish 
and  dignify  some  place  as  the  Capital  of  the  future  State  of  Oregon.  The  Ore- 
gonians  were  not  slow  to  see  the  advantages  of  a  fortunate  selection ;  and  every 
town  had  its  plan  and  claims  to  secure  the  Capital.  The  members  of  the  Legis- 
lature then  adjourned  to  meet  at  the  seat  of  Government,  without  naming  any 
such  place,  solved  their  difficulties  by  a  private  agreement  to  meet  at  Salem; 
and  accordingly  when  the  first  Monday  in  December  came  round  all  the  members 
of  the  Council  but  one,  and  all  of  the  members  of  the  House  except  four,  as- 
sembled at  Salem  and  went  into  Legislative  session  in  the  old  "Oregon  Insti- 
tute," the  two  large  front  rooms  on  the  first  floor  being  given  up  for  that  pui*- 
pose,  while  school  went  on  as  usual  in  the  remainder  of  the  building.  Mean- 
while, the  recalcitrant  members  opposing  a  Capital  at  Salem,  convened  at  the 
usual  place  in  Oregon  City,  and  the  four  Representatives  organized  themselves 
into  "The  House",  and  the  sole  member  of  the  Council  organized  himself  into 
a  Council  of  One ;  but  as  soon  as  one  of  the  House  members  secured  a  leave  of 
absence  the  other  three  adjourned  sine  die — and  thus  Oregon  City  lost  the  seat 
of  Government.  The  State  Capital  was  thus  left  very  much  up  in  the  air;  and 
to  put  an  end  to  all  doubt  and  uncei-tainty,  the  Salem  Legislature  referred  the 
matter  to  Congress  which  passed  an  Act  recognizing  Salem  as  the  Capital  and 
legalizing  the  acts  of  the  Legislature  convened  there. 

Under  this  Act  of  Congress  Salem  held  the  Legislature  until  the  session  of 
1854-55.  And  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  Congress  had  appropriated  $50,000 
for  the  erection  of  public  buildings,  and  the  money  had  been  expended  in  erect- 
ing an  uncompleted  State  House  at  Salem,  on  the  site  of  the  present  Capitol, 
the  Legislature  passed  an  Act  to  remove  the  seat  of  Government  from  Salem  to 
Corvallis,  and  the  University  from  Corvallis  to  Jacksonville ;  the  Legislative 
Assembly  to  meet  at  Corvallis  the  following  year;  and  thereupon,  the  Governor 
(George  L.  Curry),  Secretary  of  State  and  State  Printer,  moved  their  offices, 
books,  records  and  official  persons  to  Corvallis,  going  up  the  river  on  the  Steam- 
boat Canamah,  being  the  first  trip  of  the  first  steamboat  to  ascend  the  Willam- 


428  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

ette  river  to  that  point.  On  the  records,  Oregon  had  then  nominally  two 
Capitals.  But  the  "Capital  City"  prosperity  of  Corvallis  was  doomed  to  an 
early  frost.  In  a  few  weeks  the  Treasury  Department  at  Washington  City  noti- 
fied the  Territorial  officers  that  the  Capital  re-location  Act  would  not  be  recog- 
nized, and  that  no  government  moneys  could  be  expended  at  any  place  but  Salem ; 
and  that  no  mileage  or  per  diem  would  be  allowed  to  members  of  the  Legislature 
meeting  at  Corvallis.  The  Territorial  officers  then  moved  back  to  Salem;  and 
construction  work  was  resumed  on  the  State  Capitol  building.  But  Corvallis 
still  held  out  hoping  to  have  its  location  recognized  by  Congress.  The  title  to 
the  Capitol  site  at  Salem  was  founded  on  a  conditional  deed,  and  Corvallis  was 
making  the  most  of  that  point  and  offering  lands  for  State  buildings  without 
conditions.  The  Legislature  then  in  session  was  halting  between  two  opinions; 
when  L.  F.  Grover,  a  member  of  the  Legislature  (afterwards  Member  of  Con- 
gress, Governor  and  U.  S.  Senator)  the  leader  of  the  Salem  party,  quickly, 
mounted  a  fleet  horse,  rushed  to  Salem,  aroused  W.  H.  Willson  and  wife  at  mid- 
night, told  them  they  must  then  make  an  unconditional  deed  to  the  State  House 
block  or  Corvallis  would  win,  got  the  deed  signed,  rushed  back  to  Corvallis  be- 
fore the  morning  hour  for  the  Legislature,  took  his  seat,  and  when  the  Capital  re- 
moval question  came  up,  produced  the  new  deed  which  turned  over  votes  enough 
to  defeat  Corvallis  and  confirm  the  claims  of  Salem.  The  members  of  the  Legis- 
lature then  moved  back  to  Salem,  and  the  session  re-opened  there  on  the  18th  of 
December,  1855.  On  the  night  of  the  29th,  the  State  House,  nearly  completed, 
was  destroyed  by  fire  together  with  Library  and  Archives.  It  was  undoubtedly 
the  work  of  an  incendiary.  A  Bill  was  then  passed  to  submit  the  locating  of 
the  Capitol  to  a  vote  of  the  people  at  the  next  election;  and  at  which  election 
Eugene  City  secured  2,627  votes,  Corvallis  2,327,  Salem  2,101,  and  Portland 
1,154.  Neither  of  these  contestants  having  a  majority,  and  Eugene  City  and 
Corvallis  having  the  highest  vote,  the  final  decision  was  to  be  made  according 
to  the  law,  as  between  Eugene  City  and  Corvallis  by  the  voters  at  the  next  elec- 
tion— in  October.  It  being  one  of  the  provisions  of  the  law  that  the  returns  of 
the  election  should  be  filed  with  the  Secretary  of  the  Territory  within  forty  days 
after  the  election  to  be  canvassed.  The  counties  of  Wasco,  Tillamook,  Jackson, 
and  Josephine  failed  to  comply  with  this  provision  of  the  law,  and  were  left  out 
of  the  count.  Corvallis  had  received  a  large  majority  in  Jackson  County  and 
the  loss  of  that  vote  placed  that  town  behind  Salem  in  the  race.  The  Secretary 
certified  the  result  as  follows :  Eugene,  2,319 ;  Salem,  2,049 ;  Corvallis,  1,998 ; 
Portland,  1,154.  Then  a  special  election  was  called  to  decide  between  Eugene 
and  Salem.  The  people  were  by  this  time  disgusted  with  the  Capital  contest, 
and  but  few  attended  the  election  or  voted.  Less  than  100  votes  were  polled 
at  Portland,  Eugene  City  received  2,539  votes,  Salem,  444,  and  the  counties  of 
Curry,  Marion,  Tillamook,  Polk,  and  Wasco  made  no  returns  at  all.  According 
to  the  election  Eugene  became  the  Capital  of  the  State;  but  the  election  was 
ignored,  and  both  the  Legislature  and  Supreme  Court  convened  at  Salem  in 
December.  The  authorities  at  Washington  City  had  decided  that  Salem  was 
the  capital,  no  matter  what  the  people  or  the  Legislature  decided;  and  salaries 
of  Judges  and  mileage  and  per  diem  of  Legislators  were  more  effective  than 
popular  elections.  And  in  this  position  the  Capital  question  remained  until 
after  Oregon  was  admitted  to  the  Union  as  a  state.  By  the  act  of  October 
19,  1860,  it  was  to  be  submitted  to  popular  vote  biennially  until  some  place  was 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  429 

selected  by  a  majority  of  all  votes  cast.  The  question  was  voted  on  in  June,  1862, 
without  a  choice.  It  was  again  submitted  in  June,  1864;  then  Eugene  received 
1,588  votes,  Portland  3,864,  Salem  6,108  and  other  places,  577.  Salem  receiving 
7S)  majority  oT  the  whole  vote  cast  and  was  therefore  declared  the  permanent 
seat  of  government.  At  the  date  of  this  election  Marion  county  had  a  larger 
population  than  any  other  county  in  the  state. 

THE  CONSTITUTION.VL  CONVENTION 

The  progress  of  events  in  the  evolution  of  a  strong  stable  government  from 
an  incoherent  settlement  of  scattered  pioneers,  brought  to  the  surface  many 
peculiar  and  inconsistent  characteristics  of  human  nature.  As  long  as  there 
was  no  government  all  were  upon  the  same  level  of  undistinguished  personality. 
And  upon  this  level  the  Provisional  Government  was  harmoniously  organized 
bj'  the  Americans.  The  Canadians,  having  no  organization  or  standard  of 
either  social  or  political  standing,  were  happy  in  the  thought  that  the  priest 
would  take  care  of  their  souls,  and  Dr.  McLoughlin  would  provide  for  the  com- 
fort of  their  bodies.  Not  so  with  the  American.  He  was  a  born  politician, 
statesman,  and  innovator.  The  Provisional  Government  had  given  him,  each  a 
square  mile  of  the  richest  land  on  the  earth,  had  endowed  him  with  all  the  rights 
of  citizenship  and  holding  office.  But  he  was  not  content.  He  wanted  the  Stars 
and  Stripes  by  Act  of  Congress,  and  the  regular  army  to  fight  the  Indians.  He 
got  both ;  and  no  sooner  had  this  boon  been  confirmed  upon  him  than  he  strutted, 
fumed  and  fretted  to  get  out  of  the  swaddling-clothes  of  a  Territorial  govern- 
ment, and  be  endowed  with  the  boon  of  State  Sovereignty,  with  Governor,  Su- 
preme Court  Justices,  Congressmen  and  United  States  Senators.  Every  right 
of  property,  opportunity  for  business  protection  from  the  Indians,  freedom  of 
speech,  education  and  religion  he  had  under  the  Territorial  organization,  and 
paid  for  with  warrants  on  the  U.  S.  Treasury.  But  he  was  not  content.  He 
nuist  launch  the  full  rigged  Ship  of  State,  elect  the  Captain,  and  spread  every 
yard  of  sail,  no  matter  whether  there  was  ballast  or  anchor.  Four  efforts  were 
made  to  secure  the  election  of  a  Constitutional  Convention,  and  the  framing 
of  a  State  Constitution  preparatory  to  asking  for  admission  to-  the  Union  of 
States.  First,  in  1853,  the  Territorial  Legislature  submitted  the  question  to 
the  people  on  June  5,  1854,  with  the  result  of  3,210  voters  in  favor,  and  4,079 
opposed  to  a  Constitutional  Convention.  Second,  the  Legislature  in  1855  again 
submitted  the  question  to  the  people,  resulting  in  a  vote  of  4,420  in  favor  of 
the  Convention,  and  4,835  against  it.  Third,  again  in  1856  the  (luestion  was 
.submitted  to  a  popular  vote,  with  the  result  of  a  majority  of  249  votes  against 
a  Convention.  Fourth,  the  Constitutional  Convention  came  before  the  people 
again  in  1857.  Matters  had  now  changed.  Oregon  had  a  large  claim  against 
the  Federal  Government  for  Indian  depredations  and  Territorial  expenditures 
in  fighting  Indians ;  and  it  was  believed  that  if  the  Territory  was  represented  in 
Congress  by  a  member  that  could  vote,  instead  of  a  delegate  who  had  no  vote, 
and  by  two  senators,  the  payment  of  these  claims  could  be  secured.  The  eon- 
sequence  of  this  change  in  the  popular  mind  was  that  at  the  election  in  1857 
the  vote  in  favor  of  a  Constitutional  Convention  was  7,209,  and  the  opposition 
to  the  Convention  only  1,616. 


430  THE  CENTENNIAL  fllSTORY  OF  OREGON 

At  the  same  election  the  voters  had  elected  delegates  to  the  proposed  Con- 
vention, and  these  delegates  convened  at  Salem  on  the  seventeenth  of  August, 
1857,  and  organized  by  electing  M.  P.  Deady,  President,  and  C.  N.  Terry,  Sec- 
retary. After  an  animated  session  the  convention  adjourned  on  the  eighteenth 
of  September,  their  work,  as  a  whole  being  adopted  by  a  vote  of  thirty-five  to 
ten — fifteen  members  being  absent.  The  following  gentlemen  composed  the 
convention: —  Benton — John  Kelsay,  H.  C.  Lewis,  H.  B.  Nichols,  Wm.  Matzger; 
Clatsop — Cyrus  Olney ;  Columbia — John  W.  "Watts ;  Clackamas — James  K.  Kelly, 
A.  L.  Lovejoy,  Wm.  A.  Starkweather,  H.  Campbell,  Nathaniel  Robbins;  Coos — • 
P.  B.  Marple;  Curry — William  H.  Packwood;  Douglas — M.  P.  Deady,  Solomon 
Fitzhugh,  Stephen  S.  Chadwiek,  Thomas  Whitted;  Josephine — S.  B.  Hender- 
shott,  W.  H.  Watkins;  Jackson — L.  J.  C.  Duncan,  J.  H.  Reed,  Dauiel  Newcomb, 
P.  P.  Prim;  Linn — Delazon  Smith,  Luther  Elkins,  John  T.  Crooks,  J.  H.  Brat- 
tain,  James  Shields,  Reuben  S.  Coyle;  Lane — Enoch  Hovilt,  W.  W.  Bristow, 
Jesse  Cox,  Paul  Brattain,  A.  J.  Campbell,  Isaac  R.  Moores ;  Marion — George  H. 
Williams,  L.  F.  Grover,  J.  C.  Peebles,  Joseph  Cox,  Nicholas  Shrum,  Davis  Shan- 
non, Richard  Miller;  Multnomah — S.  J.  McCormick,  AVilliam  H.  Farrar,  David 
Logan;  Multnomah  and  Washington — Thomas  J.  Dryer;  Washington — E.  D. 
Shattuck,  John  S.  White,  Levi  Anderson;  Polk — Reuben  P.  Boise,  F.  Waymire, 
Benjamin  F.  Burch ;  Polk  and  Tillamook —  A.  D.  Babcock ;  Umpqua — Levi  Scott, 
Jesse  Applegate;  Wasco— C.  R.  Meigs;  Yamhill— M.  Olds,  R.  V.  Short,  R.  C. 
Kinney,  John  R.  McBride. 

The  questions  of  slavery  and  free  negroes  had  been  purposely  avoided  in  the 
convention,  and  were  engrafted  upon  the  schedule  as  special  articles,  to  be  voted 
upon  by  the  people  separately.  The  constitution  was  opposed  by  some  people 
because  it  did  not  prohibit  slavery,  and  by  others  because  it  did  not  establish 
slavery.  The  seat  of  government  was  also  objectionable  to  some  who  were  op- 
posed to  Salem.  A  special  election  was  held  on  the  second  of  the  following  No- 
vember, and  resulted  as  follows:  For  constitution,  seven  thousand,  one  hundred 
and  ninety-five ;  against,  three  thousand,  two  hundred  and  fifteen.  For  slavery, 
Two  thousand,  six  hundred  and  forty -five ;  against,  seven  thousand  seven  hun- 
dred and  twenty-seven.  For  free  negroes,  one  thousand  and  eighty-one ;  against, 
eight  thousand  six  hundred  and  fortj^  The  Territorial  Legislature  convened  on 
the  eleventh  of  December,  1857,  and  held  its  usual  session.  For  the  regular  June 
election,  1858,  State  tickets  were  nominated  by  the  Democratic,  progressive 
Democratic,  and  Republican  parties,  the  contest  resulting  in  a  sweeping  victory 
for  the  Democrats,  as  follows :  Representative  to  Congress — L.  P.  Grover,  five 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  fifty-nine ;  James  K.  Kelly,  four  thousand  one  hun- 
dred and  ninety.  Governor — John  Whiteaker,  five  thousand  seven  hundred  and 
thirty-eight ;  E.  M.  Barnum,  four  thousand  two  hundred  and  fourteen.  Secre- 
tary of  State — Lucien  Heath,  five  thousand  seven  hundred  and  forty-six;  E.  A. 
Rice,  three  thousand  six  hundred  and  fifty-nine.  Treasurer — John  D.  Boon, 
five  thousand  six  hiindred  and  seventy -six;  J.  S.  Bramley,  three  thousand,  five 
hundred  and  thirty-one;  E.  L.  Applegate,  five  hundred  and  ninety.  State 
Printer — Asahel  Bush,  four  thousand  nine  hundred  and  fifty-eight ;  James 
O'Meara,  four  thousand  five  hundred  and  fifty-seven;  D.  W.  Craig,  four  hundred 
and  thirteen,  il.  P.  Deady,  R.  E.  Stratton,  R.  P.  Boise  and  A.  E.  Wait  were 
chosen  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court.  According  to  the  constitution  a  special 
term  of  the  newly  elected  State  Legislature  convened  in  Salem  on  the  fifth  day  of 


J/'e^  ■£„.  ^,     J^',3^. 


^<}[rUu 


(2/t<M^ 


AUTOGRAPHS    OF    THE    MEMBERS    OF    THE    CONSTITUTIONAL    CONVENTION 


.l!l^^lh^*^iofi*. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  01^'  OREGON  4:{1 

July,  for  the  purpose  of  electing  two  United  States  Senators.  It  was  composcHl 
of  thirty-eight  Democrats  and  eleven  Republicans.  On  the  eighth  of  July  the 
oath  of  office  was  administered  to  Governor  Whiteaker  by  Judge  Boise,  and  the 
machinery  of  the  new  Government  was  put  in  operation. 

The  Legislature  elected  Joseph  Lane  and  Delazon  Smith  to  repi'esent  Oregon 
in  the  United  States  Senate,  and  adjourned  after  a  session  of  four  days. 

The  sections  of  the  Constitution  reserved  for  a  separate  vote  read  as  follows : 
"Section  — ,  Persons  lawfully  held  as  slaves  in  any  state,  territory,  or  district  of 
the  United  States,  under  the  laws  thereof,  may  be  brought  into  this  State,  and 
such  slaves  and  their  descendants  may  be  held  as  slaves  within  this  state,  and 
shall  not  be  emancipated  without  the  consent  of  their  owners."  "Section  — , 
there  shall  be  neither  slavery  or  involuntary  servitude  in  this  state,  otherwise 
than  as  a  punishment  for  crime,  whereof  the  party  shall  have  been  duly  con- 
victed. "  "  Section — ,  No  free  negro  or  mulatto,  not  residing  in  this  state,  at 
the  time  of  the  adoption  of  the  constitution,  shall  ever  come,  reside,  or  be  within 
ihis  state,  or  hold  any  real  estate,  or  make  any  contract,  or  maintain  any  suit 
therein ;  and  the  legislative  assembly  shall  provide  by  penal  laws  for  the  removal 
by  public  officers  of  all  such  free  negroes  or  mulattoes,  and  for  their  eifectual  ex- 
clusion from  the  state,  and  for  the  punishment  of  persons  who  shall  bring  them 
into  the  state  or  employ,  or  harbor  them  therein." 

Grover,  (Public  Life  in  Or.)  says  that  among  othei-s,  Jesse  Applegate,  one  of 
the  most  talented  men  in  the  country,  was  snubbed  at  every  turn,  until,  when  the 
draft  of  a  constitution  which  he  had  prepared  at  home  was  peremptorily  re- 
jected, he  deliberately  took  up  his  hat  and  walked  out  of  the  court-house. 

The  nativity  of  the  members  is  as  follows :  Applegate,  Anderson,  Bristow, 
Coyle,  Fitzhugh,  Kelsay,  Moores,  Shields,  8,  Kentucky;  Brattain,  of  Linn, 
Prim,  Shrum,  White,  Whitted,  5,  Tennessee;  Brattain  of  Lane,  Logan  2,  North 
Carolina;  Babcock,  Dryer,  Lewis,  Olney,  Smith,  Williams,  Watkins,  7,  New 
York;  Boise,  Campbell  of  Clackamas,  Lovejoy,  Olds,  4,  ilassachusetts ;  Burch, 
Cox  of  Lane,  McBride,  Watts,  4,  Missouri ;  Cox  of  Marion,  Waymire,  2,  Ohio ; 
Crooks,  Holt,  Marple,  Newcomb,  Robbins,  5,  Virginia ;  Campbell  of  Lane,  Shan- 
non, 2,  Indiana;  Chadwick,  Meigs,  Starkweather,  Nichols,  4,  Connecticut; 
Deady,  Miller,  2,  Maryland;  Duncan,  1,  Georgia;  Elkins,  Kelly,  Peebles,  Reed, 
Short,  5,  Pennsylvania;  Farrar,  1,  New  Hampshire;  Grover,  1,  Maine;  Hender- 
sliott,  Kinney,  Packwood,  Scott,  4,  Illinois;  Matzger,  1,  Germany;  McCormick,  1, 
Ireland;  Shattuck,  1,  Vermont. 

There  was  only  one  member  of  the  Convention  nominated  and  elected  as  a 
member  of  the  Republican  party ;  all  the  others  were  Democrats  or  Independents. 
The  Convention  was  composed  of  thirty-three  farmers,  eighteen  lawyers,  five 
gold  miners,  two  newspaper  men,  one  civil  engineer,  and  one  merchant. 

The  men  who  formed  the  Constitution  of  Oregon  have  now  all  passed  on  but 
one.  That  sole  survivor  is  the  Hon.  William  H.  Packwood  who  represented 
Curry  County,  and  now  resident  of  Baker,  Oregon. 

Of  the  leading  members  who  largely  influenced  the  acts  of  the  Convention, 
some  personal  notice  may  now  be  given. 

THE  PRESIDENT, — MATTHEW   P.   DE.\DY 

Matthew  P.  Deady  was  easily  the  first  and  greatest  citizen  of  the  State.  He 
was  nine  years  the  senior  of  the  author  of  this  History.     Both  men  got  their  start 


432  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

in  Belmont  County,  Ohio,  residing  in  adjoining  townships.  Young  Deady 
started  out  for  himself  as  a  blacksmith  apprentice  to  John  Kelly  in  Barnesville, 
Ohio.  Mr.  Kelly  discovering  that  his  helper  had  a  taste  for  reading,  introduced 
him  to  Arthur  Davenport  a  local  attorney  who  had  a  good  library  and  who  im- 
mediately gave  young  Deady  books  to  read.  Soon  after  this  Kelly  was  elected 
Treasurer  of  the  County  and  moved  to  the  County  seat  at  St.  Clairsville,  taking 
Deady  with  him  to  assist  as  a  clerk  in  the  Treasurer's  office.  Here  he  could  at- 
tend the  courts  and  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  then  ablest  Lawyers  in  the 
State.  Soon  after  this  he  took  a  position  in  the  office  of  William  Kennon,  Sr., 
who  was  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio,  and  one  of  the  framers  of 
the  new  Code  of  Civil  Procedure,  abolishing  the  old  Common  Law  forms  and 
practice  of  Chitty's  Pleadings.  Prom  this  time  on,  Deady 's  rise  was  steady 
and  uniformly  upward.  Ambitious  for  a  newer  and  wider  field  for  a  young 
man,  Deadj^  started  for  Oregon,  the  Plains  across,  in  1849,  and  located  in  Yam- 
hill County  in  October  of  that  year.  And  from  the  time  he  became  President 
of  the  Constitutional  Convention  he  was  trusted  adviser  in  making  the  laws  of 
the  State  and  moulding  its  civil  and  political  Institutions. 

To  give  a  life-like  picture  of  the  Convention,  and  the  men  who  were  most 
active  in  its  work,  the  following  extracts  are  made  from  an  address  of  Hon.  John 
R.  McBride,  to  the  Oregon  Historical  Society,  December  20,  1902.  Judge  Mc- 
Bride,  then  resident  of  Spokane,  Washington,  was  himself  a  member  of  the  Con- 
vention from  Yamhill  County,  and  subsequently  a  member  of  Congress  from  Ore- 
gon and  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Idaho. 

PRESIDENT,  MATTHEW  P.  DEADY 

"If  I  may  indulge  in  comment  on  individual  members,  I  will  begin  with  the 
president.  As  he  has  spent  a  long  and  useful  life  among  the  people  of  Oregon, 
I  can  say  little  of  him  that  will  be  new. 

"He  was  at  that  time,  33  years  of  age,  was  a  man  large  in  stature,  of  impres- 
sive manner  and  bearing,  smooth  in  speech,  courteous  and  affable  in  intercourse, 
though  he  had  dignity  and  firmness  as  a  presiding  officer. 

"There  were  a  few  subjects  dealt  with  in  that  convention  that  gave  rise  to 
most  interesting  discussion. 

"The  subjects  of  corporations  and  their  powers  was  one. 

"President  Deady  frequently  called  some  member  to  the  chair  and,  descend- 
ing to  the  floor,  took  an  animated  part  in  general  discussion.  On  the  subject  of 
the  powers  of  corporations,  he  and  Judge  Boise,  then  a  delegate  from  Polk 
County,  were  in  harmony,  and  I  think  they  two  are  responsible  for  the  language 
which  the  constitution  contains.  An  exception  was  interpolated  in  the  section 
which  fixes  the  personal  liabilities  of  stockholders  of  insolvent  corporations,  as 
the  limit  of  the  amount  of  stock  held  by  the  shareholders.  Old  Fred  Waymire. 
of  Polk,  made  a  motion  to  add  to  this  sentence  the  words  'and  no  more,'  and, 
on  this  motion,  he  made  his  famous  speech  of  denunciation  of  all  corporations, 
which  I  shall  mention  hereafter.  In  vain  was  he  told  by  some  of  his  friends, 
that  the  meaning  was  clear  without  it,  and  that  these  negative  words  would  not 
add  to  the  meaning  he  advocated.  He  insisted,  and  they  were  incorporated  in 
committee  of  the  whole,  though  afterward  eliminated. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  433 

"It  was  ou  this  part  of  the  constitution  that  President  Dead}-  took  an  active 
pait  iiiul  aired  his  social  and  economic  opinions  with  vigor. 

deady's  views  op  government 

■'His  theory,  was  that  all  pursuits  that  wei'e  not  connected  with  the  soil,  as  the 
legitimate  business  of  life,  were  mere  artificial  outgrowths  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion, and  to  be  tolerated  only  by  necessities  of  society;  and  that  the  nearer  the 
people  kept  to  the  primary  methods  of  acquiring  a  livelihood  the  happier  they 
were.  The  trades  and  callings  of  the  artisans  and  the  professional  man  were 
departures  from  the  natural  order  of  life.  The  man  who  lived  at  the  base  of 
some  forest  and  raised  and  harvested  a  crop  of  grain  and  vegetables  in  the  sum- 
mer, and  hunted  coons  and  chased  wild  deer  in  winter  was  a  happier  man  and 
lived  nearer  to  God  and  nature  than  the  man  who  sat  in  some  factory  driving 
shoe  pegs  at  a  daily  stipend.  There  was  much  of  this  kind  of  philosophy  of  the 
ideal  sort  in  the  address,  and  if  he  had  been  speaking  to  a  crowd  of  modern  re- 
formers he  would  have  been  commended  as  an  oracle.  He  was  a  great  admirer 
of  rusticity.  Although  his  tendencies  towards  an  aristocratic  life  were  strong, 
he  was  an  admirer  of  simplicity  in  home  life. 

DISLIKED  THE  METHODS 

"President  Deady  made  a  most  excellent  presiding  officer,  and  increased  his 
popularity  with  all  its  membership.  I  have  always  thought  he  favored  me  beyond 
my  merits.  He  encouraged  me  to  enter  into  debates  and  reproached  my  over- 
modesty.  He  took  pains  one  day  when  I  made  a  brief  speech  on  some  question 
to  come  up  to  me  and  compliment  me  for  it.  "Within  a  few  years  after  I  was 
candidate  for  Congress,  against  Judge  Wait,  a  Democrat,  he  supported  me,  much 
to  my  surprise,  and  that  of  many  of  his  friends,  and  he  jokingly  told  me  the 
reason  he  had  a.ssigned  to  an  old  Democratic  acquaintance  for  doing  so  (in  those 
days  all  voting  was  viva  voce,  and  every  one  knew  how  his  neighbor  voted. )  He 
said  he  accounted  for  his  political  treason  as  follows : 

"  'The  IMethodist  church  has  always  had  control  of  the  Oregon  delegation  in 
Congress,  Prom  Thurston  down  to  the  admission  of  the  State,  Lane,  Grover, 
Stout,  and  the  Senators  have  been  tools  of  that  church,  and  it  dictated  their 
conduct  on  any  matter  in  which  it  took  interest,  I  have  grown  tired  of  this 
church  dictation  and  have  concluded  to  give  my  Campbellite  friends  of  Yamhill 
a  chance  to  break  up  the  campmeeting  combination,  and  I  voted  for  McBride, 
who  has  no  religion  at  all,  and  I  don't  think  can  be  used  ])y  any  church  or  sect,' 
and  he  laughed  with  merriment  at  his  political  change,  wliieh  liecame  perma- 
nent. 

FREDERICK  WAYMIRE 's  INFLUENCE 

"Perhaps  the  most  influential  man  in  the  farming  membership  was  Frederick 
Waymire.  He  was  known  as  'Uncle  Pred,'  or  'Old  Fred,'  just  as  his  rela- 
tions to  any  one  who  spoke  of  him  happened  to  be.  Natui'e  had  given  him  a 
good  quality  of  common  sense,  a  very  active  brain.  Init  man  had  done  practically 


434  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

nothing  in  the  way  of  education  or  training.  He  was  a  sort  of  Far  West  David 
Crockett.  His  politics  were,  I  suppose,  inherited,  for  he  often  alhided  to  Andrew 
Jackson  and  must  have  voted  for  him  for  President.  He  had  been  in  the  ter- 
ritorial legislature  much  of  the  time  since  the  territory  was  organized,  and  for 
a  man  of  his  limited  education  was  known  as  a  useful  member.  In  all  things  he 
was  honest.  He  had  a  blemish  in  one  eye,  but  as  he  said,  this  did  not  prevent 
his  'spotting  a  rascal,'  when  he  came  in  the  way,  or  seeing  straight  ahead  in 
the  line  of  duty.  In  the  convention  he  spoke  quite  often,  but  briefly,  always 
to  the  point.  His  pronunciation  was  often  not  only  bad,  but  ludicrous,  but  he 
spoke  easily  and  with  vigor,  and  always  made  himself  understood.  He  was 
direct,  if  not  elegant,  and  had  the  power  of  convincing  people  by  the  simple 
way  of  being  sincere  and  earnest.  He  was  a  Methodist  in  religion,  but  he  had 
to  get  a  new  supply  of  it  every  year  or  two,  as  he  said  of  himself,  or  his  stock 
would  run  too  low  to  live.  He  had  endorsed  the  propriety  of  forming  a  State 
government,  but  had  done  so  with  reluctance,  and  in  the  convention  he  gave  early 
notice  that  he  meant  to  fight  high  taxes,  high  salaries  and  corporations,  as  he 
put  it  '  tooth  and  toe-nail. '    He  faithfully  kept  his  word. 

"One  of  the  most  amusing  and  effective  speeches  was  made  by  Waymire  on 
corporations.  He  regarded  them  as  devices  of  the  devil  to  begin  with,  and,  after 
denouncing  them  generally,  he  illustrated  his  opposition  argument  with  a  little 
personal  experience.  A  year  or  two  before  this,  some  enterprising  manipulators 
had  organized  a  telegraph  company  under  an  act  of  the  territorial  legislature 
to  construct  a  line  of  telegraph  from  Portland  to  Corvallis,  passing  up  the  west 
side  of  the  valley  through  Waymire 's  county  of  Polk.  Everybody  was  solicited 
to  subscribe  to  the  stock,  and  Waymire  admitted  that  he  was  'fool  enough  to 
join  this  lightnin-using  enterprise,'  along  with  his  other  neighbors.  The  money 
was  paid  in  and  the  line  pi-aetically  built  and  the  wires  were  stretched  most  of 
the  distance  and  used  for  a  few  weeks.  What  this  sparsely  settled  country  of 
farmers  and  cowherders  wanted  a  telegraph  line  for  no  one  could  tell  by  the 
time  it  was  constructed.  They  had  about  as  much  use  for  it  as  if  it  had  been 
built  to  the  moon  and  it  soon  fell  into  disuse,  had  no  patronage  and  went  to 
ruin.  A  considerable  debt  had  been  incurred,  causing  the  franchise  and  the 
property,  which  was  of  no  value,  to  be  sold,  leaving  a  balance  for  which  resident 
stockholders  had  to  pay,  as  the  managers  were  a  set  of  Califomians  who  pocketed 
the  cash  on  hand  and  flitted  from  the  territory. 

"pizen"  on  corporations 

"  'Now,'  said  Waymire,  'came  on  our  troubles.  The  wire  was  do'v\Ti  and  was 
giving  trouble  to  stock,  was  lying  all  along  the  roads,  and  we  could  not  get  rid 
of  the  thing.  The  local  subscribers  to  stock  were  sued  in  the  courts,  and,  though 
they  contested,  they  were  held  liable  for  the  debt  of  the  corporation  personally, 
and  the  sheriff  went  into  our  pockets  for  what  the  schemers  had  stolen. ' 

"After  detailing  the  wrongs  from  a  personal  point  of  view  he  related  the  final 
catastrophe.  He  said  he  had  gone  into  courts  over  which  Judge  Williams  pre- 
sided to  contest  the  liability  of  the  thieving  corporation  promoters ;  had  fought 
it  through  a  long  trial  and  was  beaten.  When  night  came  on  and  he  started 
home,  he  was  full  of  indignation,  combined  with  some  of  Ad.   Starr's  wheat 


WILLIAM  H.   PACKWUOD 
Sole  survivor  of  the  sixty  men  who  framed  the  State  Constitution 


LAOTOR,  LEMOX  A««i        I 
TILDEN  FWNDATiOKi.     j 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  4^7, 

wliiskcy,  and  his  head  was  not  entirely  clear,  lie  took  the  road  along  which 
till'  dill  telegraph  wire  had  been  strung,  and  it.  was  lying  at  intervals  along  his 
]>alii,  as  if  to  add  to  his  nusfortunes.  In  the  darlniess  his  horse  stepped  into 
a  coil  of  it,  and  the  rider  soon  found  himself  and  his  horse  tightly  wound  up 

to  a  tree  by  an  ii'on  wire  that  he  could  not  break,  untie  or  cut.     'That  d d 

telegraph  wire,"  he  exclaimed,  'was  as  tightly  round  us  as  the  judgment  of 
the  court  rendered  against  me  that  day  for  helping  to  put  it  there.  My  best 
horse  was  ruined  by  the  cutting  of  the  wire  about  his  legs,  and  there  I  stood 
in  the  dark  cussin'  the  rascals  who  got  me  into  this  mess  and  wishing  in  my 
soul  that  wire  was  around  their  necks  and  I  had  the  right  to  draw  it.  No  cor- 
porations of  any  kind,  sort,  or  character  for  me!'  And  he  closed  his  diatribe 
with  another  burst  of  honest  indignation. 

' '  The  debate  was  more  animated  and  exciting  than  any  other  question  in  the 
convention,  and  while  Waymire's  efforts  to  prevent  corporations  were  not  en- 
tirely successful,  he  did  succeed  in  hedging  them  with  such  restrictions  and 
limitations  and  their  power  has  been  less  liable  to  abuse  than  in  any  other  State 
in  the  Union. 

CLOSE  TO  THE  PEOPLE 

"The  other  vital  matter  with  Waymire  w'as  state  taxation  and  salaries  for 
state  officials.  These  he  proposed  to  put  at  the  lowest  possible  limit.  The  judges, 
he  insisted,  should  be  paid  no  more  than  $2,000  per  year,  then  paid  by  the  gov- 
ernment to  the  judges  of  the  territory,  and  besides  performing  the  duties  of 
trial  judges  in  their  various  districts,  they  were  to  be  the  supreme  judges  en 
banc ;  and  this  he  forced  the  convention  to  adopt,  with  the  proviso  that  when 
the  population  should  reach  a  certain  figure  a  separate  supreme  court  might  be 
authorized  by  the  legislature,  and  as  four  judges  were  provided  for  the  State, 
the  judge  who  presided  in  the  inferior  court  was  not  allowed  to  sit  on  any  appeal 
taken  from  that  district.  The  lawyers  in  the  convention  almost  unanimously 
opposed  the  system,  but  most  of  the  laymen  were  with  "Waymire  and  the  knights 
of  the  bar  had  to  accept  it. 

"Indebtedness  on  the  part  of  the  State  was  limited,  and  the  objects  of  it  were 
specified  with  distinctness,  and  finally  the  salaries  for  the  Governor,  Secretary 
of  State,  Treasurer,  and  State  Printer,  became  the  topic  of  Waymire's  vigilant 
attention.  For  days  he  fought  the  salaries  proposed  like  a  bulldog  guarding 
his  master's  treasure.  He  thought  $1,500  was  enough  for  the  Governor.  As 
the  Secretary's  office  had  nnich  duty  to  perform  he  finally  agi'eed  to  $1,800  for 
him.  The  State  Treasurer  had  only  to  keep  the  money  safely  he  argued  that 
$800  was  enough  for  him,  and  so  on  down  through  the  list.  For  this 
I  cheerfully  give  the  credit  to  Fi-ed  Waymire.  He  was  an  example  of  an  honest 
pioneer,  who,  while  illiterate  and  unpolished,  had  many  of  the  qualities  of  a 
wise  and  shrewd  guardian  of  the  public  interest.  In  the  circle  of  the  leading 
men  in  that  convention  when  it  was  once  asked  who  was  the  most  influential  of 
iill  its  membership,  it  was  said,  as  the  judgment  of  all  present,  that  Waymire 
could  come  nearer  getting  what  he  wanted  done  than  any  other  man  in  it. 

"There  were  a  number  of  members  of  the  convention  who  became  prominent 
in  the  State.    Delazon  Smith  was  one  of  the  first  United  States  Senators.    Grover 


436  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

eventually  became  a  Senatoi-,  and  Kelly  served  a  term  in  that  body.  Deady 
was  appointed  United  States  District  Judge  and  died  after  thirty  years  of  ser- 
vice on  the  bench.  Dryer  was  appointed  United  States  Commissioner  to  the 
Hawaiian  Islands  and  died  subsequently  in  Portland.  Williams  became  a 
United  States  Senator,  and  afterwards  Attorney-General  of  the  United  States, 
and  is  now  the  Mayor  of  Portland.  Shattuck,  of  Washington  County,  served 
as  a  District  and  Supreme  Judge  for  many  years  acceptably  and  ably,  and 
many  others  who  were  prominent  in  the  deliberations  have  done  good  service 
to  the  State  in  honorable  positions. 

"Many  interesting  features  and  incidents  of  the  convention,  scenes  sometimes 
gay  and  humorous  contributing  to  its  entertainment,  must  be  passed  over.  The 
grim  humor  of  Reed,  of  Jackson  County,  never  failed  to  excite  mirth,  and  Logan 
of  Multnomah,  with  his  sarcastic  tongue  made  many  an  opponent  subside  in 
silence  to  his  seat.  The  useful  work  was  done  by  Williams,  Olney,  Boise,  Grover, 
and  a  few  others;  the  debates  being  participated  in  by  Smith,  Di-yer,  Logan, 
Kelsay  and  spasmodically  by  others  who  took  an  interest  in  that  which  affected 
them  locally. 

DELAZON  SMITH 

"No  account  of  the  convention  would  be  just  that  does  not  include  a  reference 
to  Delazon  Smith  of  Linn  County.  As  a  political  speaker  no  man  on  the  Pacific 
coast  was  his  equal,  except  it  be  General  Baker,  who  eventually  became  a  Sena- 
tor from  Oregon. 

' '  Smith  was  by  birth,  I  believe,  a  New  Yorker.  He  was  educated  at  Oberlin 
College  in  the  days  of  old  President  Finney,  and  while  almost  a  youth  he  en- 
tered the  world  as  the  editor  of  a  political  newspaper.  This  portion  of  his  life 
is  rather  obscure,  but  in  the  political  contest  of  that  day  he  so  impressed  himself 
upon  his  fellows,  that  he  became  noted  as  one  of  the  champions  of  President 
Tyler  in  the  latter 's  quarrel  with  his  party.  Some  time  in  1834  he  was  ap- 
pointed Minister  to  one  of  the  South  American  republics.  Whether  his  office 
was  one  that  demanded  constant  attention  or  not,  I  can  not  say,  but,  at  all 
events,  after  having  entered  upon  his  duties  for  a  season,  he  concluded  to  inform 
himself  by  travelling  in  that  wild  and  almost  unknown  region  traversed  by 
the  Andes.  He  crossed  the  continent  on  horseback,  and  for  11  months,  was  the 
quest  of  the  State  Department.  This  incident  led  to  his  being  dubbed  by  the 
newspapers  'Tyler's  lost  Minister,'  and  the  name  'Delusion'  Smith  was  a 
sobriquet  that  stuck  to  him  ever  afterwards. 

HIS  SPLENDID  ORATORY 

"As  a  platform  orator  he  was  seldom  equaled.  I  doubt  if  he  were  ever  sur- 
passed. He  had  a  splendid  voice,  was  rather  under  medium  height,  of  good 
presence,  could  say  beautiful  things  with  splendid  effect  and  while  not  often 
indulging  in  the  dramatic  style,  had  great  powers  of  imitation,  and  his  powers 
of  sarcasm  and  gibe  were  like  bolts  of  Jove.  His  speeches  usually  began 
with  great  deliberation  of  manner.  His  mind  was  orderly  and  his  intellectual 
processes  logical. 


ELI  THAYER 

Was  born  in  ilcndon,  ilussacliusctts,  June  11,  ISU);  difd  in  WDiwsttT,  A|iril  15,  1899. 
Founder  of  the  Xew  England  Aid  Company,  which  saved  tlie  territory  of  Kansas  from 
slavery  and  tlie  nation  to  freedom.  Author  of  the  Kansas  Crusade.  Member  of  Congress, 
1859-1861.  Through  his  determined  eft'orts  in  Congress,  in  o|)|iosition  to  the  powerful  influ- 
ence of  such  men  as  Horace  Greeley  of  the  "New  York  Trilninc."  nnd  Senator  Hem y  Wilson  of 
his  own  state,  other  influential  men,  Oregon  was  admitted  to  the  union  February   14,  18.">'.l. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  437 

THOMAS    ,1.    DBYEK 

"Early  in  the  '50 's  Thomas  J.  Dryer  came  witli  a  wife  and  diuightcr  to  Port- 
land, Oregon,  then  a  village  with  a  forest  as  its  limits.  Dryer  was  an  editor  and 
an  old-fashioned  New  York  'Silver  Gray  Whig.'  All  things  which  were  not 
Whig  were  to  him  the  politics  of  the  devil.  He  was  a  vigorous  writer  and  a 
good  stump  speaker.  While  his  politics  were  not  popular  in  the  territory,  the 
parties  were  about  evenly  balanced  in  his  locality,  and  Dryer,  possessing  many 
amiable  qualities,  was  personally  popular.  He  was  a  joint  delegate  from  Mult- 
nomah and  Washington  to  the  convention,  and  in  that  body  he  was  the  steady 
rival  of  Smith  on  the  floor.  He  was  a  ready  speaker,  full  of  wit  and  humor,  and 
often  went  into  debates  'for  the  fun  of  the  thing.'  On  one  occasion  he  brought 
down  the  applause  of  the  house  on  Smith.  I  do  not  recall  the  subject,  but  in 
his  speech  Smith  alluded  to  some  matter  in  which  he  had  some  experience  on  a 
question  on  which  he  was  not  supposed  to  be  an  expert.  Dryer  replied  by 
ijuoting  from  Mother  Goose: 

"  'There  is  none  so  well  as  the  farmer  knows, 
How  oats,  peas,  beans  and  barley  grows.' 

"The  grammar  was  bad,  but  it  was  a  palpable  hit,  and  Smith  joined  in  the 
laughter  it  evoked. 

"Dryer's  ambition  was  of  the  kind  that  induced  him  to  oppose  anything  that 
could  be  used  to  favor  the  Democrats.  He  was  a  sort  of  gadfly  to  the  Democratic 
flanks,  and  omitted  no  opportunity  to  sting  a  Democratic  leader  who  came  in 
his  way.  His  paper,  The  Oregonian,  was  a  lively  sheet,  and  he  employed  Patrick 
J.  Malone,  an  Irishman,  to  report  the  proceedings  of  the  convention.  Some  of 
the  speeches  were  published  in  the  paper  quite  fully,  but  as  it  was  only  issued 
weekly,  it  contained  but  selections  and  in  these  Dryer  was  pretty  well  repre- 
sented. 

"Dryer  was  a  member  of  the  State  Legislature  in  1858-59,  and  was  an  elector 
on  the  Lincoln  ticket  in  1860.  In  1861  he  was  appointed  to  the  post  of  Commis- 
sioner at  Honolulu.  He  remained  there  some  years,  but  finally  returned  to 
Portland,  where  he  died.  His  paper,  while  he  controlled  it,  was  strong,  and 
exerted  much  influence.  Founded  by  Thomas  J.  Dryer,  it  has  survived  all  of 
its  contemporaries,  and  now,  under  its  present  management,  is  regarded  as 
one  of  the  leading  papers  of  the  country.  Dryer  was  not  a  great  editor,  but 
he  was  well  adapted  to  the  rough  and  tumble  of  the  times,  was  useful  to  the 
public,  and  deserves  to  have  his  memory  embalmed  as  one  of  the  most  useful  of 
the  pioneers. 

BRIGHT   CONTROVERSIAL  REPORTER 

"There  was  one  who  figured  in  that  convention  conspicuously  who  was  not 
of  its  membership,  and  of  whom  slight  mention  has  been  made  by  those  who 
have  had, occasion  to  refer  to  its  proceedings.  Patrick  J.  Malone  was  then  well 
known  to  the  public  as  a  journalist.  He  was  one  of  the  best  shorthand  reporters 
who  had  appeared  in  those  days,  and  had  been  mainly  employed  in  such  work 
during  the  sessions  of  the  Territorial  Legislature.     He  also  wielded  a  vigorous 


438  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

pen,  and  wrote  with  perspicuity  and  force.  Like  all  members  of  the  Irish  race, 
he  put  much  feeling  into  his  articles,  and  never  entered  into  a  controversy 
without  exciting  his  adversary  to  displays  of  acerbity.  In  polities,  a  Democrat, 
the  passages  between  him  and  Dryer  were  so  remarkable  for  the  variety  and 
intensity  with  which  they  had  been  carried  on  that  there  was  much  surprise 
when  he  appeared  at  the  convention  as  an  employe  of  The  Oregonian.  Such 
things  are  so  common  now  that  it  would  be  regarded  as  unworthy  of  remark,  but 
then  it  was  a  matter  of  amazement.  Dryer  had  alluded  to  him  as  'Paddy 
Whack,'  'Teddy  0 'Rourke-Malone, '  'My  Boy,'  ' Bogtrotter, '  and  such  like 
epithets,  and  that  he  should  be  found  sitting  at  a  reporter's  desk  labeled  'The 
Oregonian,'  seemed  like  mixing  oil  and  water.  The  journalist  of  nowadays  un- 
derstands the  value  of  the  mixing  process,  just  as  the  pioneers  in  it  knew  it. 
]\Ialone  was  even  then  a  good  type  of  the  modern  professional  journalist.  Many 
Democrats  thought  him  a  traitor  to  his  party,  who  had  been  bought  with  a 
price,  and  yet  the  only  evidence  of  it  was,  that  he  was  a  correspondent  and  re- 
porter for  The  Oregonian,  and  was  paid  for  his  services. 

"It  is  evident  from  the  whole  history  of  the  movement  to  secure  a  Constitu- 
tional Convention  and  a  State  Government  that  the  people  generally  were  op- 
posed to  the  movement  at  that  time  as  premature.  The  three  rejections  of  the 
proposition  by  decided  majorities  of  the  popular  vote  clearly  showed  the  temper 
of  the  people.  But  the  continuous  agitation  of  the  subject  by  politicians  seeking 
high  stations  and  State  offices,  had  tired  out  and  disgusted  much  of  the  opposi- 
tion. And  then  to  the  scheming  of  the  politicians  was  added  the  clamor  of  the 
claimants  for  losses  by  the  Indian  wars,  who  hoped  for  a  speedier  settlement, 
if  not  a  more  liberal  one  of  all  such  claims  through  the  agency  of  United  States 
Senators  and  Congressmen.  That  the  people  were  fearful  of  State  expenses  and 
high  taxation  was  evidenced  by  the  moderate  salaries  fixed  by  the  Constitution." 

GOVERNORS   OF   OREGON 

Executive  Committee,  David  Hill,  Alanson  Beers,  and  Joseph  Gale  from 
July  5,  1843,  to  May  14,  1844. 

Peter  G.  Stewart,  Osborn  Russell  and  W.  J.  Bailey,  May  14,  1844,  to  Au- 
gust 3,  1845. 

Governor — George  Abernethy,  from  August  3,  1845,  to  March  3,  1849. 

Territorial  Governors — Joseph  Lane,  March  3,  1849,  to  June  18,  1850. 

Kintzing  Pritchett,  June  18,  1850,  to  August  18,  1850. 

John  P.  Gaines,  August  18,  1850,  to  May  16,  1853. 

Joseph  Lane,  May  16,  1853,  to  May  17,  1853. 

George  L.  Curry,  May  19,  1853,  to  December  2,  1853. 

John  W.  Davis,  December  2,  1853,  to  August  11,  1854. 

George  L.  Curry,  August  1,  1854,  to  March  3,  1859. 

State  Governors — John  Whiteaker,  March  3,  1859,  to  September  10,  1862. 

A.  C.  Gibbs,  September  10,  1862,  to  September  12,  1866. 

George  L.  Woods,  September  12,  1866,  to  September  14,  1870.      . 

La  Fayette  Grover,  September  14,  1870,  to  February  1,  1877. 

Stephen  F.  Chadwick,  February  1,  1877,  to  September  11,  1878. 

W.  W.  Thayer,  September  11,  1878,  to  September  13,  1882. 


JOHN  WHITEAKKR 
The  First  State  Governor 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  439 

Z.  F.  Mo-^dy,  September  Ki,  1882,  to  Jauuary  12,  1887. 

Sylvester  Pennoyei-,  Jauuary  12,  1887,  to  January  14,  1895. 

William  Paine  Lord,  January  14,  1895.  to  January  11,  1899. 

Theodore  T.  Goer,  from  Jauuary  11,  1890,  to  January  10,  1903. 

George  E.  Chamberlain  from  January  10,  1903,  to  Januaiy,  1909,  then  elected 
U.   S.  Seuator. 

Frank  W.  Ben.son,  Secretary-Governor  from  Jauuary,  1909,  until  his  death  . 
November,  1910.  Jay  Bowerman,  President  of  the  Senate,  Governor  from  death 
of  Benson  until  Jauuary  5,  1911. 

Oswald  West,  present  Governor,  taking  office  Jauuary  7,  1911. 

Oregon  has  had  more  Thanksgiving  days  than  any  other  state  in  the  Union 
since  it  became  a  state.  In  1893  it  had  one  by  proclamation  of  Governor  Pen- 
noyer  on  November  23,  and  auother  by  proclamation  of  President  Cleveland  on 
November  30.  It  also  stands  alone  among  the  many  states  in  respect  to  a  seal 
of  state.    The  others  all  have  one ;  Oregon  is  without  one. 

"According  to  the  constitution  of  the  state,  the  state  seal  SHALL  be  an  es- 
cutcheon, supported  by  thirty-three  stars  and  divided  by  an  ordinary,  with  the 
inscription  "The  Union."  In  chief,  mountains,  an  elk  with  branching  antlers, 
a  wagon,  the  Pacific  Ocean,  on  which  a  British  man-of-war  departing,  an  Ameri- 
can steamer  arriving.  The  second  quartering  with  a  sheaf,  plow  and  pick-axe. 
Crest,  the  American  eagle.  Legend,  State  of  Oregon.  If  any  one  will  take  the 
trouble  to  compare  this  description  with  the  impression  of  the  pretended  seal 
now  in  use,  they  will  see  that  Oregon  has  no  seal  of  State." 

Oregon's  representatives  in  congress 

Leaving  out  of  the  account  the  appointment  of  J.  Quinn  Thornton  by  Gov- 
ernor Abernethy  to  present  the  claims  of  Oregon  to  Congress  in  1848,  and  the 
appointment  of  Joseph  L.  Meek  by  the  Provisional  Legislature  to  discharge  the 
same  duty  after  the  massacre  of  Whitman  and  family,  Oregon  has  had  the  fol- 
lowing representatives  in  Congress  from  1849  down  to  the  present  time : 

Thirty-first  Congress,  1849-51,  Delegate,  Samuel  R.  Thurston,  Linn  City. 

Thirty-second  Congress,  1851-53,  Delegate,  Joseph  Lane,  Oregon  City. 

Thirty-third  Congress,  1853-55,  Delegate,  Joseph  Lane,  Winchester. 

Thirty-fourth  Congress,  1855-57,  Delegate  Joseph  Lane,  Winchester. 

Thirty-fifth  Congress,  1857-59,  Delegate  Joseph  Lane,  Winchester;  Repre- 
sentative, La  Fayette  Grover. 

Thirty-sixth  Congress,  1859-61,  Senators,  Joseph  Lane,  Winchester:  Delazon 
Smith  of  Albany ;  Representative,  Lansing  Stout,  Portland. 

Thirty-seventh  Congress,  1861-63.  Senators,  Edward  D.  Baker,  died  Octo- 
ber 21,  1861.  Benjamin  Stark  appointed  in  his  place.  Benjamin  F.  Harding, 
Salem,  elected  to  place  of  Stark,  took  his  seat  December  1,  1862,  James  W.  Nes- 
mith,  Salem.     Representative,  George  K.  Shiel,  Salem. 

Thirty-eighth  Congress,  1863-65.  Senators,  Benjamin  F.  Harding,  Salem, 
James  W.  Nesmith,  La  Creole.    Representative,  John  R.  McBride,  Lafayette. 

Thirty-ninth  Congress,  1865-67.  Senators,  James  W.  Nesmith,  La  Creole, 
George  II.  Williams,  Portland.  Representative,  John  H.  D.  Henderson.  Eugene 
City. 


440  TPIE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Fortieth  Congress,  1867-69.  Senators,  Henry  W.  Corbett,  Portland,  George 
H.  Williams,  Portland ;  Representatives,  Rufus  Mallory,  Salem. 

Forty-first  Congress,  1869-71.  Senators,  Henry  W.  Corbett,  Portland.  James 
K.  Kelly,  Portland.    Representative,  Joseph  S.  Smith,  Salem. 

Forty-second  Congress,  1871-73.  Senators,  Henry  W.  Corbett,  Portland, 
James  K.  Kelh%  Portland.    Representatives,  James  H.  Slater,  La  Grande. 

Forty-third  Congress,  1873-75.  Senators,  James  K.  Kelly,  Portland,  John 
H.  Mitchell,  Portland.  Representative,  G.  A.  LaDow,  Pendleton,  elected  in  place 
of  Joseph  G.  Wilson,  who  died  in  1873,  before  taking  his  seat. 

Forty-fonrth  Congress,  1875-77.  Senators,  James  K.  Kelly,  Portland,  John 
H.  Mitchell,  Portland.  Representative,  La  Payette  Lane,  Roseburg,  elected  in 
place  of  George  A.  La  Dow,  who  died  in  1875. 

Forty-fifth  Congi-ess,  1877-79.  Senators  La  Payette  Grover.  Salem,  John  H. 
Mitchell,  Portland.    Representative,  Richard  Williams,  Portland. 

Forty-sixth  Congress,  1879-81.  Senators,  La  Fayette  Grover,  Salem,  James 
H.  Slater,  La  Grande.    Representative,  John  Whiteaker,  Pleasant  Hill. 

Forty-seventh  Congress,  1881-83.  Senators,  La  Payette  Grover,  Salem,  James 
H.  Slater,  La  Grande,  Representative,  Melvin  C.  George,  Portland. 

Forty-eighth  Congress,  1883-85.  Senators,  James  H.  Slater,  La  Grande,  J.  N. 
Dolph,  Portland.    Representative,  Melvin  C.  George,  Portland. 

Forty-ninth.  Congress,  1885-87.  Senators,  J.  N.  Dolph,  Portland,  John  H. 
Mitchell,  Portland.    Representative,  Binger  Hermann,  Roseburg. 

Fiftieth  Congress,  1887-89.  Senators,  J.  N.  Dolph,  Portland,  John  H.  Mitchell 
Portland.    Representative,  Binger  Hermann,  Roseburg. 

Fifty-first  Congress,  1889-91.  Senators,  John  H.  Mitchell,  Portland,  J.  N. 
Dolph,  Portland.     Representative,  Binger  Hermann,  Roseburg. 

Fifty-second  Congress,  1891-93.  Senators  John  H.  Mitchell,  Portland,  J.  N. 
Dolph,  Portland,  Representative,  Binger  Hermann,  Roseburg. 

Fifty-third  Congress,  1893-95.  Senators,  John  H.  Mitchell,  Portland,  J.  N. 
Dolph,  Portland.  Representatives,  Binger  Hermann,  Roseburg,  W.  R.  Ellis, 
Heppner. 

Fifty-fourth  Congress,  1895-97.  Senators,  John  H.  Mitchell,  Portland,  George 
W.  McBride,  St.  Helens.  Representatives,  Binger  Hermann,  Roseburg,  W.  R. 
•  Ellis,  Heppner. 

Fifty-fifth  Congress,  1897-99.  Senators,  George  W.  McBride,  St.  Helens, 
Joseph  Simon,  Portland.  Representatives,  T.  H.  Tongue,  Hillsboro,  W.  R.  Ellis, 
Heppner. 

Fifty-sixth  Congress,  1899-01.  Senators,  George  W.  McBride,  St.  Helens, 
Joseph  Simon,  Portland.  Representatives,  T.  H.  Tongue,  Hillsboro,  M.  A.  Moody, 
The  Dalles. 

Fifty-seventh  Congress,  1902-03.  Senators,  Joseph  Simon,  Portland,  John  H. 
Mitchell,  Portland.  Representatives,  T.  H.  Tongue,  Hillsboro,  M.  A.  Moody,  The 
Dalles. 

Fifty-eighth  congress,  1903-05.  Senators,  Charles  W.  Pulton,  Astoria,  John 
H.  Mitchell,  Portland.  Representatives,  Thos.  H.  Tongue  of  Hillsboro  and  M.  A. 
Moody  of  The  Dalles. 

Fifty-ninth  Congress,  1905-07.  Senators,  Charles  W.  Pulton,  Astoria,  and 
John  M.  Gearin,  appointed  by  Governor  Chamberlain  to  fill  out  term  of  John 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  4tl 

H.  Mitolit'll,  deceased.  Representatives,  W.  C.  Ilawley.  ot'  Salem,  and  \V.  R. 
Ellis  of  Pendleton. 

Sixtieth  Congress,  1907-09,  Senators,  Charles  W.  Fidton,  Astoria,  and  Jona- 
than Bonrne  of  Portland.  Iicpre.sentatives,  W,  C.  Hawley  of  Salem,  and  J.  N. 
Williamson,  of  Prineville. 

Sixty-first  Congress,  1909-11.  Senators,  Jonathan  Bourne,  of  Portland  and 
George  E.  Chamberlain,  of  Portland.  Representatives,  W.  C.  Hawley,  of  Salem, 
and  A.  W.  Lafferty,  of  Portland. 


I  THE  NEW  YORK 
!"■"'■     LIBRARY 

(I 

I  MrO\   LilKOXAMS 

\     7IUDEW  FOUNDATIaWSo 


CHAPTER  XVI 

iS4;i— ii)()S 

THE  COUNTY  ORC.AXIZATKIN  OP  THE  STATE 

The  organization  of  the  counties  of  Oregon  commenced  with  the  Provisional 
Government.  At  the  popular  sovereignity  meeting  of  the  people  held  at  Cham- 
poeg  (then  called  and  spelled  "Charapooick")  on  May  2,  1843,  a  legislative  com- 
mittee was  appointed  by  the  sovereign  people  at  that  meeting  and  instructed  to 
prepare  a  Code  of  Laws  and  report  the  same  to  a  meeting  to  be  held  on  July  5, 
1843.  No  authority  was  conferred  upon  the  committee  to  divide  the  country 
into  Districts  or  counties ;  but  the  committee  assumed  that  power  believing  it  to 
be  a  necessary  part  of  their  duty  under  the  circumstances,  and  recommended  the 
following:  "The  First  District,  to  be  called  the  Tuality  District,  comprising  all 
the  country  south  of  the  northern  boundary  line  of  the  United  States,  west  of  the 
Willamette  or  Multnomah  river,  north  of  the  Yamhill  river,  and  east  of  the  Pa- 
cific Ocean. 

"Second  District,  to  be  called  the  Yamhill  District,  embracing  all  the  country 
west  of  the  Willamette,  or  Multnomah  river,  and  a  supposed  line  running  north 
and  south  from  said  river,  south  of  the  Yamhill  river  to  the  parallel  of  42°  north 
latitude,  or  the  boundary  line  of  the  United  States  and  California,  and  east  of  the 
Pacific  Ocean. 

"Third  District,  to  be  called  the  Clackamas  District,  comprehending  all  the 
territory  not  included  in  the  other  three  districts. 

"Fourth  District,  to  be  called  the  Champooick  District,  and  bounded  on  the 
north  by  a  supposed  line  drawn  from  the  mouth  of  the  Anchiyoke  (Pudding) 
river,  running  due  east  to  the  Rocky  mountains,  west  by  the  Willamette  or  Mult- 
nomah river,  and  a  supposed  line  running  due  south  from  said  river  to  the  paral- 
lel of  42  °  north  latitude ;  south  by  the  boundary  line  of  the  United  States  and 
California-,  and  east  by  the  summit  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

"The  committee  recommended  that  the  above  districts  be  designated  as  'Ore- 
gon Territory. '  ' ' 

Clackamas  county  is  distinguished  in  the  history  of  the  State  as  the  first 
center  of  American  population;  and  as  having  in  it  the  first  established 
town  (Oregon  City),  and  as  having  the  first  mercantile  establishments,  the 
first  saw  mill,  the  first  fiour  mill,  the  first  newspaper,  the  firet  Capital  of  the 
future  State,  and  the  first  and  only  mint  to  coin  and  issue  money  in  the  United 
States,  independent  of  the  United  States. 

The  Census  returns  of  population  for  Clackamas  county  are  as  follows:  for 
the  year  1850—1,859;  1860—3,466;  1870—5,993;  1880—9,260;  1890-15,233; 
1900—19,658;  1910—29,931. 

Subsequently  the  Provisional  Government  legislature  created  the  districts  of 
Clatsop  and  Polk,  and  in  1845  changed  the  name  of  district  to  that  of  county. 

443 


444  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

The  name  Chanipooick  was  the  name  of  the  Indian  village  at  the  point  now 
known  as  ' '  Champoeg ' ' ;  and  from  that  association  became  the  name  of  the  dis- 
trict. It  is  an  Indian  word,  without  doubt,  and  was  often  referred  to  in  early 
days  as  meaning  the  "place  of  the  Camp,"  as  it  was  the  only  point  along  the 
Willamette  river  for  more  than  seventy-five  miles  where  a  portion  of  the  virgin 
prairie  extended  to  the  river  bank. 

The  name  Tuality,  after  being  bandied  around  by  the  writers  and  historians 
from  1834  to  1850  as  "Palatine,  Fallatten,  Twality,  Tualitin,  Fallatry,  Faulitz, 
Fallatah,  and  Quality,"  finally  settled  down  to  be  by  common  usage  spelled 
as  "Tualatin,"  and  was  the  name  of  the  county  until  changed  to  that  of  Wash- 
ington by  the  Territorial  Legislature  in  1849.  The  name  of  Tualatin  still  adheres 
to  the  only  river  in  the  county,  and  to  the  beautiful  prairie  country  siirround- 
ing  Hillsboro,  Forest  Grove,  Banks,  Glencoe  and  Cornelius.  The  name  of  the 
river  is  an  Indian  name  and  signifies  sloth  or  sluggish,  and  whether  applied 
by  the  Indians  to  the  river  exclusively,  or  to  the  river  and  the  plains  both, 
nobody  can  tell.  As  a  general  thing  Indian  names  of  natural  features  applied 
to  places  and  not  streams,  so  that  a  long  river  might  have  different  names 
to  different  tribes.  The  name  of  the  Yamhill  river  is  a  case  in  point;  for  it  de- 
rived its  name  from  the  bald  hills,  northeast  of  Lafayette  which  the  Indians 
termed  "Che-am-il. "  This  discovery  was  made  by  Judge  Deady,  who  first 
settled  at  old  Lafayette  and  looked  up  the  origin  of  the  name  among  the  few 
remaining  Indians  then  in  the  Willamette  valley;  and  from  the  name  of  the 
hills,  both  the  river  and  the  county  derive  their  names.  Clackamas  is  another 
Indian  name,  and  has  had  a  great  variety  of  spelling  and  pronunciation.  The 
word  was  apparently  originally  applied  to  the  tribe  of  Indians  living  on  the 
Clackamas  river ;  and  from  the  tribe  the  river  took  its  name,  and  from  that  com- 
bination the  county  got  its  name.  Tolbert  Carter,  a  pioneer  of  1846,  always 
claimed  that  the  word  "Tualatin"  was  an  Indian  word  which  meant  a  "land 
without  trees" — significant  in  its  application  to  the  broad  plains  in  Washington 
county  as  they  appeared  sixty  years  ago. 

Clatsop  is  another  county,  originally  called  a  "District"  which  derives 
its  name  from  a  small  Indian  tribe  located  south  of  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia 
river;  and  which  was  created,  organized  or  segregated  as  a  District  by  an  Act 
of  the  Provisional  Government  Legislature  on  June  22,  1844.  Clatsop  is  dis- 
tinguished as  being  the  first  point  of  land  in  the  old  Oregon  country  on  which 
the  American  flag  was  flung  to  the  breeze.  Here  the  Astor  expedition  by  sea 
and  land  located  in  1811,  and  erected  a  stockade  fort  and  within  which  erected 
storehouses,  dwelling  houses  and  means  of  defense.  It  is  the  only  county  that 
has  had  or  could  have  a  "Centennial"  celebration  of  its  founding  and  exis- 
tence as  an  American  community;  and  it  is  the  only  place  where  British  guns 
were  trained  to  fire  on  American  interests  in  Oregon.  Its  chief  city,  Astoria, 
is  the  outpost  and  sentinel  holding  the  keys  to  the  gate,  to  protect  the  name, 
fame  and  vast  interests  of  Oregon  and  the  great  Columbia  river  valley.  And 
well  and  faithfully  has  the  ' '  City  by  the  Sea ' '  performed  that  duty. 

"Be  ours  the  dreams  prophetic,  shadowing  forth 
The  things  that  yet  shall  be 
As  through  this  gate  the  treasures  of  the  North 
Flow  outward  to  the  sea." 


u 


I'liisr  l:.  s.  (jL'iSTu.M  house  in  Oregon 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  H5 

Astoria's  muliitioii  to  be  the  greatest  commercial  entrepot  of  the  Columbia 
river  valley  seemed  to  be  entirely  reasonable  as  based  on  the  sea  going  vessels 
of  1811  to  1843.  Had  the  vast  expansion  of  commerce  since  that  date  depended 
on  sailing  vessels  it  must  have  stojjped  near  the  river's  month  and  made  a  great 
city  of  Astoria.  But  with  the  first  successful  voyage  of  an  ocean  steamship  up 
to  Portland  passed  away  Astoria's  dream  of  commercial  supremacy.  The  little 
ship  might  still  have  sailed  up  to  Portland  as  Captain  Couch  sailed  his  little 
craft  that  far  inland.  But  the  great  ship  carrying  six  thousand  tons  could  never 
have  passed  by  Astoria  to  go  to  Portland.  And  the  great  ship  was  only  possi- 
ble on  the  great  river  by  the  aid  of  steam  power. 

The  people  of  Astoria  were  not  alone  in  their  ideas  of  the  importance  of  the 
situation.  The  U.  S.  Government  early  took  an  active  interest  in  promoting  and 
defending  the  location.  To  do  this  defences  were  not  only  proposed  at  the 
mouth  of  the  river,  but  military  roads  were  projected  into  the  supporting  coun- 
try. In  1855  Congress  provided  for  the  construction  of  a  Military  road  from 
Astoria  to  Forest  Grove.  Thirteen  miles  of  this  road  were  constructed  in  1856, 
forty  miles  additional  in  1857,  and  a  pack  trail  the  balance  of  the  distance  con- 
necting the  Nehalem  river  with  the  Forest  Grove,  in  1858.  In  1870  Congress 
provided  a  grant  of  twenty  sections  of  public  land  per  mile  of  I'oad  to  aid  in 
the  construction  of  a  railroad  from  Astoria  to  Forest  Grove.  The  railroad  would 
have  cost  approximately  two  million  dollars;  but  no  capitalists  in  the  United 
States  or  Europe  could  see  any  chance  for  the  return  of  their  money  in  build- 
ing that  road.  The  land  was,  and  is  yet  largely  timbered  land ;  and  the  timber 
on  that  land  is  salable  now  for  money  enough  to  build  a  double-track  railroad 
from  Astoria  to  New  York  City. 

iMany  old  and  influential  families  in  the  history  of  the  State  have  settled 
in  and  around  old  Astoria;  notably  the  Taylors,  Adairs,  Grays,  "Warrens  and 
others.  The  Warrens,  founders  of  Warrenton,  were  direct  lineal  descendants 
of  General  Warren,  the  immortal  hero  of  Bunker  Hill.  For  local  history  of 
Clatsop  county  this  work  is  under  obligations  to  Miss  Clara  C.  Munson,  a 
versatile  writer  on  all  subjects  connected  with  that  region. 

The  Census  returns  of  population  for  Clatsop  county  are  as  follows;  For 
the  year  1850—462;  1860—498;  1870—1,255;  1880—7,222;  1890—10,016;  1900 
—12,765 ;  1910—16,106. 

Polk  District  was  created  by  an  Act  of  the  Provisional  Government  legisla- 
ture December  22nd,  1845,  and  originally  extended  from  the  south  line  of  Y^am- 
hill  county,  down  to  the  California  line  and  west  to  the  Pacific  ocean.  It  was 
named  in  honor  of  President  James  K.  Polk,  who  proved  false  to  Oregon  and 
gave  away  to  England  all  of  Old  Oregon  north  of  the  present  north  boundary 
of  the  State  of  Washington.  Polk  committed  his  treason  in  the  face  of  his  oft- 
repeated  pledge  that  he  would  faithfully  execute  the  will  of  the  people  in  their 
overwhelming  referendum  vote  to  maintain  the  national  title  to  all  the  country 
up  to  "Fifty-four,  Forty — or  Fight." 

The  Census  returns  of  population  for  Polk  county  are  as  follows:  For  the 
year  1850—1,051 ;  1860—3,625 ;  1870—4,701 ;  1880—6,601 ;  1890—7,858 ;  1900— 
9,923;  1910—13,469.     And  for  Indians,  1900—150;  1910—133. 

Benton  county  was  the  first  county  organized  after  the  passage  of  the  Act 
changing  the  name  of  Districts  to  that  of  Counties.  This  county  was  created  by 
Act  of  the  Provisional  Government  legislature  passed  December  23,  1847,  and 


446  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

embraced  all  the  territory  south  of  the  present  south  boundary  of  Polk  county 
down  to  the  California  line.  The  reader  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  Provisional 
Legislature  was  compelled  to  describe  county  lines  by  natural  objects,  there 
not  having  been  up  to  that  time,  and  for  quite  a  period  afterward,  any  U.  S. 
public  land  surveys  in  the  territory.  A  forcible  illustration  of  this  difficulty 
appears  on  the  records  when  four  years  later  the  Territorial  legislature  under- 
took to  define  the  southern  boundary  of  Benton  county  preparatory  to  the  or- 
ganization of  Umpqua  county.  In  this  Act  of  January  15,  1851,  the  description 
runs:  "The  southern  boundary  of  Benton  county  shall  be  located  as  follows: 
Commencing -at  the  middle  of  the  channel  of  the  Willamette  river,  at  a  point 
where  a  line  running  west,  will  pass  three  miles  south  of  the  ford  on  Long  Tom 
near  Roland  Hinton's  field,  and  running  due  west  to  the  Pacific  ocean.  As 
the  Long  Tom  river  or  creek  could  be  forded  at  any  point  the  boundary  line 
was  certainly  a  movable  point  in  Oregon  geography. 

Benton  county  was  named  in  honor  of  Oregon's  best  friend  in  Congress- 
Senator  Thomas  Hart  Benton,  whose  life-like  engraving  appears  on  another 
page  of  this  book. 

The  census  returns  of  population  for  Benton  county  are  as  follows:  For 
the  year  1850—814;  1860—3,074;  1870—4,584;  1880—6,403;  1890—8,650;  1900 
— 10,663.  In  1893  Lincoln  county  was  carved  out  of  Benton  which  explains  the 
reduced  census  returns  of  1900. 

Linn  county  was  the  last  county  to  be  organized  by  the  Provisional  Gov- 
ernment legislature.  The  Act  creating  the  county  was  passed  on  December  28, 
1847,  and  the  county  named  in  honor  of  the  U.  S.  Senator,  Lewis  F.  Linn,  the 
colleague  of  Senator  Benton.  The  Donation  land  law  giving  to  the  heads  of 
each  family  a  square  mile  of  land — 320  acres  to  the  wife  and  the  same  to  the 
husband — was  the  work  of  Senator  Linn.  And  while  the  pioneers  fully  appre- 
ciated this  generous  gift,  it  is  doubtful  whether  many  of  their  descendants  re- 
member the  man  or  his  work.  The  original  boundaries  of  the  county  were  all 
that  vast  territory  lying  south  of  the  Santiam  river  and  its  north  fork,  and  a 
straight  line  from  said  north  fork  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  east  of  the  Willam- 
ette river  to  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  south  to  the  north  boundary  of  Cali- 
fornia and  Nevada. 

The  census  returns  for  population  of  Linn  county  are  as  follows:  For  the 
year  1850—994;  1860—6,772;  1870—8,717;  1880—12,676;  1890—16,265;  1900 
—18,603 ;  1910—22,662. 

Washington  county  was  the  original  Tuality  District,  then  Tuality  county, 
and  on  September  3,  1849,  re-baptized  by  the  territorial  legislature  and  named 
for  the  "Father  of  His  Country" — George  Washington.  The  act  of  the  legis- 
lature changing  the  name  recites,  "That  the  name  of  the  County  commonly 
called  Tuality  or  Falatiue  be  and  the  same  is  changed  to  Washington."  Where 
the  legislature  got  its  authority  for  saying  that  the  county  was  commonly  called 
"Tuality  or  Falatine,"  does  not  appear,  and  it  appears  to  be  making  a  declara- 
tion against  the  historical  fact  that  the  Provisional  legislature,  and  the  pio- 
neers who  made  up  that  legislature,  commonly  called  the  county  "Tuality." 

The  county  seat  of  Washington  county  was  located  on  the  Donation  Land 
claim  of  David  Hill  and  was  named  for  him — Hillsboro.  Mr.  Hill  was  a  member 
of  the  Executive  Committee  of  three,  of  the  Provisional  Government,  elected  by 
the  convention  of  the  people  at  Champoeg  on  July  5,  1843.    The  other  members 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  447 

of  tlic  ('oiiuiiittoe  were  Alausou  Heers  and  Josejih  (Jale,  and  these  three  men 
wei-e  tlie  first  Governors  of  Oregon.  Hillsboro  was  originally  named  "Colvim- 
bus"  and  located  on  the  northeast  corner  of  Hill's  Donation  claim,  but  was 
changed  to  Hillsboro  when  the  townsite  was  surveyed  and  platted  into  lots.  The 
name  of  Joseph  Gale  is  also  preserved  in  the  history  of  Washington  county,  for 
all  time;  "Gale's  Peak,"  a  conical  mountain  lifting  its  crest  2,000  feet  above 
.sea  level  southwest  of  Forest  Grove,  and  "Gale's  Creek"  flowing  from  the  Coast 
Range  mountains  east  through  the  beautiful  "Gale's  Creek  Valley,"  all  three  of 
these  grand  features  of  nature  being  named  in  honor  of  this  Pioneer  Governor 
of  Oregon.  And  likewise  will  the  name  of  David  Hill  be  perpetuated  for  all 
time  in  the  name  of  the  City  of  "Hillsboro"  county  seat  of  Washington  county, 
named  in  honor  of  David  Hill.  And  as  long  as  water  runs,  an  as  long  as  Gale's 
Peak  towers  above  all  the  county,  and  as  long  as  the  city  of  Hillsboro  exists,  in- 
creases and  stands  witness,  will  the  names  of  these  two  Pioneer  Governors  of 
Oregon  be  remembered  and  honored  among  men.  And  in  addition  to  these  two 
Pioneer  Governors,  Washington  county  possessed  also  John  S.  Griffin,  familiarly 
known  as  "Fathel"  Griffin,"  who  was  not  only  a  member  of  the  Convention  that 
formed  the  Provisional  Government  but  he  was  the  man  who  rode  all  over  the 
Willamette  Valley  urging  the  Americans  to  attend  that  Convention  and  vote  for 
organization  ;  and  for  this  he  is  entitled  to  equal  honor  with  Gale  and  Hill.  Father 
Griffin  lived  to  the  age  of  ninety-three. 

Washington  county  originally  included  all  of  Multnomah  couut.y  west  of  the 
Willamette  river,  including  the  city  of  Portland,  down  to  the  year  1854,  prior  to 
which  date  the  Portland  lawyers  had  to  ride  horseback  out  to  Hillsboro  to  attend 
to  their  legal  practice.  And  down  to  that  date  Washington  county  included 
"Sauvie's  island,"  formerly  called  "Wappatoo"  island,  and  also  "Wyeth's  is- 
land." And  there  are  old  records  in  the  Washington  county  court  house  that  rec- 
ognize the  name  of  "Wyeth's  island."  Captain  Nathanial  Wyeth  started  a  town 
on  the  lower  end  of  the  island  in  1834,  and  named  it  "Fort  William."  Here  he 
had  live  stock,  planted  a  garden,  and  established  a  salmon  fishery — the  first  fishery 
in  Oregon  to  export  fish,  sending  back  to  Boston  in  one  of  his  ships  about  half  a 
cargo  of  salted  salmon.  So  that  Washington  county  has  the  honor  of  having  with- 
in its  borders  the  first  platted  townsite,  the  first  salmon  fishery,  shipping  the  first 
cargo  of  salmon  and  having  two  of  the  first  triumvirate  of  American  governors 
west  of  the  Rocky  mountains. 

The  census  returns  of  population  for  Washington  county  are  as  follows :  For 
1850—2,652:  1860—2,801;  1870—4,261;  1880—7,082;  1890—11,972;  1900—14,- 
467 ;  1910—21,522. 

Yamhill  county,  as  has  already  been  noticed,  together  with  its  river,  derives 
its  name  from  the  native  Indians  who  named  the  bald  hills  northeast  of  the  old 
town  of  Lafayette  "Che-am-ills. "  Those  hills  were  an  important  feature  of  the 
landscape  to  the  Indians;  for  near  by  them  was  the  so-called  "falls"  of  the  Y'^ara- 
hill  river,  being  simply  a  ledge  of  rock  running  across  the  river,  and  on  which  the 
Indians  could  cross  the  river  without  much  trouble  in  low  water.  Far  to  the 
south  was  an  open  country,  and  coming  from  the  south  the  Indians  could  see  the 
bald  hills  for  a  long  distance,  and  by  them  they  were  guided  to  the  ford  across  the 
river. 

Alexander  Henry,  in  his  diary  of  January  23,  1814,  refers  to  the  Indians  on 
the  Yamhill  or  Yellow  river  as  the  "Yamhelas"  or  "Yamils, "  and  says  they 


448  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

"were  short  of  stature,  and  altogether  the  most  miserable,  wild,  and  rascally 
looking  tribe  I  had  seen  on  this  side  of  the  Rocky  mountains. ' ' 

From  the  fact  that  many  of  the  men  distinguished  in  the  history  of  the  state 
settled  in  early  times  there,  or  got  their  start  in  life  there,  the  county  has  secured 
the  credit  of  being  a  talisman  of  good  luck  to  all  its  sons  and  daughters.  To  say 
of  a  man  "that  he  got  his  start  in  Yamhill,"  is  much  more  than  the  newcomer 
would  think  it  counted  for.  It  attracts  attention,  and  if  the  subject  will  bear 
inspection,  it  gives  him  a  good  start  in  politics,  education  or  the  church.  The 
state's  most  distinguished  judge  (Matthew  P.  Deady) ,  and  the  most  distinguished 
lawyer  (David  Logan) ,  started  in  Yamhill.  The  county  has  furnished  a  Congress- 
man (John  R.  McBride)  ;  a  governor  (Geoi'ge  L.  Woods)  ;  a  United  States  sen- 
ator, George  W.  McBride;  the  first  president  of  the  state  university,  John  W. 
Johnson ;  the  present  state  superintendent  of  public  schools,  L.  R.  Alderman ;  Dr. 
James  McBride,  delegate  of  the  American  Medical  Association  to  the  Interna- 
tional Medical  Congress  at  Budapest  in  1911,  and  chairman  of  the  section  devoted 
to  the  investigation  of  neurotic  and  mental  diseases,  chief  justice  of  the  supreme 
court,  Thos.  A.  McBride;  General  Joel  Palmer,  superintendent  of  Indian 
affairs ;  an  associate  justice  of  the  supreme  court,  George  H.  Burnett ;  a  judge  of 
the  state  circuit  court,  William  Galloway ;  Dr.  James  McBride,  father  of  all  the 
McBrides,  and  United  States  Minister  to  the  Sandwich  Islands,  and  many  other 
men  distinguished  in  all  walks  of  life.  The  first  cargo  of  wheat  and  the  first 
cargo  of  fiour  shipped  from  Oregon  to  a  foreign  market  was  furnished  by 
Yamhill  county.  And  the  first  corporation  that  built  a  railroad  in  Oregon 
was  organized  at  Amity,  Yamhill  county,  on  May  25,  1867.  The  first  board  of 
directors  of  which  were  James  T.  Belcher,  of  Lafayette,  Wm.  T.  Newby,  of 
McMinnville;  Thomas  R.  Cornelius,  of  Washington  county;  W.  C.  Whitson,  of 
Dallas,  Polk  county;  and  Joseph  Gaston,  of  Portland. 

In  many  ways  Yamhill  county  has  been  influential  in  the  history  and  forma- 
tion of  the  state.  Among  the  early  pioneers  Peter  H.  Burnett  was  a  Supreme 
Judge  of  the  Provisional  Government,  and  appointed  one  of  the  first  United 
States  Territorial  judges,  and  afterwards  became  the  first  governor  of  Cali- 
fornia. Orville  C.  Pratt,  another  United  States  Territorial  judge,  also  removed 
to  California  and  became  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  court  of  that  state.  Old  La- 
fayette once  figured  as  the  "Athens"  of  Oregon,  and  the  classic  halls  of  its 
old  court  house  reverberated  the  thundering  eloquence  of  Deady,  Logan,  Pratt, 
Williams,  Burnett,  Chapman,  Dryer,  Nesmith  and  others.  And  in  commercial 
importance  it  was  scarcely  less  important  than  in  politics.  At  one  time  Lafayette 
had  far  more  business  than  Portland,  and  more  than  thirty  stores  of  all  kinds 
flourished  and  sent  away  pack  trains  of  merchandise  to  the  mines  of  southern 
Oregon  and  northern  California.  The  county  has  always  led  the  way  in 
educational  matters,  and  has  founded  and  liberally  supports  two  of  the  best 
colleges  in  the  state. 

The  census  returns  of  the  population  for  Yamhill  county  are  as  follows: 
For  the  year  1850—1,512;  1860—3,245;  1870—5,012;  1880—7,945;  1890— 
10,692;  1900—13,420;  1910—18,285. 

And  for  Indians,  for  1900—236;  1910^204. 

That  the  grand  total  of  assesments  for  Yamhill  county  in  the  year  1853 
was  only  $751,024.    Land  was  not  assessed,  the  title  to  all  land  being  at  that 


^ 


2.  Ed 


0  w 


I      TILDEH   FOi 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  449 

lime  ill  llie  (iovi'i'iiinriil.  Assi'sscil  \;iln,-it  inn  fcii-  \';iiiiliill  coiiiity  in  llU'i  is 
Dvci'  $16,00U,00(I. 

Marion  county  was  one  oT  liu'  original  tlislricls  oryani/.cd  liy  tlir  Provis- 
ional Government,  and  during  its  existence  as  such  District,  bore  the  name  of 
•■Chainpooick,"  which  was  by  public  usage  changed  into  the  word  Champoeg. 
In  Mr.  F.  V.  Holman's  exhaustive  investigation  of  the  origin  of  names 
of  counties,  lie  has  traced  this  word  back  to  an  Indian  word,  "Cham- 
poo."'  and  which  was  the  Indian  name  of  a  weed  growing  on  the  west  side  of 
the  Willamette  river  opposite  the  old  warehouse  shipping  point  of  Charapoeg 
on  the  Willamette  river.  When  the  territorial  legislature  of  1849  took  up  the 
subject  of  reorganizing  the  counties  the  name  of  the  county  was  changed  from 
Champooiek  to  Marion.  This  change  was  made  to  honor  General  Francis  Marion 
of  the  Revolutionary  war.  Nearly  every  family  in  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi 
valleys  had  in  the  thirties  and  forties  of  the  last  century  copies  of  the  books 
written  by  Rev.  Mason  L.  Weems,  the  Episcopalian  rector  of  ]\It.  Vernon 
parish  when  George  Washington  was  a  plain  farmer  at  the  same  place.  Weems 
not  only  wrote  a  biography  of  Washington,  but  also  of  General  Marion.  Dr. 
Franklin  and  William  Penn.  The  boys  and  girls  who  came  to  Oregon  as  pio- 
neer men  and  women  in  1843  to  1848  had  most  of  them  read  Weems'  Life  of 
Marion,  and  had  been  so  impressed  thereby  that  they  embraced  the  opportun- 
ity of  honoring  their  hero  by  attaching  his  name  to  the  great  central  county  of 
the  state. 

General  Clarion  was  liorn  in  South  Carolina  in  1732.  He  .ioined  the  Ameri- 
can rebels  in  1776,  and  had  his  first  smell  of  gunpowder  in  defending  Sullivan's 
Island  in  Charleston  harbor  against  an  attack  of  the  British  soldiers.  Driven 
from  the  island,  and  from  Charleston,  Marion  raised  a  brigade  of  volunteer 
soldiers  and  carried  on  a  guerrilla  warfare  against  the  British  for  three  years. 
And  such  was  his  success  in  harrying  the  British  forces  and  escaping  all  their 
traps  and  pursuits  that  he  was  entitled  "the  swamp  fox  of  the  Carolinas." 
and  Generals  Washington  and  Greene  both  bestowed  upon  him  the  highest 
praise  in  holding  the  British  army  in  the  South  while  Washington  finally  de- 
stroyed it  in  Virginia.  Marion  county  may  well  be  proud  of  its  name.  How 
JIarion  county  won  the  capital  of  the  state  will  be  found  in  Chapter  XV. 

Marion  county  has  the  honor  of  the  first  permanent  settlement  of  the  state, 
as  well  as  the  first  Protestant  missionary  station,  the  first  school  to  teach 
children  and  the  first  college  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains.  And  this  is  not 
all.  On  Marion  county  soil  was  erected  the  first  structures  of  civil  govern- 
ment on  the  Pacific  coast— the  old  Provisional  Government  at  Champoeg — and 
there  the  flag  of  Freedom  and  Independence — a  reincarnation  of  the  old  Liberty 
Bell  of  1776 — proclaiming  freedom,  independence  and  all  the  blessings  of  civ- 
ilization throughout  the  wide  extended  areas  of  Old  Oregon,  and  to  all  the 
people  thereof,  was  first  unfurled. 

Louis  Bichette  was  the  first  white  man  to  settle  in  Marion  county.  Bichette 
had  in  1817  led  a  party  of  twenty-five  Canadians  from  Canada  to  Oregon,  and 
landed  at  Astoria  with  the  remnant  of  the  party  in  1818.  After  spending  sev- 
eral years  in  trapping,  he  settled  among  the  Indians  and  opened  a  farm  near 
old  Champoeg,  and  lived  thereon  until  his  death  in  1876.  Joseph  Gervais. 
in  whose  honor  the  to^^'n  of  Gervais  was  named,  was  the  second  settler  in  Marion 
county,    opening   a   farm   near   where   the    town   is   located    in    1828. 

Vol.  1—29 


450  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTOKY  OF  OREGON 

The  census  returns  of  the  population  of  Marion  county  were  as  follows : 

For  the  year  1850—2,749 ;  1860—7,088 :  1870—9,665 ;  1880—14,576 ;  1890— 
22,934 ;  1900—27,713 ;  1910—39,780. 

Lane  county  was  organized  by  the  territorial  legislature  of  1851,  and  des- 
cribed as  "all  that  portion  of  Oi^egon  Territory  lying  south  of  Linn  county, 
and  south  of  so  much  of  Benton  countj^  as  is  east  of  Unipqua  county."  As  no 
eastern  boundary  was  mentioned,  it  was  supposed  to  run  eastwardly  to  the 
Rocky  mountains.  In  1853,  the  southern  boundary  of  the  count}'  was  defined 
by  Act  of  the  legislature  to  ' '  commence  on  the  Pacific  ocean  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Siuslaw  river;  and  from  thence  following  up  the  south  bank  of  that  stream  to 
a  point  fifteen  miles  west  of  the  main  road  known  as  the  Applegate  road ;  thence 
southerly  to  the  summit  of  the  Calapooya  mountains ;  thence  eastward  along  the 
summit  of  said  mountains  to  the  summit  of  the  Cascade  range. ' ' 

This  county  was  named  in  honor  of  General  Joseph  Lane,  the  first  gov- 
ernor of  Oregon,  under  the  authoritj'  of  the  United  States;  a  distinguished  sol- 
dier in  the  Mexican  war.  Territorial  delegate  to  Congress,  one  of  the  state's 
first  United  States  senators,  was  the  leading  character  and  most  influential 
factor  in  settling  the  Rogue  River  Indian  wars,  an  honest,  upright  citizen  and 
public  official  who  was  fatally  misled  into  the  candidacy  for  vice  president  on 
the  Southern  pro-slavery  ticket  of  1859,  on  which  John  C.  Bi'eckenridge  was 
the  candidate  for  pi'esident. 

Lane  county  and  its  expanding  and  prospering  chief  city,  Eugene,  both 
get  their  start  from  the  same  pioneers.  Eugene  F.  Skinner,  who  built  a  double 
log  cabin  on  the  west  end  of  ''Skinner's  Butte"  in  1847,  was  the  found,er  of  the 
city,  to  which  his  first  name  is  attached.  Skinner  settled  first  in  Polk  county, 
but  not  seeing  anything  to  his  liking  there,  and  settlers  getting  too  numerous 
for  comfort — about  one  person  to  the  square  mile — he,  with  Elijah  Bristow,  Wil- 
liam Dodson  and  Felix  Scott,  in  the  j'ear  1846,  emigrated  from  Polk  county 
proceeding  up  the  west  side  of  the  river  until  they  reached  "Pleasant  Hill," 
which  they  named.  Here  Bristow  claimed  "the  first  white  settler's  claim  in 
Lane  county;"  Dodson  took  a  claim  next  to  Bristow 's,  and  as  the  party  re- 
turned down  the  valley  Skinner  laid  claim  to  the  ' '  Butte ' '  and  his  claim  covered 
a  part  of  the  city  to\\'nsite.  And  five  years  later  the  first  Lane  county  mer- 
chant started  his  little  store  in  Skinner's  cabin,  and  shortly  after  built  a  store 
room  at  the  foot  of  the  east  end  of  the  Butte.  The  first  school  house — the  Col- 
lege of  the  people — of  this  now  recognized  head  center  of  University  education 
of  the  Northwest,  was  erected  on  that  "Pleasant  Hill,"  in  1849,  by  the  same 
Bristow,  with  the  help  of  his  sons,  sons-in-law  and  grandsons,  one  of  whom  is 
the  honored  and  useful  citizen  still  working  for  Eugene  and  Lane  county — • 
Thomas  G.  Hendricks.  Those  pioneer  founders  builded  wiser  than  they  knew; 
for  the  city  whose  foundations  they  laid  at  the  "parting  of  the  ways"  to  all 
the  counties  through  all  the  mountains,  is  prophetic  of  the  greatest  city  between 
the  Columbia  and  the  "Golden  Gate." 

Lane  county  has  furnished  its  full  share  ■  of  useful  and  distinguished  men. 
No  American  poet,  and  scarcely  any  outside  of  his  o^^ii  land,  has  a  recognized 
higher  claim  to  fame  than  Joaquin  Miller ;  and  no  worker  in  the  fields  of  science 
has  done  more  or  seciired  a  greater  measure  of  honor  than  Thomas  Condon, 
whose  discoveries  in  the  field  of  geologj'  have  attracted  the  attention  of  scien- 
tific societies  throughout  the  world.    And  there  is  John  Whiteaker,  an  old  style 


/*  as;  ^ 

1 

:7^ 

1 

•  1 

«#  ^ 

'4#lfl 

^^ 

J  '^ 

""^"  Jl 

^H 

mi 

L, 

■>      ::!^^ 

^Sm 

^K^ 

''^^SSP 

^mt 

Hi 

■S^ 

wk 

E 

MAJOR  BALL 

A  lineal  descendant  of  the  mother  of  George  Washington — For  many 
years   a   resident   of   Curry   County 


CAPT.    J.    M.    KIRKl'ATRiaK 
The   Hero   of   Battle    Rock 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  451 

statesman,  the  first  governoi-  of  the  state  under  the  State  Constitution,  a  sample 
of  the  many  good  citizens  of  Lane  county — governor,  congressman,  state  sena- 
tor, collector  of  internal  revenue,  the  hero  of  many  a  hard  fought  politi- 
cal battle — and  through  it  all,  and  above  all  other  honors,  winning  and  holding 
the  title  of  "Honest  John."  But  the  man  who  has  done  most  for  Eugene  city 
never  held  high  office.  The  work  of  Josiah  J.  Walton  in  the  long  contest  foi' 
the  State  University  is  greater  tliau  that  of  all  the  Lane  coiuity  statesmen. 

Lane  county  has  contributed  to  the  service  of  the  state  Justices  of  the 
Supreme  Court  Riley  E.  Stratton  and  Robert  S.  Bean,  Congressmen  Whiteaker 
and  J.  H.  D.  Henderson ;  Secretary  of  State  Harrison  R.  Kincaid,  Surveyor- 
General  B.  J.  Pengra,  Circuit  Judges  A.  A.  Skinner  and  L.  T.  Harris,  State 
Printer  Harvey  Gordon.    And  for  further  notice  see  biographical  volumes. 

The  last  review  of  the  history  of  Lane  county  is  that  made  by  Miss  Ann 
Whiteaker;  and  from  which  this  work  has  drawn  liberally. 

The  census  returns  of  the  population  of  Lane  county  are  as  follows : 

For  the  year  1860—4,780;  1870—6,426;  1880—9,411;  1890—15,198;  1900— 
19,604;  1910—33,783. 

Umpqua  county  was  created  by  the  territorial  legislature  of  1851 ;  and  is  the 
only  county  distinguished  as  being  wiped  off  the  map  of  Oregon  by  having  its 
territory  sliced  off  in  successive  parcels  to  found  other  counties  until  it  was 
wholl}^  abolished.  It  embraced  the  territory  between  the  north  bank  of  the 
Umpqua  river  and  the  summit  of  the  Calapooia  mountains,  and  running  thence 
west  to  the  Pacific  ocean. 

Old  Umpqua  county  deserves  something  better  than  an  obituary  notice. 
In  its  day  it  was  the  center  of  gi-eat  activities  for  a  new  country.  Seottsburgh, 
named  for  its  founder,  Levi  Scott,  was  the  head  of  steamboat  navigation  on 
the  Umpqua  river,  and  contained  many  entei-prising  merchants  and  inland 
traders  to  the  gold  mines.  To  this  point  David  Linn  (the  recentty  deceased 
pioneer  of  Jackson  county)  shipped  in  1855  the  first  saw  mill  set  up  in  southern 
Oregon.  The  mill  was  purchased  in  the  Eastern  states,  shipped  in  a  sailing 
vessel  around  Cape  Horn  to  San  Francisco,  and  from  that  port  carried  up  to 
the  mouth  of  the  Umpqua  river  in  a  little  coaster,  carried  from  there  up  to 
Seottsburgh  in  a  little  steamboat,  and  from  Seottsburgh  hauled  150  miles  by  ox 
teams  to  the  then  new  town  of  Jacksonville.  Seottsburgh  was  in  1850  the  head- 
quarters and  metropolis  of  all  southwestern  Oregon  and  northern  California. 

The  flood  of  1862  washed  away  the  greater  part  of  the  town  which  at  one 
time  had  ten  merchandise  establishments.  Among  these  was  Wadsworth,  Peters 
&  Ladd  who  were  wholesale  li(iuor  dealers,  in  addition  to  carrying  miners'  sup- 
plies. R.  J.  Ladd  later  went  to  Portland.  It  is  said  that  in  Seottsburgh  four 
men  got  their  start  for  the.  office  of  governor  of  Oregon.  Two  of  them  were 
practicing  law  at  the  time  of  the  inundation — Stephen  F.  Chadwick  and  Ad- 
dison C.  Gibbs.  The  latter  had  a  partner.  Judge  Stratton,  later  of  the  Supreme 
bench. 

It  was  here  that  Judge  Dead.y  first  attained  eminence  in  the  profession. 

Here  flourished  Pat  Flanagan,  father  of  James  Flanagan,  the  Coos  Bay 
banker.  One  of  the  best-known  men  of  the  Umpqua  country  was  L.  L.  Wil- 
liams, a  trapper  and  Indian  scout,  whose  life  was  saved  by  the  late  Cyrus  Hed- 
den    in    the    Rogue    river    wars.     Williams    was    wounded    and    Hedden    lit- 


452  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

erally  packed  him  to  Scottsburgli  on  his  back  about  40  miles  over  the  mountain 
trails.  D.  J.  L.yons  was  editor  of  the  Democratic  weekly  newspaper  published 
there  in  1854,  the  first  paper  south  of  Salem.  He  was  a  blind  man  of  considerable 
ability,  and  came  from  Louisville,  Kentucky,  with  his  bride,  overland. 

Douglas  county  was  organized  by  the  legislature  of  1852  giving  the  east- 
ern portion  of  Umpqua  county  to  the  new  county,  and  by  another  act  of  the 
legislature  of  1862  giving  what  was  left  of  Umpqua  to  Douglas  and  mping  out 
LTmpqua  entirely.  The  county  was  named  in  honor  of  the  distinguished  Illi- 
nois senator,  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who  was  an  active  friend  of  Oregon  in  the 
United  States  senate,  and  with  whom  many  of  the  Oregon  pioneers  were  person- 
ally acquainted. 

Douglas  county  is  the  heir  and  assignee  of  all  the  greatness  of  old  Umpqua 
countj^  The  opening  of  the  wagon  road  from  Jacksonville  to  Crescent  City 
in  1858  took  away  the  trade  from  old  Scottsburgh,  and  Roseburg  practi- 
cally rose  from  the  decay  of  the  Umpqua  seaport  and  monopolized  all  the  good 
business  of  the  North  and  South  Umpqua  valleys.  To  this  advantage  was  added 
the  stage  coach  line  and  telegraph  between  Portland  and  Red  Bluffs  in  Cali- 
fornia, and  perinanently  established  the  prosperity  of  the  new  county  and  the 
prosperity  of  its  county  seat. 

Douglas  county  has  produced  many  of  the  state's  distinguished  men,  or  given 
them  a  boost  to  fame  and  greatness.  Among  them  may  be  named  Judge  M.  P. 
Deady,  Governor  A.  C.  Gibbs,  General  Joseph  Lane  (governor,  congressman, 
senator  and  candidate  for  vice  president  of  the  United  States),  Congressman 
Lafayette  Lane,  Governor  S.  F.  Chadwick,  Congressman  and  Commissioner  of 
the  United  States  General  Land  Office  Binger  Hermann,  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Coiu't  E.  B.  Watson  and  manj^  others. 

The  census  returns  of  the  population  of  Douglas  countj^  are  a^s  follows: 

For  the  year  1850— none;  1860—3,203:  1870—6,066;  1880—9.596:  1890— 
11,864;  1900—14,565;  1910—19,674. 

And  of  Indians  for  1880—270;  1890—120;  1900—124;  1910—154. 

Jackson  county  was  organized  bj'  the  territorial  legislature  of  1852,  and 
covered  all  the  territory  south  of  Douglas  county  to  the  California  line  and 
west  of  the  Cascade  mountains  to  the  Pacific  ocean.  It  was  the  first  gold  mine 
region  discovered  in  Oregon;  and  the  dark  and  bloody  battle  ground  with  the 
Rogue  river  Indians.  For  many  years  its  isolation  and  distance  from  cen- 
ters of  trade  kept  its  value  and  importance  in  the  background.  The  advent  of  the 
railroad  produced  here  a  greater  change  than  in  anj-  other  part  of  Oregon ;  and 
uow  its  great  orchards  of  apples,  peaches  and  pears  far  exceeds  in  wealth  all 
the  past  of  present  riches  of  its  gold  mines.  The  farmers  and  millers  of  Jack- 
son county  were  the  first  citizens  to  contribute  funds  to  promote  the  work  of 
.securing  the  Congressional  land  grant  on  which  the  railroad  was  built  from 
Portland  to  the  Rogue  river  valley.  On  the  eastern  border  of  Jackson  county 
the  majestic  peak,  Mt.  McLoughlin  rears  its  lofty  snow-capped  cro-i^Ti  9,760 
feet  above  sea  level.  This  moiTutain  improperly  appears  on  the  Rand  McNally 
maps  as  Mt.  Pitt.  McLoughlin  is  the  lawful  geographical  and  official  name  of 
the  mountain,  and  the  name  of  the  British  statesman  (Pitt)  has  no  right  to 
be  attached  to  it  in  any  way.  The  movintain  was  early  as  1838  appropriately 
named  in  honor  of  John  McLoughlin — ' '  Father  of  Oregon. ' ' 

Jackson  county  was  once  (in  1854)  the  selected  site  of  the  State  University ; 


AAUIIN    liUSE 
'I'lir    F.nimlrr    of    Rcwlmr. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  453 

(Hit  the  whirligig  of  politics  in  the  Willaiuotle  valley — the  "Cow  Counties'' 
as  the  bluit"  miners  of  the  Rogue  river  contemptuously  referred  to  the  Willani- 
ctle  region — traded  off  the  Jacksonville  University  for  State  Capital  support 
wherever  and  whenever  needed.  In  1855  Jackson  county  polled  1,496  votes  for 
I  lie  two  candidates  for  Congress — General  Lane  and  Governor  Gaines — while 
.Ahiltnoniah  county  polled  only  607  votes  at  the  same  election. 

This  county  has  in  the  last  year,  compared  with  the  population  and  wcaltli 
of  other  counties  in  the  state,  gone  to  the  front  and  taken  the  lead  of  all  (illici- 
counties  in  the  state  in  the  improvement  of  the  public  roads. 

Nearly  1300,000  has  been  spent  on  roads  and  bridges  during  the  year  1!)11 
by  Jackson  county.  Twenty-six  miles  of  rock  roadway  was  made,  two  and  a  half 
miles  being  through  solid  rock,  cut  to  a  width  of  20  feet.  Six  steel  bridges  were 
erected,  and  .$32,582  was  expended  for  road  machinery. 

For  many  years  Jackson  county  was  a  most  potent  factor  in  the  political 
jiistory  of  the  state.  Down  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  secession  rebellion 
•lackson  county  practically  dominated  the  Democratic  party  of  Oregon  by 
virtue  of  its  solid  and  aggressive  party  organization.  Its  leading  citizens 
ill  the  past  always  secured  for  the  county  state  wide  recognition.  Lindsay 
Applegate  was  a  ti-ail  blazing  pioneer  who  did  most  to  secure  settlement  and 
settlei-s  to  protect  the  people  from  the  savage  red  men.  Colonel  John  E.  Ross 
was  an  Indian  fighter  Adth  a  good  reputation  as  a  judicious  leader  and  brave 
man  from  the  Columbia  to  the  Sacramento.  Mrs.  Harris  was  the  heroine  of  all 
the  Oregon  Indian  wars,  who  with  her  trusty  rifle  stood  off  a  band  of  savages 
and  saved  her  o^^ni  life  and  that  of  her  little  girl,  after  her  husband  had  been 
shot  down  without  provocation.  David  Linn,  the  pioneer  builder,  manufac- 
turer, importer  of  the  first  saw  mill,  and  widely  known  as  the  founder  of  me- 
chanical industries,  has  just  now  passed  on. 

The  census  retiirns  of  the  population  of  Jackson   county   are   as   follows: 

For  the  years  1860—3,736:  1870—4,778;  1880—8,154;  1890—11,455;  1900— 
13,698;  1910—25,736.  And  of  Chinese  for  1870—634;  1880—337;  1890—224; 
1900—43;  1910—84. 

Tillamook  county  was  organized  by  the  territorial  legislature  of  1853 
of  so  much  of  that  part  of  Yamhill  and  Washington  counties  as  lay  west  of 
the  summit  of  the  Coast  range  mountains.  Its  original  boundaries  on  the 
land  side  were  so  imperfectly  described  that  no  person  could  tell  within  twenty 
miles  where  the  boundaries  were.  The  name  of  the  county  is  derived  from  the 
tribe  of  Indians  inhabiting  that  part  of  Oregon.  It  was  supposed  by  the  early 
writers  on  Oregon  to  be  pronounced  as  if  spelled  Killamook.  But  as  the  name 
came  from  the  Indians  themselves,  considering  their  inability  to  express  names 
in  understandable  terms,  the  real  name  might  have  been  something  else.  But 
now  it  is  Tillamook,  and  it  means  ' '  the  gathering  of  the  waters, ' '  and  Tillamook 
Bay  is  that  in  a  singular  degree,  for  five  rivers — the  Trask,  Tillamook,  Kilchis, 
Wilson  and  Miami — draining  the  central  and  northerly  parts  of  Tillamook 
county,  flow  into  it. 

The  first  historical  glimpse  obtained  of  Tillamook  is  when  Captain  Robert 
Gray  sailed  into  Tillamook  Bay,  in  the  sloop  Lady  Washington  on  the  14th 
of  August,  1788,  nearly  four  years  before  he  discovered  and  sailed  the  ship 
Columbia  into  the  mouth  of  the  great  Columbia  river.  And  this  gives  to  Tilla- 
mook Bay  and  Tillamook  county  the  uni(|U('  distinction  of  being  the  first  liiir- 


454  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

bor  and  the  first  land  in  the  state  of  Oregon  visited  by  white  men,  A\dthin  histor- 
ical records. 

On  getting  inside  of  the  Bay  with  his  ship  Gray  thought  he  had  discovered 
the  mouth  of  the  famous  "River  of  the  West,"  mapped  out  by  Jonathan  Car- 
ver twenty  years  before  that  date.  On  Gray's  arrival  in  the  Bay  the. Indians 
were  quite  friendly,  furnishing  the  famished  crew  berries  and  fish,  and  trading 
furs  for  "iron  implements.  Fresh  water  and  wood  was  obtained.  And  then  while 
waiting  for  a  tide  to  go  out  to  sea,  the  ship's  mate  and  seven  men  went  ashore 
to  get  firewood  and  some  grass  for  the  livestock  on  the  ship,  when  they  were  sud- 
denly attacked  by  a  horde  of  savages  with  clubs,  bows  and  arrows,  killing  one 
man  and  wounding  others  and  following  the  sailors  to  their  boat  and  even  at- 
tacking the  ship.  The  sailors  beat  off  the  Indians  with  their  oars  and  the  ship 
fired  rounds  of  grape  shot  into  the  canoes  with  the  swivel  gun;  and  thus  ended 
the  first  battle  Math  the  Indians  in  old  Oregon.  In  recognition  of  the  bloody 
event  Captain  Gray  named  the  place  "Murderer's  Harbor."  The  battle  was 
fought  in  front  of  the  location  of  "Bayoeean,"  but  it  is  not  likely  that  Captain 
Gray 's  name  will  be  adopted  by  any  of  the  to-\\Ti  lot  speculators  on  Tillamook  Bay. 
A  real  live  sketch  of  this  first  battle  in  Oregon  appears  on  another  page. 

The  Tillamook  coast  has  a  tinge  of  that  romantic  mystery  which  leads 
over-sanguine  people  to  hunt  for  lost  or  hidden  treasure.  The  skeleton  of  an 
ancient  ship  has  from  time  to  time  protruded  its  bones  through  the  sea  beach 
sands  about  the  mouth  of  the  Nehalem  river.  And  forthwith  the  ancient  mar- 
iners of  that  vicinity  have  woven  a  tale  of  the  Spanish  treasure  ship  wrecked  in 
the  long,  long  ago,  near  the  foot  of  Eeahnie  mountain,  the  burying  of  iincounted 
tons  of  gold  and  silver  bullion  from  the  mines  of  Peru  and  ilexico,  and  the 
secrets  and  unraveled  signs  and  indices  of  its  location.  Men  have  patiently 
hunted  and  delved  for  this  treasure  for  thirty  years  or  more.  But  the  only  real 
find  is — beeswax.  No  doubt  of  that.  Cakes  of  the  Avax  with  hieroglyphieal 
and  apostolical  signs  thereon,  and  real  dead  bees  on  the  inside  have  been 
found  so  often  that  the  beeswax  story  is  incontestible. 

Tillamook  is  now  one  of  the  richest  and  most  productive  counties  of  the 
state.  Here  on  the  rich  pastures  of  that  region  was  the  first  great  success  made 
in  the  production  of  butter  and  cheese.  Tillamook  cream  cheese  is  the  stand- 
ard of  excellence  Avherever  offered  for  sale.  But  the  sturdy  dairymen  had  a 
hard  start.  It  took  years  of  toil  to  subdue  the  rugged  forest  and  warm  up  the 
fat  soil.  Hardships  of  all  kinds  beset  the  first  settlers.  There  w^ere  so  many 
bears  to  eat  up  the  live  stock  that  it  was  questionable  for  years  whether  the 
farmers  would  drive  out  the  bears,  or  the  bears  drive  out  the  farmers.  In  those 
strenuous  days  a  good  citizen  was  arrested  for  stealing  his  neighbor's  swine. 
The  trial  showed  beyond  a  question  that  the  accuser  had  lost  his  hogs.  The 
accused  answered  the  charge  by  laying  it  on  the  bears.  But  the  unlucky  citi- 
zen was  found  guiltj^  and  imprisoned  in  Tillamook's  first  jail — a  jail  made  of 
rottnd  fir  logs,  and  covered  with  shakes  held  in  place  with  poles.  After  pon- 
dering a  few  hours  over  the  eccentricities  of  administering  justice  in  a  new  coun- 
try the  prisoner  resolved  to  get  out  of  that  jail  and  appeal  his  case  to  the  Gov- 
ernor of  Oregon.  And  he  was  not  long  in  getting  out,  and  then  walked  out 
all  the  way  over  the  mountains  to  Salem,  arriving  there  in  two  days.  On  reach- 
ing town  the  man  went  straight  to  the  office  of  the  Oregon  Statesman  where 


THE   OLD   OREGON   INSTITUTE 


KRAXCIS   S.   UOVT 
President   of   Willamette    University    from    1850    to    1S60 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OlJKGOX  \:<:< 

the  author  of  this  book  Wiis  ;if  work  as  cdilor  ol'  the  paiu-r.  Ho.  preseutud  his 
ease  iminediateh',  saying.  "I  liavc  been  unroi'tuiiate;  I  have  been  arrested 
and  convicted  of  hog  stealing;  but  [  am  not  guilty;  the  bears  eat  up  the  man's 
hogs,  but  I  fau"t  prove  it.  I  eonie  to  you  because  you  are  the  editor  of  the  Ore- 
gon Statesman,  and  I  am  tlie  only  subscriber  j'ou  have  in  Tillamook  county, 
and  I  want  yoii  to  get  me  a  paixlon  from  the  governor." 

Good  paying  subscribers  were  scarce  in  1865,  and  D.  W.  Craig,  then  pro- 
prietor of  the  Statesman,  and  still  living  in  that  city,  could  not  afford  to  lose 
that  man.  And  so  he  was  taken  immediately  to  the  office  of  Governor  Gibbs  in 
the  Old  Holman  block  where  he  told  his  story.  "But  how  did  you  get  out  of 
jail,"  inquired  the  governor.  ''I  just  climl)ed  up  the  logs  on  the  inside, 
pushed  some  shakes  aside  in  the  roof  and  crawled  out."  "But  how  am  I  to  know 
that  you  are  guilty  of  any  crime,  you  have  no  papers,  no  transcript  of  the  tria.'," 
replied  the  governor.  "But  there  were  no  papers  in  the  case;  they  just  took  me 
before  the  Squire,  and  the  man  that  lost  the  hogs  told  his  story,  and  I  told  mine, 
and  the  Squire  said  I  was  guilty  and  sent  me  to  jail ;  and  that  was  all  there  was 
of  it,"  replied  the  prisoner  at  large.  "Well,"  says  the  governor,  gasping  in  as- 
tonishment, "I  can't  issue  a  pardon  to  you,  because  I  have  no  evidence  of  either 
a  crime  or  conviction.  But  if  you  are  right  sure  the  bears  won't  get  any  more 
of  your  neighbors  hogs  I  will  give  you  a  letter  to  the  Justice  of  the  Peace  telling 
him  I  think  he  has  acted  hastily  and  without  due  process  of  law."  "That  is 
just  as  good  as  a  pardon,"  exclaimed  the  joyful  prisoner,  "for  they  will  never 
find  out  over  there  what  due  process  of  law  means,  and  they  will  let  me  alone." 
Suffice  to  say  the  man  got  the  letter,  and  went  back  to  Tillamook  rejoicing. 

Some  readers  may  say  that  this  is  not  history.  But  it  is  history.  It  is  not 
a  fairy  tale,  or  a  made-up  story,  but  a  veritable  recital  of  an  actual  occuiTence. 
And  it  is  told  here  to  show  the  simplicity  of  forms,  manners  and  neighborhood 
life  in  early  Oregon  days.  And  there  are  many  other  pioneer  settlements  that 
could  equal  this  with  parallel  or  kindred  examples  of  primitive  justice. 

Tillamook  county  is  distinguished  as  the  great  producer  of  fine  cheese  and 
butter,  having  now  forty-two  cheese  factories  and  producing  last  year  three  and 
a  half  million  pounds  of  cheese.  Although  for  many  years  very  much  isolated 
from  the  balance  of  the  state,  the  people  were  even  more  progressive  in  their 
chosen  pursuits  than  other  more  favored  communities.  Energetic  measures 
are  in  operation  to  improve  navigation  on  the  great  bay;  and  the  advent  of 
the  railroad  last  year  has  given  the  people  every  advantage  to  make  the  most 
of  their  vast  wealth  in  soil  and  timber. 

The  census  reports  of  the  population  of  Tillamook  county  are  as  follows: 

For  the  year  1860—95;  1870—408;  1880—790;  1890—2,932:  1900—4,471; 
1910—6,266. 

The  county  of  Coos  was  created  by  act  of  the  territorial  legislature  Peeem- 
ber  22,  1853,  and  was  carved  out  of  the  territory  formerly  embraced  in  the 
Umpqua  and  Jackson  counties.  It,  like  Tillamook.  Clatsop  and  Clackamas 
counties,  gets  its  name  from  the  Indians.  Although  a  county  of  Oregon,  yet  for 
nearly  sixty  years  it  has  in  trade  and  commerce  been  practically  a  suburb  of 
the  city  of  San  Francisco.  But  now  it  will  soon  be  annexed  to  Oregon  vnith. 
the  construction  of  first  class  raihva.v  line.  It  is  one  of  the  richest,  if  not  the  very 
wealthiest  countv  in  flio  stair  in  nati:ral  resoui-ces  of  soil,  timber,  coal  and  sea- 


456  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

port  Iiarbors.  It  is  the  ouly  couuty  in  the  state  that  has  developed  valuable 
and  profitable  coal  mining.  It  is  also  the  only  couuty  in  the  state  that  has  added 
to  the  commerce  of  the  state  by  the  successful  building  of  ships  for  oceau  trans- 
portation, having  on  its  great  bay  a  large  and  prosjaerous  ship-yard.  Sea-beach 
mining  for  gold  has  been  profitably  carried  on  in  this  county  for  over  fifty 
years,  and  the  supply  of  the  precious  black  sand  gold  seems  to  be  inexhaustible. 
With  the  advent  of  railroad  transportation  the  expansion  of  all  the  industries 
and  natural  resources  of  Coos  county  will  be  so  rapid  and  enormous  that  no  es- 
timate of  its  wealth  and  development  can  even  be  guessed  at. 

Coos  county  has  developed  many  men  influential  in  the  commercial  and 
political  life  of  the  state.  One  of  the  most  influential  and  picturesque  charac- 
ters in  the  development  of  this  part  of  the  state  was  Captain  Wm.  Tichenor, 
who  run  the  steamer  Sea  Gull  along  the  coast  in  early  days  and  brought  in  the 
first  settlers  to  open  and  hold  the  country  against  the  Indians.  Another  man 
of  a  different  character  but  equally  efficient  in  good  works  for  Coos  county, 
was  Dr.  Henry  H.  Hermann,  who  came  in  1858,  settling  on  the  Coquille  river 
mth  other  German  colonists.  Here  was  where  his  son,  Hon.  Binger  Hermann, 
got  his  start,  commencing  as  a  school  teacher  of  the  county-lads  and  lassies 
in  the  first  school  ever  opened  in  the  Cocj[uille  valley.  From  this  modest  begin- 
ning Mr.  Hermann's  rise  in  the  political  field  of  Oregon  was  steady  and  con- 
tinuous until  he  had  filled  the  office  of  Representative  and  Senator  in  the  State 
Legislature,  Receiver  of  the  Roseburgh  Land  Office,  Member  of  Congress  for 
fourteen  years,  and  Commissioner  of  the  U.  S.  General  Land  Office. 
While  in  Congress  Mr.  Hermann  secured  appropriations  amounting  to  $1,253,- 
000  for  the  improvement  of  the  rivers,  ports  and  harbors  of  Coos  and  Curry 
counties  besides  appropriations  for  other  harbors  on  the  Oregon  coast. 

Coos  and  Curry  counties,  like  Tillamook,  are  fine  dairy  countries,  and  the 
dairy  interests  have  been  largely  developed  and  aided  bj^  the  Bankers  Flanna- 
gan  and  Mann,  who  have  imported  for  the  farmers  pure  bred  dairy  cattle.  The 
local  historj'  of  these  two  counties  has  been  well  preserved  and  admirably  set 
forth  in  a  volume  of  nearly  six  hundred  pages  prepared  by  Mr.  Orvil  Dodge; 
and  from  which  and  from  the  author  himself,  this  work  is  luider  great  obli- 
gations. For  fuller  accounts  of  local  history  see  the  biographical  volumes  of 
this  work. 

The  census  returns  of  population  for  Coos  county,  are  as  follows : 

For  the  year  1860—445;  1870—1,644;  1880—4,834;  1890—8,874;  1900— 
10,324;  1910—17,959. 

Columbia  county  was  created  by  act  of  the  territorial  legislature  January 
16,  1854.  It  was  cut  oft"  the  northwest  part  of  Washington  countj^;  and  named 
after  the  great  river  which  forms  its  northern  boundary.  It  has  lived  and  grown 
upon  the  feverish  excitement  of  many  great  commercial  expectations  which  per- 
ished like  castles  in  the  air.  Three  cities  were  founded  within  its  limits  which 
were  to  be  the  metropolis  of  the  great  Columbia  valley.  Milton  was  No.  1 :  St. 
Helens  No.  2;  and  Columbia  City  No.  3.  Milton  got  ships  and  a  saw  mill. 
St.  Helens  got  ships  and  a  saw  mill;  and  Columbia  City  got  a  saw  mill.  St. 
Helens  kept  on  in  the  even  tenor  of  its  way,  gdt  an  ocean  steamship  dock 
and  ocean  steamships  to  land  thereat  and  discharge  cargo ;  and  therefrom 
disputed  the  supremacy  of  Portland.     St.  Helens  got  the  coimty  seat,  sent  out 


JOHN  MINTO 
Farmer,  Statesman  and  Poet 


FIRST    DWELXING    HOUSE    IN    SALEM 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTOllY  OF  OREOON  4r)7 

.'iiirvcyoi's  to  locate  a  iviili-oail  iiilo  tlic  Willaiuclte  viilley,  and  circumscnbe 
••  I'ortlaiKl-on-Wallanu'l."  SI.  Helens  put  forth  even  greater  energy  in  the 
i-aee  for  greatness  than  Tori  land.  Hut  Coffin  and  ('hai)nuin  bought  a  steaiii- 
ship  of  their  own  and  Caplaiu  Couch  persisted  in  sailing  his  ships  up  to  llie 
WiUamette  river  town — and.  St.  Helens  lost  the  commercial  emporium.  \'>ul 
lis  tributary  valleys  of  rich  soil  and  river  transportation,  and  logging  rail- 
road development  have  given  it  the  prosperity  it  for  so  many  years  hoped  foi-. 
Columbia  county  has  now  more  miles  of  raili-oad  transportation  than  many  of 
the  counties  of  the  state. 

The  census  reports  of  population  for  this  county  are  as  follows: 

For  the  year  1860— 51^2:  1870—86:5;  1880—2,042;  1890— 5,191;  1900— 6,2;!7 ; 
11)10—10,580. 

Curry  county  was  carved  out  of  the  southern  part  of  Coos  county  by  the 
territorial  legislature  on  December  18,  1855,  and  named  in  honor  of  the  then 
governor  of  Oregon — George  L.  Cnrry.  It  ocenpies  the  sonthwestern  corner 
of  the  state ;  and  is  an  exceedingly  picturesque  and  interesting  region  of  moun- 
tains and  valleys,  covered  with  forests  of  fine  timber  gro\\dng  over  mines  of 
gold,  copper,  chrome,  iron,  platinum  and  other  valuable  metals.  Curry  county 
was  the  home  of  a  savage  race  of  hardy  and  hard  fighting  Indians;  and  was 
the  scene  of  the  last  desperate  battle  of  Chief  John  and  his  warriors  in  their 
reckless  extremity  trying  to  save  their  country  from  the  all-conquering  white 
man.  Notwithstanding  its  great  natural  resources  of  wealth  in  timber,  soil, 
metals  and  fish,  with  the  best  climate  in  the  state,  its  isolation  has  greatly  ham- 
pered its  development.  Yet  despite  these  drawbacks  the  county  has  been  pros- 
perous in  all  its  industries  and  the  population  enjoying  far  more  of  the  comforts 
of  life  than  many  eonnnunities  in  the  midst  of  cities  and  networks  of  railroads. 
The  energy  of  one  citizen  of  Curry  has  shown  what  could  be  done  with  the 
scientific  handling  of  natural  resources.  R.  D.  Hume  came  to  Rogue  river  in 
1 876  and  built  a  salmon  cannery  at  Gold  Beach.  It  burned  down  in  1893,  and 
he  built  another  cannery  across  the  river  at  Wedderburn.  He  soon  found  that 
the  natural  supply  of  fish  would  not  keep  his  packing  establishment  supplied 
with  the  raw  material,  and  he  started  a  fish  hatchery  on  his  own  account.  He 
did  not  wait  for  the  aid  of  the  government.  He  farmed  Rogue  river  for  a  crop 
of  salmon  large  enough  each  year  to  keep  his  cannery  at  work ;  made  a  success 
of  the  enterprise  and  a  large  fortune.  Curry  county  has  but  few  towns — Lang- 
lois,  Port  Orford,  Wedderburn  and  Gold  Beach  being  the  principal  trading 
points.  But  it  has  always  had  leading  and  forceful  men  in  the  state  legislature — 
Curry  had  the  honor  of  having  been  the  home  of  Ebenezer  Burgess  Ball,  whose 
grandfather  was  a  first  cousin  of  George  Washington's  mothei- — Mary  Ball. 
This  gentleman,  known  in  Curry  history  as  :Major  Ball,  came  to  Oregon  in 
1850,  and  after  visiting  the  Applegate  families  went  to  the  Curry  county  gold 
mines  and  conducted  a  general  store  for  ten  years,  and  Avent  back  to  his  old 
home  in  Virginia  in  1860.  His  photo  in  an  original  old  Virginia  military  uni- 
form of  1780 — a  family  heirloom — appears  on  another  page. 

The  census  of  population  for  Curry  county  are  as  follows ; 

For  the  year  1860—39:5;  1870—504;  1880—1,208;  1890—1.709;  1900— 
1,868;  1910—2,044. 

Multnomah  conntv  was  named  in  honor  of  a  tribe  of  ln(li;iiis  df  that  name  liv- 


458  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

ing  witMn  its  boundaries,  aud  was  organized  bj-  act  of  the  territorial  legislature  ou 
December  22, 1854,  and  was  made  up  of  a  slice  of  the  eastern  part  of  Washington 
county,  and  another  slice  off  the  northern  part  of  Clackamas  county.  In  terri- 
torial area  it  is  the  smallest  county  in  the  state ;  but  having  the  city  of  Portland, 
it  is  the  most  populous  county,  having  aboiit  one-third  the  entire  population  of 
Oregon.  Chapter  XIII  of  this  work  is  devoted  to  Portland,  and  the  readers  are 
referred  to  that  chapter  for  further  history. 

The  census  of  the  population  of  this  coimty  are  as  follows: 

For  the  year  1860—4,150 ;  1870—11,510 ;  1880—25,203 ;  1890—74,884 ;  1900 
—103,167;  1910—226,261.  And  of  Chinese  for  1870—508;  1880—1,983;  1890— 
5,184;  1900—8,012;  1910—5,764. 

Wasco  county  was  created  by  act  of  the  legislature  on  January  11,  1854. 
It  embraced  all  the  territorj'  east  of  the  Cascade  mountains  down  to  the  bound- 
ary line  of  California  and  Nevada,  aiid  east  to  the  summit  of  the  Rocky  mount- 
ains; which  was  not  only  all  of  what  is  now  known  as  eastern  Oregon,  but  also 
all  of  the  state  of  Idaho.  Wasco  county  takes  the  name  of  the  tribe  of  Indians 
that  made  their  headquarters  from  where  Dalles  City  is  now  located  up  to  the 
falls  of  the  Columbia,  at  Celilo.  The  Indians  themselves  seemed  to  have  called 
their  country  Wascopam,  if  the  early  writers  of  Oregon  history  understood 
them.  The  Wascoes  occupied  a  strategic  point  on  the  river  and  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  make  the  most  of  it  in  trading  with  other  Indians  and  in  serving  or 
robbing  the  white  people  travelers.  They  controlled  the  great  salmon  fishery  at 
the  falls  of  the  Columbia,  and  to  the  extent  of  their  ability  levied  a  royalty  on 
all  other  Indians  who  wanted  a  winter's  supply  of  dried  fish.  But  in  this  they 
did  no  worse  than  the  steamboat  capitalists  who  in  later  times  got  control  of 
The  Dalles  passway  and  levied  tribute  on  every  passenger  and  pound  of  freight 
that  passed  up  and  do\Mi  the  Columbia  river,  until  great  fortunes  were  piled 
up,  which  have  in  our  day  blossomed  out  in  a  great  bank,  a  great  hotel  and  a 
great  college  of  learning.  The  census  returns  of  Wasco  county  shows  the  fol- 
lowing population: 

For  the  year  1860—1,689 ;  1870—2,509 ;  1880—11,120 ;  1890—9,183 ;  1900— 
13,199;  1910—16,336. 

The  falling  off  in  population  in  1890  is  accounted  for  by  the  territorj^  taken 
to  form  Sherman  county  in  1889. 

And  of  Indians  for  1880—124 ;  1890—166 ;  1900—414 ;  1910—377. 

Josephine  county  was  created  by  the  territorial  legislature  January  22, 
1856,  and  was  cut  off  the  western  part  of  Jackson  county.  It  was  named  in 
honor  of  Josephine  Rollins,  the  daughter  of  an  early  gold  miner  in  that  county. 
Almost  its  entire  resources  for  the  support  of  a  population  for  many  years 
depended  on  the  placer  gold  mines,  many  of  which  were  very  rich ;  and  the 
support  of  a  county  organization  ■  was  so  small  that  the  little  county  business 
was  searely  worth  considering.  With  the  advent  of  the  railroad  the  county  seat 
was  removed  to  "Grants  Pass,"  which  was  located  on  the  Donation  claim  of 
Thomas  Croxton,  and  acquired  its  name  from  the  act  of  Lieutenant  U.  S.  Grant, 
in  locating  the  wagon  road  from  Rogue  river  to  the  Umpqiia ;  and  who  afterwards 
became  the  great  commander  of  the  Union  armies  in  the  suppression  of  the 


EUGENE  SKINNER 
Founder   of   Eugene   City 


muG 


THE  CENTENNIAL  ITTSTORY  OF  OKKGON  459 

Secession  Kohellioii.  and  slill  later  I'rcsiilciil  nl'  llii>  I'liiiiMl  Stiilcs.  from  1868 
to  1876. 

The  census  reports  show  the  popuhition  of  lliis  county  to  be  as  follows: 

For  the  year  1860— 1,623 ;  1870—1,204;  1880—2,485;  1890—4,878;  1900— 
7,517;  1910—9,567. 

Baker  county  was  the  first  county  created  under  the  State  Constitution,  and 
was  organized  by  act  of  the  legislature  September  22,  1862.  It  was  nametl  in 
honor  of  Col.  E.  D.  Baker,  who  came  to  Oregon  in  1860,  and  was  elected  to 
the  United  States  senate  September,  1860.  On  the  breaking  out  of  the  Southern 
Rebellion  and  while  acting  as  senator  for  Oregon,  Senator  Baker  was  appointed 
a  Brigadier  General  in  the  Union  army  and  lost  his  life  in  leading  a  charge 
against  the  rebel  forces  at  the  battle  of  Ball's  Bluff  in  Virginia,  not  many  miles 
from  Washington  City.  Baker  county  has  figured  largely  in  the  development 
of  eastern  Oregon.  Its  rich  mines  of  gold,  great  forests  of  timber,  and  rich 
agricultural  valleys  early  attracted  a  population  of  active,  forceful  men  who 
have  exercised  a  potential  influence  in  shaping  the  legislature  and  policy  of 
the  state.    The  census  reports  show  the  population  of  this  county  as  follows : 

For  the  year  1870—2,804;  1880—4,616;  1890—6,764;  1900—15,597;  1910— 
18.076. 

Umatilla  county  was  created  by  act  of  the  legislature  September  27,  1862, 
being  like  Baker  county  taken  out  of  the  territory  of  "Wasco.  Its  name  is  de- 
rived from  the  tribe  of  Indians  occupying  the  territory  of  the  county.  Lewis 
and  Clark  in  their  journals  spelled  the  name  Youmalolum;  Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth 
in  his  journal  spells  it  Otillah;  Gustaviis  Hines  in  his  history  of  Oregon  spells 
the  name  in  one  place  as  Utilla,  and  in  another  place  Umatilla;  Capt.  Bonne- 
ville, in  the  journal  of  his  expedition  to  Oregon,  spells  the  name  of  the  Umatilla 
river  at  Ottolais ;  all  of  w'hich  goes  to  show  the  difficulty  and  uncertainty  of 
English-speaking  people  in  translating  Indian  names  into  English  words. 

Umatilla  is  now  one  of  the  most  prosperous  counties  of  the  state,  and  al- 
though much  of  its  rich  territory  is  occupied  by  an  Indian  reservation,  its  wealth 
and  population  is  rapidly  increasing. 

The  census  reports  show  its  growth  in  population  as  follows;  although  it 
has  lost  much  territory  since  its  organization  by  the  creation  of  new  counties. 

For  the  year  1870—2,916;  1880—9,607;  1890—13,381;  1900—18,049;  1910 
—20,309.     And  of  Indians  for  1900—995 ;  1910—960. 

Grant  county  was  created  by  legislative  act  of  October  14,  1864,  and  made 
up  of  territory  cut  off  from  Wasco  and  Umatilla  counties.  It  was  named  in 
honor  of  General  U.  S.  Grant,  who  was  just  about  that  date  giving  the  death 
blows  to  the  Southern  States  Confederacy.  Grant  county  has  produced  millions 
of  dollars  of  gold  from  its  mines  which  are  still  worked,  although  it  is  now  largely 
a  live  stock  producing  region.  Its  growth  in  population  is  shown  by  the  census 
reports  as  follows : 

For  the  year  1870—2,251;  1880—4,303;  1890—5,080:  1900—5,948;  1910— 
5,607. 

Union  county  was  created  by  the  legislature  on  the  same  day  as  Grant  county, 
October  14,  1864;  and  named  "Union"  as  a  tribute  to  the  sentiment  in  favor 
of  the  union  of  states  which  had  then  been  so  sorely  attacked  by  the  southern 
rebellion.     It  occupies  the  Grand  Ronde  valley  of  Eastern  Oregon,  and  is  one 


460  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

of  the  most  beautiful  tracts  of  rich  land  in  the  world.  It  is  a  very  rich  and 
prosperous  region.  Its  growth  in  population  is  shown  by  the  census  reports 
as  follows: 

For  the  year  1870—2,552 ;  1880—6,650 ;  1890—12.044 ;  1900—16.070 :  1910— 
16,191. 

Lake  county  was  organized  by  the  legislature  October  24,  1874,  and  embraced 
all  the  territory  of  the  then  Southern  Wasco,  and  included  the  territory  of  Kla- 
math county.  It  was  so  named  on  account  of  the  numerous  lakes  within  its  area. 
It  is  a  sparsely  settled  region,  with  vast  sage  brush  lands  of  rich  soil  and  greatly 
productive  by  irrigation.  Its  natural  resources  are  much  greater  than  generally 
believed,  as  it  possesses  vast  deposits  of  borax,  soda,  gold  and  possibly  potash. 
A  U.  S.  land  office  is  located  at  its  county  seat  of  LakevieAv  which  is  a  trading^ 
point  and  railroad  terminus  doing  a  large  and  rapidly  increasing  business. 

Its  growth  and  population  is  shown  bj^  the  following  census  reports : 

For  the  year  1880—2,804 ;  1890—2,604 ;  1900—2,847 ;  1910—4.658. 

Klamath  county  was  carved  out  of  Lake  in  1882,  which  cut  off  its  population 
to  the  west. 

'Klamath  county  was  taken  off  of  Lake  in  the  year  1882,  organized  into  a 
county  on  October  17.  Its  name  is  derived  from  the  Indians  inhabiting  the 
region  of  the  lakes  of  the  countj- ,  the  lakes  L^pper  and  Lower  Klamath  also  get- 
ting their  names  from  the  Indians.  Lieut.  Fremont  visited  the  region  in  1843, 
following  the  trails  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  trappers  south  from  The 
Dalles.  The  region  was  the  theatre  of  a  desperate  Indian  war  with  the  ilodocs  in 
the  year  1873,  an  account  of  which  is  given  in  the  chapter  on  Indian  wars.  The 
country  is  now  very  prosperous  with  the.  construction  of  government  irrigation 
canals,  raih-oads,  lumbering  enterprises  and  an  aggressive  and  rapidly  growing 
county  seat — Klamath  Falls.  The  county  lia.s  vast  wealth  in  timber,  -water  power 
and  millions  of  acres  of  rich  soil.  The  Klamath  Indian  reservation  is  within  this 
county,  but  the  Indians  are  peaceful  and  many  of  them  industrioiis  farmers. 
Crater  Lake,  the  greatest  natural  curiosity  in  the  known  world  is  located  in  this 
county.  The  census  reports  show  the  growth  of  population  of  Klamath  county 
as  follows: 

For  the  year  1890—2,444;  1900—3,970;  1910-8,554.  And  of  Indians  for 
1900—1,037 ;  1910—1,027. 

Crook  county  is  the  west  central  part  of  old  Wasco  county,  and  was  organized 
into  a  county  by  the  legislature  on  October  24,  1822.  It  is  named  in  honor  of 
General  George  Crook,  of  the  U.  S.  Army,  whose  vigorous  campaign  against  the 
Snake  Indians  gave  peace,  protection  and  settlements  to  Eastern  Oregon.  A 
good  likeness  of  the  general  appears  on  another  page.  The  interior  i^osition  of 
the  county  and  a  population  devoted  to  live  stock  production,  has  not  been  con- 
ducive to  much  growth  or  increase  of  population. 

The  census  reports  show  the  following: 

For  the  year  1890—3,244;  1900—3,964:  1910—9,315.  And  of  Indians  for 
1900—537;  1910—451. 

Morrow  county  was  organized  by  the  legislature  February  16.  1855,  and 
named  in  honor  of  Jackson  L.  Morrow,  an  old  resident  of  that  region,  and  being 
a  member  of  the  legislature  at  the  time  did  not  put  aside  the  honorable  dis- 
tinction.    Its  county  seat  is  the  town  of  Heppner  which  was  practically  all 


GKNER.\L  W.  S.  HARNEY 

Tlio  man  who  opeiieil  Harney  Valley  to  settlement  by  wliite  men  after  it  had  been  closed  by 

the  edict  of  General  Wool — and  in  whose  lionor  the  valley  and 

the  county  were  named 


R 


TIIK  CKXTK.WIAL   HISTOK'V   (»K  ORKCOX  4(;i 

washed  away  by  a  torri'iitial  i-loiul  Imrst  a  dozen  years  ago,  but  has  since  been 
rebuilt  on  liighei-  and  safer  uroiiiid.  Tlie  census  sliows  the  I'ollowiug  growth 
oi'  population. 

For  the   year    1<S!I0— 4.211.') ;    lOOO— 1.151 ;    I'JIU— 4,;557. 

(.iilliam  county  was  organized  in  the  year  1885,  and  named  in  honor  of 
Colonel  Cornelius  Gilliam,  an  Orejron  pioneer  of  1844,  and  who  was  acciden- 
tally killed  at  Wells  Springs  in  the  territory  of  that  county  while  in  command 
of  a  regiment  of  Oregon  volunteers  who  had  gone  out  to  capture  the  murder- 
ers of  Dr.  AVhitman.  Gilliam  was  a  good  man,  a  good  citizen,  a  good  soldier 
and  deserved  the  honor,  its  county  seat  is  Condon,  in  liouor  of  Thomas  Condon. 
The  growth  of  the  population  of  the  county  is  shown  by  the  census  reports 
as  follows: 

For  the  year  1890—3,600;  1900—3.201;  1910—3,701. 

Wallowa  county  was  oi-ganized  on  February  11,  1887,  being  carved  out  of  the 
territory  of  Union  county,  and  is  located  in  the  northeastern  corner  of  the  State. 
The  county  gets  its  name  from  the  beautiful  Lake  and  river  which  dis- 
tinguishes the  beautiful  mountain  valley,  the  most  attractive  mountain  scenery 
of  the  whole  State,  and  not  excelled  by  that  of  any  other  region  in  the  world. 
This  beautiful  valley  was  the  home  of  that  branch  of  the  Nez  Perce  tribe  of 
Indians  whose  government  was  the  rule  of  the  great  Indian  Chief  Joseph,  and 
whose  likeness  appears  on  another  page.  Joseph  and  his  people  claimed  that 
Ihey  had  been  i;njustly  driven  out  of  the  valley  by  the  white  man,  and  on  being 
refused  restoration  to  their  ancient  home  went  to  war  in  1877,  and  being  at- 
tacked by  the  U.  S.  Troops  under  General  0.  0.  Howard,  Joseph  effected  such 
a  masterly  and  successful  retreat  over  the  Rockj'  Mountains  as  to  win  the  re- 
spect and  admiration  of  the  General  and  all  his  men.  To  recognize  the  dis- 
tinguished Chief  the  settlers  in  the  valley  have  named  their  principal  town 
"Joseph"  in  honor  of  the  Indian;  the  only  town  or  county  named  in  honor  of 
an  Indian  on  the  Pacific  Coast. 

The  census  reports  of  the  county  show  population  as  follows:  For  1890 — 
3,661 ;  1900—5,538 ;  1910—8,364 ;     Enterprise  is  the  county  seat. 

]\Ialheur  county  was  organized  by  the  legislature  February  17,  1887.  It 
occupies  the  southeastern  corner  of  the  State.  It  gets  the  name  from  the  prin- 
cipal river  in  the  county;  and  the  river  got  the  name  from  the  fact  that  the 
Indians  had  stolen  a  cache  of  furs  and  goods  the  Hudson's  Bay  Co.  trapper, 
Peter  Skene  Ogden,  had  hid  on  the  banks  of  the  river.  The  word  is  pronounced  as 
if  spelled  "Maloor, "  and  is  a  French  tei-m  signifying  "bad  luck."  It  is  as  yet 
a  sparsely  settled  region.  But  now  in  this  year  1912,  the  Oregon  Short  Line 
iailroad  is  being  constructed  westerly  across  the  county. 
The  census  reports  population  of  the  county  as  follows : 

For  1890—2,601 :  1900—4,203 ;  1910—8.601 :  The  County  seat  is  now  at  tlie 
town  of  Vale. 

Harney  county  was  created  by  legislative  enactment  February  25,  1889, 
and  embraces  the  great  Harnej*  Valley,  including  the  large  lakes  Malheur  and 
Harney.  The  county  is  named  in  honor  of  ilajor-General  William  S.  Harney,  a 
distinguished  soldier  of  the  United  States  army,  who  had  seen  bard  service  fight- % 
ing  Indians  in  Florida,  Illinois  and  Oregon,  besides  active  service  in  the  war 
with  Mexico,  and  finally  against  the  Southern  rebels  in  Missouri,     Being  given 


462  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

eommand  in  Oregon  in  1858,  he  opened  the  Harney  valley  to  settlement  after  it 
had  been  closed  against  white  settlers  by  General  Wool.  A  good  likeness  of  the 
distinguished  soldier  appears  on  another  page. 

Harney  is  now  the  scene  of  great  activity,  in  taking  up  the  long  neglected 
rich  lands  of  that  region.  Burns,  the  principal  town  and  county  seat,  contains 
the  U.  S.  Land  office,  with  two  banks  and  many  prosperous  mercantile  houses; 
and  it  has  tributary  territory  of  rich  land  large  enough  to  make  a  greater  State 
than  many  of  the  New  England  States.  The  census  reports  the  gi'owth  of  popu- 
lation as  follows : 

For  the  year  1890—2,559 ;  1900—2,598 ;  1910—4,059. 

Sherman  county  was  organized  by  the  legislature  on  February  25,  1889, 
having  been  once  the  northeastern  portion  of  Wasco  County.  It  is  named  in 
honor  of  Major  General  Wm.  T.  Sherman,  the  hero  of  the  march  through 
Georgia  to  the  sea  which  cut  the  Southern  Confederacy  in  twain  and  broke 
the  backbone  of  the  Southern  Rebellion.  This  is  one  of  the  great  wheat  pro- 
ducing counties  of  the  State,  and  upon  which  many  farmers  have  grown  rich. 
The  county  seat  is  Moro. 

The  growth  of  population  is  shown  by  the  census  reports  as  follows : 

For  the  year  1890—1,792 ;  1900—3,477 ;  1910—4,242. 

Lincoln  county  created  by  legislative  act  on  February  20,  1893,  is  located 
on  the  Pacific  ocean  west  of  Benton  county,  embracing  the  Siletz  Indian  reserva- 
tion, the  Siletz  valley,  vast  bodies  of  the  finest  timber  in  the  world,  the  health 
resorts  of  Yaquina  and  Newport,  and  is  named  in  honor  of  the  martyr  Presi- 
dent, Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  census  reports  the  white  population  as  follows: 

For  the  year  1900—3,575 ;  1910—5,587,  and  the  Indian  population  for  1900 
—465 ;  and  for  1910—  392. 

The  county  seat  is  at  the  town  of  Toledo. 

Wheeler  county  was  organized  February  17,  1899,  out  of  portions  of  Crook, 
Gilliam  and  Grant  Counties.  It  is  named  for  Henry  H.  Wheeler,  an  old  settler 
in  that  part  of  the  State.  Its  county  seat  is  at  the  town  of  Fossil,  which  is  so 
named  for  the  great  varietj'  of  fossil  remains  of  the  ancient  animal  life  of  that 
region. 

The  census  shows  its  population  as  follows :  For  the  year  1900 — 2,443 ;  1910 
—2,484. 

Hood  River  is  the  last  county  organization  of  the  legislature,  and  the  Act 
for  which  was  passed  by  an  initiative  petition  at  an  election  held  June  1,  1908. 
Its  territory  Avas  taken  off  of  Wasco  county.  The  county  gets  its  name  from  the 
great  mountain  at  the  head  of  its  river ;  and  the  mountain  was  named  bj'  Lieut. 
Broughton,  for  Lord  Hood,  an  English  nobleman.  The  county  seat  is  the  town 
of  Hood  River;  so  the  English  lord  dominates  the  whole  aggregation  of  moun- 
tains, county  and  town.  Its  population  according  to  the  census  of  1910  is 
8,016. 


The  settlement  of  the  Klamath  country  had  its  commencement  or  inception 
in  the  desire  of  some  young  Oregon  volunteers  who,  serving  on  the  frontier, 
noticed  its  varied  beauties  of  lake,  valley  and  mountain,  and  having  been  reared 


LINDSAY   APPLEGATE 
A  locator  of  the  Applegate  Trail  into  Southern  Oregon,  1845 


FOUNDER  DK   FRUIT  GROWIXfi   IX  ROGUE   RIVER   VALLEY 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  4()3 

on  tlie  farm  regarded  its  fertile  soil  as  proinisiuj:  futui-e  greatness  as  an  agri- 
cultural possibility. 

Its  remoteness  from  markets,  its  lack  of  transportation  facilities  or  even 
passable  wagon  roads  to  connect  it  with  the  older  and  settled  portions  of  either 
Oregon  or  California,  were  deterring  factors  in  preventing  its  agricultural  de- 
velopment, while  its  bunch  grass  covered  hills,  its  native  meadows  and  abundant 
springs,  naturallj'  indicated  its  adaptability  to  stoek  raising;  an  industry  that 
did  not  of  necessity  require  transportation  other  than  upon  its  own  legs.  Hence 
its  introductory  history  was  that  of  a  stock  country  only,  and  as  the  large  stoek 
owners  required  for  their  business  a  free  range  for  their  herds,  scanty  encour- 
agement was  given  to  settlers,  who  would  fence  up  and  improve  the  land. 

The  writer  was  one  of  the  first  to  demonstrate  the  agricultural  possibilities 
of  the  soil;  and  having  no  means  other  than  the  small  sum  saved  during  his  two 
yeai-s  and  eight  months  service  in  the  army,  he  vei-y  naturally  tried  to  cultivate 
a  little  garden,  and  raise  some  grain  to  help  defray  the  cost  of  living  which  was 
necessarily  high  from  the  fact  that  all  provisions,  clothing,  and  other  supplies, 
were  brought  in  over  the  mountains  by  mule  trains,  or  in  wagons,  from  a  long 
distance.  Xo  railroads  were  then  built  either  in  Oregon  or  California,  and  the 
river  steamers  were  the  freight  handlers  to  the  head  of  navigation,  whence  the 
mule  train  or  the  freight  wagon  were  the  distributing  agents. 

The  gi'eatest  drawbacks  in  the  settlement  of  the  country  were  not  however, 
the  natural  obstacles  that  confronted  the  settler.  These  he  could  overcome  and 
conquer,  but  the  unjust  and  inefficient  land  laws  that  deterred  settlement,  and 
which  the  state  authorities  made  no  attempt  to  remedy,  deprived  many  an  hon- 
est hardworking  family  of  their  home,  and  discouraged  many  would  be  settlers 
from  attempting  to  make  homes  in  the  country. 

The  first  settlers  located  in  the  near  neighborhood  of  Link  River  and  the 
shores  of  Little  Klamath  Lake.  This  land  had  been  surveyed  in  1859,  by  D. 
P.  Thompson  and  others,  when  it  was  far  in  advance  of  any  prospective  settle- 
ment. But  in  those  days  the  surveying  of  public  lands  was  a  very  lucrative 
business,  and  the  contracts  were  let  far  in  advance  of  the  actual  needs  of  set- 
tlement to  accommodate  administration  supporters.  -\s  the  country  was  oc- 
cupied with  Indians  who,  though  not  actively  hostile  to  the  white  man,  were 
yet  extremely  jealous  of  intrusions  into  their  territory,  and  resented  the  mark- 
ing of  their  lands,  very  many  of  the  stakes  and  monuments  were  destroyed  al- 
most as  soon  as  erected  and  the  sumeyoi's  became  very  careless  about  the  per- 
manency or  accuracy  of  their  work.  Many  of  the  corner  and  half-mile  posts 
were  simply  small  branches  of  trees  stuck  in  the  ground  with  blazed  surfaces 
to  receive  the  survey  markings,  or,  a  boulder  set  up  on  end  upon  which  the 
symbolic  characters  were  lightly  chiseled. 

Nearly  or  quite  all  of  the  lands  embraced  in  this  early  sui-vej'  had  been 
selected  from  the  field  notes  as  a  part  of  the  five  hundred  thousand  acre  grant 
given  the  state  by  congress  "to  aid  in  internal  improvements,"  but  had  not 
been  approved  as  such  by  the  secretary  of  the  interior.  The  only  way  to  get  a 
recognition  of  right  to  these  lands  was  to  file  an  application  describing  the 
tract,  with  the  secretary  of  the  state  land  board,  who  charged  a  fee  of  three  dol- 
lars ($3.00)  for  filing  the  same.  Then  whenever  the  state  selections  were  ap- 
proved the  party  making  the  first  application  could  paj-  one-third  of  the  pur- 


464  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

chase  price,  which  was  then  two  dollars  per  acre,  give  his  notes  for  the  remaining 
two-thirds  in  two  equal  paj'^ments,  and  receive  from  the  state  a  certificate  of 
purchase.  This  certificate  was  transferable.  Any  person,  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States  and  over  eighteen  years  of  age,  could,  if  a  settler  on  such  lands 
purchase  three  hundred  and  twenty  acres;  in  case  the  applicant  was  not  a  set- 
tler, the  amount  of  land  that  could  be  bought  by  one  person  was  limited  to  one 
hundred  and  sixty  acres. 

In  the  case  of  the  writer,  who  took  up  one  of  the  first  places  in  the  countrj^ 
he  filed  his  application  accompanied  b3'  the  affidavits  of  two  disinterested  parties, 
that  the  applicant  was  an  actual  settler  on  the  lands  applied  for,  and  was  cul- 
tivating and  improving  the  same  as  a  home. 

In  spite  of  this  precaution  six  other  filings  were  allowed  on  top  of  his  first 
filing,  the  clerk  of  the  board  realizing  a  goodly  sum  for  permitting  them  to 
be  recorded.  This  rendered  it  necessary  to  hire  lawyers  to  defend  his  title  in 
order  to  secure  the  certificate. 

It  was  also  found  that  nearly  all  the  most  valuable  meadow  lands,  and  many 
large  tracts  of  higher  sage  bi'ush  lands  that  protruded  into  the  marsh  lands 
had  been  returned  by  the  early  survey,  as  a  part  of  Little  Klamath  Lake,  and 
as  many  settlers  were  coming  into  the  country  who  •wished  to  locate  homes  on 
these  lands,  the  writer  drew  up  a  petition  to  the  secretary  of  the  interior  re- 
citing the  conditions  and  asking  for  a  resurvey  of  these  lands  in  order  that  all 
lands  susceptible  of  settlement  might  be  thrown  open  for  entry.  This  petition 
was  signed  by  nearlj'  all  the  settlers  in  the  country,  and  resulted  in  a  resurvey 
being  made  during  the  fall  of  1872,  in  spite  of  a  large  number  of  exparte- 
aifi  davits  sent  to  prevent  the  resurvey.  These  affidavits, — some  five  or  six  in 
number  were  largely  made  by  people  living  in  California  and  engaged  in  stock- 
raising,  who  were  deeply  interested  in  preventing  the  settlement  of  the  ranges. 

To  give  an  idea  of  the  motive  for  these  strenuous  efforts  to  balk  the  settle- 
ment and  development  of  the  country,  it  is  necessarj^  to  go  back  to  the  legisla- 
tive session  of  the  Oregon  legislature  of  1870,  when  a  bill  drawn  up  by  Quiney 
A.  Brooks,  to  select  and  dispose  of  swamp  lands  in  the  State  of  Oregon,  to 
which  the  state  was  entitled  by  Act  of  March  12,  1860.  This  bill  was  cleverly 
di'awn  to  enable  a  few  individuals  to  secure  control  of  all  lands  that  could  by 
any  means  be  construed  as  swamp  or  overflowed,  within  the  state,  as  it  pro- 
vided among  other  things  that  the  lands  could  be  selected  in  advance  of  the 
U.  S.  surveys,  by  describing  them  bj'^  natural  boundaries,  such  as  mountain 
ranges,  lakes,  rivers,  etc.  There  was  no  limit  to  the  amount  any  one  could  file 
on,  and  the  price  was  one  dollar  per  acre,  20  cents  to  be  paid  after  the  accept- 
ance of  the  state  selection  by  the  seeretar,y  of  the  interior,  and  the  remaining 
80  cents  to  be  paid  when  the  lands  were  finally  reclaimed. 

As  Q.  A.  Brooks  had  visited  this  country  the  previous  year  and  had  been 
largely  instrumental  in  securing  additional  filings  upon  state  lands  both  oc- 
cupied and  unoccupied,  and  had  plots  and  lists  made  out  for  nearly  all  the 
swamp  and  overflowed  lands  in  the  Klamath  Basin,  and  his  applications  ready 
for  immediate  filing  before  the  bill  passed,  it  should  have  aroused  a  suspicion 
in  the  minds  of  sensible  legislators  that  siich  a  measure  was  contrary  to  the  best 
interests  of  the  state,  but  no  serious  opposition  was  encountered  and  the  in- 
famous bill  passed. 


LADY   OSCHARWAUSIIA 
The  Last  of  the  Rogue  River  Indians   in   tlie   Valley 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  465 

When  the  settlonient  of  the  lauds  returned  by  thi;  resurvey  of  1872  wms 
commenced  a  land  office  was  established  at  Linkville  in  the  fall  of  1873,  and 
some  fourteen  or  fifteen  settlers  were  located  under  the  preemption  and  home- 
stead laws.  Jndson  Small  and  George  Conn,  were  appointed  as  register  and 
receiver  of  the  Linkville  Land  Office,  but  Mr.  Small  soon  resigned,  as  office 
work  was  too  confining  for  him ;  and  through  the  efforts  of  Senators  John  H. 
Mitchell.  Samuel  B.  Cranston,  a  brother-in-law  of  Quiney  A.  Brooks,  and  him- 
self a  large  filer  on  swamp  land  under  the  Brooks  application,  was  put  in  as 
register. 

To  further  insure  the  defeat  of  the  settlers,  the  state  board  appointed  Q.  A. 
Brooks  as  attorney  to  conduct  the  prosecutions  instigated  against  every  set- 
tler upon  the  resurveyed  lands.  As  a  result,  all  contests  with  settlers  on  land 
claimed  as  swamp  were  prosecuted  before  an  interested  register  who  ruled  out 
all  evidence  favorable  to  settlers,  and  delayed  and  postponed  trials  to  annoy 
tlicm  during  the  season  of  haying  or  semi-annual  rodeo.  The  settlers  joined 
forces  in  the  employment  of  B.  Z.  Dowell  of  Jacksonville  to  take  their  cases  to 
a  final  settlement ;  but  such  a  policy  of  delay  and  postponement  was  followed 
that  it  was  evident  that  the  policy  of  the  State  was  not  to  secure  an  early  set- 
tlement of  the  questions  at  issue,  as  it  was  to  wear  out  the  settlers  by  pro- 
tracted litigation. 

When  the  laud  office  was  moved  to  Lakeview,  soon  after  that  place  became  the 
county  seat,  the  register  was  removed  for  cause,  and  the  newly  appointed  reg- 
ister was  of  a  diii'erent  character  and  not  an  interested  party.;  yet  the  long 
distance  (120  miles)  that  contestants  were  obliged  to  go  to  attend  land  con- 
tests was  one  of  the  causes  that  contributed  to  the  discouragement  of  the  set- 
tlers, most  of  whom  either  sold  out  their  claims  for  a  small  pittance,  or  aban- 
doned them  entirely.  During  these  land  troubles,  which  lasted  over  ten  j-ears. 
several  different  agents  of  the  government  and  state  came  out  to  investigate 
and  report  as  to  the  actual  conditions  and  character  of  the  land  in  controversy, 
etc.,  but  in  nearly  every  instance  these  men  were  taken  in  charge  by  the  land 
speculators  before  their  investigation  commenced  or  soon  after,  and  the  reports 
they  made  were  so  evidently  colored  by  the  prosecution,  and  so  one-sided  that 
they  were  of  no  value  in  the  real  determination  of  facts. 

In  1880.  when  the  state  elections  were  approaching,  the  deposed  register, 
formerly  a  rabid  Republican,  renounced  his  allegiance  to  the  Republican  party, 
iind  made  a  canvass  of  the  county  to  secure  support  for  the  Democratic  nomi- 
nation for  representative  for  the  County  of  Lake,  which  was  then  Democratic 
by  140  majority.  The  Republican  County  Convention  which  followed  that  of 
the  Democrats  in  Lakeview,  nominated  the  writer  as  their  candidate  for  the 
Legislature  to  oppose  Mr.  Cranston  for  the  reason  that  he  had  been  active  in  the 
fight  to  secure  the  land  for  settlers,  and  in  the  hope  that  he  might,  if  elected,  get 
some  remedial  legislation  for  the  home  seekers,  and  cause  a  suspension  of  the 
state's  policy  of  fighting  the  settlers  on  its  frontiers. 

No  notice  reached  the  writer  of  any  intent  to  place  him  in  nominatiou.  ni)r 
did  he  learn  that  he  was  on  the  ticket  for  near  a  week  after  his  opponent  had 
taken  up  an  active  campaign,  so  that  in  response  to  a  challenge  to  joint  debate 
he  only  had  sufficient  notice  to  meet  him  at  two  points  as  he  was  closing  his 
canvass,  namely  Bonanza  and  Linkville. 

Vol.  1—3  0 


466  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

The  election  was  a  landslide  in  favor  of  the  Republican  candidate  who  re- 
versed the  140  majority,  receiving  nearly  half  the  entire  Democratic  vote  of  the 
county. 

The  legislative  experience  of  the  writer  shows  the  methods  employed  by 
the  land  sharks  to  defeat  the  will  of  the  people,  and  by  suppressing  all  at- 
tempts at  exposing  their  methods,  secure  a  continuance  of  their  exploiting  the 
public  domain  for  individual  profit. 

In  writing  this  chapter,  it  is  ^ath  no  desire  to  laud  or  extol  the  efforts  of  the 
writer,  but  to  give  a  true  statement  of  facts,  that  will  show  the  conspiracy  of 
the  land  and  moneyed  interests  to  gain  and  retain  control  of  the  public  lands 
for  private  gain. 

Having  had  no  experience  in  public  life,  being  unfamiliar  with  parliamentary 
usage,  the  writer  experienced  something  similar  to  the  feelings  of  the  boj^  who 
first  starts  to  school,  scarce  knowing  how,  or  what  to  do  to  fill  his  responsible 
position  with  honor  or  credit.  He  realized  that  much  was  expected  of  him, 
that  it  was  essential  that  something  be  done  to  aid  the  settler  and  thwart  the 
efforts  being  made  to  turn  the  lands  of  his  county  over  to  speculators. 

In  his  dilemma,  he  was  advised  by  B.  J.  Pengra,  of  Springfield  (an  uncle  by 
marriage)  to  lay  his  case  before  Judge  J.  M.  Thompson,  who  was  one  of  the 
representatives  from  Lane  County  and  had  been  Speaker  of  the  House  two 
years  before,  when  he  made  an  enviable  record  as  an  honest  efficient  representa- 
tive and  a  fearless  exponent  of  right,  and  an  untiring  foe  of  wrong,  whether 
of  Republican  or  Democratic  parentage.  ^ 

As  presiding  officer  of  the  Democratic  House  of  the  former  session,  he  had 
incurred  the  enmity  of  the  major  portion  of  his  party  by  probing  and  exposing 
some  of  the  dishonesty  of  a  former  Democratic  administration.  At  the  last  elec- 
tion he  was  elected  by  Republican  votes,  his  own  party  being  desirous  to  punish 
him  by  defeating  him  in  the  election. 

Having  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Judge  Thompson,  from  my  uncle,  I  soon 
interested  him  in  the  cause  of  the  settlers,  and  he  promised  to  aid  me  in  pre- 
paring a  suitable  measure,  to  be  put  before  the  house,  for  their  protection. 

The  preliminary  skirmishing  to  organize  the  house  developed  the  fact  that 
the  main  issue  engaging  the  members  was  that  of  the  building  of  a  state  insane 
asylum  at  Salem. 

The  insane  of  the  state  had  heretofore  been  cared  for  in  a  private  asylum 
in  East  Portland,  by  Dr.  Hawthorne,  and  had  occasioned  much  comment  and 
strife  with  regard  to  its  management,  and  as  its  maintenance  cost  many  thou- 
sands of  dollars,  and  was  very  profitable  to  the  communitj^  where  situated  both 
from  a  pecuniary  and  political  standpoint,  the  people  of  Portland  and  its 
nearby  counties  desired  to  retain  it,  while  the  southern,  or  as  called,  the  "Cow 
Counties"  wished  to  place  the  care  and  control  of  the  insane  in  a  state  build- 
ing and  at  the  state  capital.  Hence  the  legislative  organization  was  more  of  a 
sectional  than  political  strife,  the  Democrats  being  hopelessly  outnumbered. 

Candidates  for  Speaker  were  J.  P.  Schooling  and  Z.  F.  Moody  of  AVaseo,  and 
the  latter  having  the  united  support  of  the  "Cow  Counties"  and  Eastern 
Oregon,  was  victorious  and  the  asylum  fight  was  on. 

Believing  that  the  Speaker  was  fully  informed  as  to  why  I  was  sent  there  to 
represent  a  Democratic  county,  as  well  as  being  ignorant  of  the  custom  of 


.lUK   MKV.W 
As  a  HuntiT — as  U.  S.  Marshal — as  a  Farmer  in  Old  Age 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  467 

nHliiestiug  or  demandiug  places  on  the  various  committees,  I  paid  no  attention 
to  seeking  the  committee  work  that  would  most  aid  me  in  my  work,  and  it  was 
not  until  the  Speaker  announced  to  the  house  the  membership  of  his  standing 
i-oiuiuittees,  and  I  heard  my  name  as  one  of  the  committee  on  engrossed  bills, 
when  I  fully  desired,  and  expected  to  be  placed  on  the  committee  on  public 
lands,  that  I  realized  there  was  some  unseen  and  potent  influence  being  exerted 
to  block  any  effort  I  might  make  to  remodel  or  amend  existing  land  laws.  I  im- 
mediately sought  I\Ir.  IMoody  and  asked  him  why  he  had  not  given  me  a  place  on 
the  Public  Land  Committee.  He  replied  that  I  had  made  no  effort  to  secure 
such  a  place,  but  that  he  had  placed  me  on  the  "Conimiitee  on  engrossed  bills  at 
the  earnest  solicitation  of  the  Southern  delegation.''  meaning  the  delegation 
from  Jackson  county. 

This  opened  my  eyes,  as  Thos.  Smith  of  Jackson,  was  one  of  the  committee 
on  Public  Lands,  while  the  other  two  were  Lee  Lauglilin,  a  cabinet  maker  of 
Yamhill  county  and  Dr.  F.  A.  Meyer  of  Multnomah.  I  asked  Mr.  Moody  if 
he  could  not  change  my  committee  assignment  so  that  I  could  be  placed  on  the 
Public  Lands  Committee,  and  he  replied  that  it  would  be  impossible  unless  some 
one  of  that  committee  declined  to  serve  on  that  committee.  That  it  was  not 
compulsory  upon  any  member  to  serve  upon  any  committee  if  he  did  not  so 
desire.  I  then  asked  him  if  he  would  give  me  a  place  on  the  committee  on 
Public  Lands  if  one  of  the  present  committee  declined  to  sei-ve,  and  he  said 
"In  the  event  that  I  declined  to  serve  on  the  committee  on  engrossed  bills  and 
one  of  the  members  of  the  public  lands  committee  declined  to  serve  on  that  com- 
mittee, he  would  make  the  change."  I  immediately  sought  Dr.  Meyer  and  after 
explaining  the  situation  and  my  reasons  for  desiring  a  place  on  the  Public 
Lands  Committee  he  replied,  "Sure!  I  shust  as  soon  pe  on  von  commidde  as 
an-nudder;  I  knows  nodding  apout  bublic  lauds  anyhow;"  so  it  was  arranged 
that  in  the  morning  session  he  would  follow  my  lead  in  declining  to  serve  on 
the  committee  to  which  he  had  been  assigned,  thus  leaving  the  way  clear  for  the 
Speaker  to  make  the  change.  This  part  of  the  program  was  carried  out  so 
far  as  the  part  Dr.  Meyer  and  myself  were  to  play,  we  both  publicly  declining 
to  serve  on  the  committees  to  which  we  had  first  been  assigned.  The  Speaker, 
while  accepting  our  declination  made  no  reappointment  at  the  time.  At  noon 
the  state  printer,  Mr.  Odell,  came  to  me  and  asked  if  the  change  had  been  made, 
as  he  desired  to  have  the  Rules  of  the  House  with  the  standing  committees  in 
print  for  distribution  on  the  following  day.  I  told  him  what  had  been  done 
and  what  the  Speaker  had  promised  to  do,  and  that  he  would  doubtless  give  him 
the  new  committee  assignments  before  going  to  press.  The  afternoon  session 
passed  without  any  action  by  the  Speaker  on  the  committee  change.  The  next 
morning  the  pages  began  the  distribution  of  the  printed  rules  and  standing: 
committees  which  were  as  first  announced.  I  immediately  wrote  a  note  to  the 
Speaker,  asking  him  why  he  had  failed  to  keep  his  promise  to  me,  as  evidenced 
by  the  printed  rules,  this  I  sent  to  his  desk  by  one  of  the  pages,  and  remarked 
that  his  face  colored  while  reading  it.  Immediately  after  perusing  my  note, 
the  Speaker  arose  and  announced  that  Dr.  IMeyer  was  appointed  to  serve  on 
the  committee  on  Engrossed  Bills,  and  that  0.  A.  Stearns  was  assigned  to  fill 
the  vacancy  on  the  Public  Lands  Committee. 

Thus  it  was  that  while  my  name  appears  on  but  one  eonnnittee  report,  nor 


468  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

is  knowu  of  record  as  being  on  such  committee,  while  as  a  matter  of  fact,  every 
"Majority"  i-eport  of  the  Public  Lands  Committee  was  written  by  myself,  the 
chairman  of  the  committee,  Mr.  Laugiilin,  acquiescing  in  my  position  in  every 
case. 

Thinking  it  best  to  work  in  connection  with  the  committee  on  Public  Lands 
of  the  Senate  in  a  remodeling  or  reconstruction  of  the  land  laws  of  the  state, 
I  first  introduced  a  joint,  or  concurrent  resolution  No.  7,  "Resolved  by  the 
House,  the  Senate  concurring  -.  That  a  committee  of  six,  four  from  the  House 
and  two  from  the  Senate,  be  appointed  to  revise  the  laws  relative  to  the  sale 
and  reclamation  of  swamp  and  overflowed  lands  within  the  State  of  Oregon.'" 

This  was  adopted  bj'  the  House,  was  sent  to  the  Senate  A^-here,  upon  motion 
of  Col.  Knight,  it  was  tabled. 

Soon  after  the  organization  of  the  House,  during  the  first  day  of  the  intro- 
duction of  bills,  Thos.  Smith,  of  Jackson,  introduced  House  Bill  No.  33,  en- 
titled "A  bill  for  an  act  providing  for  a  reduction  of  the  state  indebtedness 
by  payment  of  a  portion  thereof  from  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  swamp  and 
overflowed  lands,  and  for  more  speedy  sales  of  such  lands  and  earlier  paj^-- 
ments  therefor." 

This  bill  was  in  the  interest  of  the  swamp  land  grabber,  entirely  and  was  to 
facilitate  the  driving  out  of  the  settlers,  and  the  converting  of  the  swamp  land 
tvarrants,  which  had  been  authorized  by  a  previous  legislature,  into  a  legal 
tender  in  payment  for  such  lands.  Mr.  Smith  (I  afterward  learned)  held  sev- 
eral thousand  dollars  of  these  warrants  that  he  had  taken  as  part  payment  for 
his  farm,  hence  his  earnest  desire  to  make  them  a  legal  tender,  and  marketable. 

After  its  second  reading  on  Sept.  24th,  this  bill  No.  33  was  referred  to  the 
committee  of  Public  Lands,  of  which  Mr.  Smith  M'as  a  member. 

Still  believing  that  the  better  way  to  secure  legal  legislative  redress  for  the 
settlers  was  through  joint  action  of  both  houses,  I  sought  the  aid  of  the  joint 
senator  for  Lake  and  Wasco  counties.  Col.  N.  H.  Gates,  and  laying  the  case 
before  him  asked  his  aid  in  taking  up  from  the  Senate  table  my  concurrent 
resolutions,  and  that  he  meet  with  the  Public  Lands  Committee  of  the  House 
to  agree  on  suitable  legislative  action.  To  my  surprise,  he  expressed  hostility 
to  my  attempt  to  aid  the  settlers,  saying  "that  he  was  sent  there  (to  the  Senate) 
to  look  after  the  interests  of  his  clients  (he  was,  I  learned  later,  attorney  for  the 
notorious  swamp  angel.  Hon.  Owens),  and  by  G — d  he  was  going  to  do  it." 
I  then  sought  Senator  Cochran  of  Lane  county  and  he  promised  to  try  and  get 
a  reconsideration  of  the  motion  b.v  which  my  concurrent  resolutions  was  tabled. 
However,  nothing  came  of  the  attempt,  and  it  was  evident  that  the  only  remedy 
lay  in  introducing  a  bill  to  alter  or  amend  existing  land  laws  to  cure  their 
defects.  With  the  aid  and  advice  of  Judge  Thompson,  a  bill  was  drawn  up 
covering  the  entire  state  land  law  to  meet  and  incorporate  all  the  various  re- 
form measiares  demanded,  which  was  quite  a  task  embracing  as  it  did  various 
acts  and  amendments  to  acts  for  the  previous  twelve  or  more  years  legislation. 

The  bill  had  to  be  re-written  several  times,  as  various  State  officers,  learn- 
ing of  its  existence,  had  various  suggestions  and  amendments  to  offer,  until, 
when  finally  ready  to  introduce,  the  session  was  so  far  advanced  that  its  chance 
of  passing  the  House  and  reaching  the  Senate  in  the  regular  order  of  precedence 
would  almost  certainly  defeat  its  passage,  so,  with  the  consent  of  the  chairman 


THE  DALLES  IIKTIIODIST   .\1IS(>]0N— 1838 


1==.^-.=^. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  im 

(if  the  coininittee,  Mr.  Laushliii,  it  was  decided  to  report  it  as  a  substitute  for 
House  Bill  No.  33,  as  introdueed  by  Thos.  Sinitli,  and  so  advance  it  on  the 
calendar. 

The  bill  as  finally  prepared  and  introduced  by  the  rhainnan,  Mr.  J^aughliii, 
.pii  Oct.  12th,  was  quite  lengthy,  embracing  33  sections.  Its  main  features  weri', 
the  classification  of  all  state  lands,  the  requiring  of  proof  of  settlement  and 
ffood  faith,  as  well  as  priority  of  settlement.  That  where  swamp  lands  were 
settled  upon  by  parties  in  good  faith,  that  their  claims  should  prevail  over  that 
of  other  applicants.  It  also  limited  the  amount  that  any  one  person  could  pur- 
chase to  320  acres  for  actual  settlers  or  160  for  non-settlers  of  swamp  lands  of 
first  class  and  of  the  500,000-acre  grant;  it  required  public  easements  on  all 
section  lines  where  the  same  entered  navigable  streams  or  lakes  to  prevent  the 
monopoly  of  water  for  range  purposes.  It  also  provided  for  settling  con- 
troversies over  state  lands,  for  loaning  the  school  funds  derived  from  sale  of 
state  lands,  and  the  early  converting  of  the  swamp  lands  that  were  worthless 
in  the  present  condition,  into  a  revenue  producing  asset  for  the  state. 

On  the  motion  to  place  this  bill  on  the  calendar  as  a  substitute  for  House 
Bill  No.  33,  Mr.  Smith  made  a  violent  attack  on  the  wa-iter,  impugning  his  mo- 
tives, and  declaring  him  unqualified  to  vote  as  a  member  of  the  committee,  on 
account  of  personal  interest  in  the  matter  before  the  House.  (He  evidently  foi-- 
got  the  thousands  of  dollars  in  swamp  land  certificates  he  was  holding  for  re- 
demption that  his  bill  would  secure,  or  else  was  aware  that  the  writer  did  not 
know  of  the  fact.) 

As  Mr.  Smith  had  circulated  numerous  letters  among  the  members  of  both 
houses,  from  Q.  A.  Brooks,  A.  Langell  and  others  warning  them  that  I  was  a 
dangerous  agitator,  and  that  I  was  trying  to  cheat  the  state  out  of  some  of  its 
swamp  lands;  and  as  some  of  the  membei-s  had  brought  the  letters  to  me  to 
read,  I  saw  an  opportunity  to  bring  the  matter  up  on  a  question  of  personal 
privilege.  I  therefore  demanded  that  a  certain  letter  from  Q.  A.  Brooks  to 
Mr.  Smith,  making  these  charges  against  me,  be  produced  and  read  by  the  clerk 
of  the  House ;  after  which  I  arose  to  give  a  history  of  the  land  troubles  in  Lake 
County,  that  had  forced  the  people  to  unite  in  sending  a  man  to  the  Legislature 
to  secure  redress.  I  also  gave  a  brief  history  of  Q.  A.  Brooks'  career,  his  au- 
thorship of  the  swamp  land  law,  and  his  activities  as  a  state  attorney  in 
prosecuting  claims  against  the  settlers  in  which  he  was  the  real  party  in  inter- 
est, and  his  co-partner,  and  brother-in-law  was  sitting  in  the  capacity  of  judge. 
As  the  House  had  enacted  a  five  minute  rule,  to  cut  off  windy  debatei-s,  a  few- 
days  previous,  I  had  scarcely  commenced  my  "explanation"  when  Mr.  Smith 
called  me  to  time.  I  innnediately  sat  down,  but  the  interest  and  curiosity  of 
the  members  were  aroused,  and  the  motion  that  I  be  given  all  the  time  needed 
was  quickly  passed,  and  the  House  got  from  me  a  pretty  full,  if  brief,  account 
of  the  working  of  the  state  land  laws,  and  the  need  for  remedial  legislation. 

After  my  talk  was  over,  the  motion  to  adopt  the  majority  report  of  the  com- 
mittee (my  bill)  was  put,  and  after  various  and  many  attempts  to  substitute, 
re-submit,  lay  on  table,  and  otherwise  defeat,  was  carried  by  the  vote  of  43  to 
9, — eight  members  being  absent.  Representative  Geo.  E.  Chamberlain  (now 
senator)  supported  Mr.  Smith  and  voted  against  every  measure  in  aid  of  set- 
tlers, or  to  curb  the  land  grabbing  then  prevalent. 


470  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

The  bill  was  then  read  by  title  the  first  and  second  times  and  referred  to 
committee  on  Public  Lands  with  leave  to  report  at  any  time,  and  150  copies 
were  ordered  printed. 

On  October  16th  the  committee,  by  majority  vote,  reported  back  the  bill ;  it 
was  passed  by  the  vote  of  37  to  13,  with  10  absent  members,  not  voting.  Among 
the  nays,  was  the  Speaker,  as  well  as  Chamberlain. 

The  bill  then  went  to  the  Senate  where  no  action  on  it  was  ever  taken, 
there  being  so  strong  an  opposition  to  it  that  it  was  impossible  to  bring  it  before 
that  body. 

Another  measure,  "Senate  Bill  No.  38,"  introduced  Sept.  16th  by  Senator 
Wright,  "was  read  the  first  time  and  passed  to  second  reading  without  a  ques- 
tion." It  was  cleverly  entitled  "An  act  to  regulate  the  price  of  state  lands 
belonging  to  a  class  known  as  a  part  of  the  five  hundred  thousand  acre  grant 
and  to  repeal  certain  sections,  etc. ' ' 

The  first  section  read  as  follows:  "That  all  the  lands  of  this  state  which 
belong  to  the  class  of  state  lands  known  as  a  part  of  the  500,000-acre  grant 
shall  hereafter  be  sold  as  now  provided  by  law  in  quantities  to  suit  purclmser, 
not  exceeding  sis  hundred  and  forty  acres,  to  any  one  person  at  a  price  not 
less  than  one  dollar  per  acre. ' ' 

Any  person  making  application  should  make  affidavit  before  notary  or 
clerk,  that  they  were  18  years  of  age,  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  or  had  de- 
clared intention  of  becoming  such,  and  ivas  also  a  citizen  of  this  state. 

The  bill  carried  an  emergency  clause,  that  it  should  take  effect  immediately 
from  and  after  its  signature  by  the  governor. 

On  Sept.  28th  Senate  Bill  No.  38,  was  read  a  second  time  by  title  and  on  mo- 
tion of  Senator  "Wright,  its  author  or  sponsor,  it  was  referred  to  the  committee 
on  Public  Lands  who  reported  it  back  on  the  8th  of  October  with  the  recom- 
mendation that  that  part,  requiring  the  applicants  to  purchase  be  required  to 
swear  they  were  citizens  of  the  state,  be  stricken  out,  which  was  done,  and  the 
bill  was  finally  passed  on  the  16th  of  October,  by  a  vote  of  23  to  6. 

It  was  sent  to  the  House  and  referred  to  the  Public  Lands  Committee  and  a 
strong  lobby  pressure  brought  to  bear  to  have  it  immediately  reported  to  the 
House  for  passage. 

As  it  bore  on  its  face  the  stamp  of  a  big  graft,  or  steal,  of  the  remaining 
state  lands  of  that  class,  which  were  largely  located  in  my  county,  and  which 
embraced  some  of  the  best  farming  and  timber  lands  in  the  state,  I  was  vitally 
interested  in  seeing  that  its  objectionable  features  become  well  known  to  the 
members  before  voting. 

The  bill  was  passed  to  second  reading  by  title  the  day  of  its  reception  by  a 
vote  of  42  to  13. 

On  October  22nd  the  House  by  a  vote  of  43  to  6  suspended  the  rules  to  enable 
our  committee  to  report  on  the  bill,  as  extreme  pressure  had  been  brought  to 
bear  on  members,  and  even  threats  had  been  made  by  notorious  lobbyists  that  if 
our  committee  did  not  immediately  report  the  Senate  Bill  38  favorably,  they  the 
Senate  would  defeat  mj-  Bill  138  which  was  then  in  the  hands  of  the  Public 
Lands  Committee  of  the  Senate. 

But  we  had  our  report  ready ;  that  is  Mr.  Laughlin  and  myself ;  it  here  fol- 
lows as  I  wrote  it : 


J 


K(I1;T    SllKlilDAX     AND    c^KX.    .luKI,     I'AL.MER 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  471 

"House  of  Representatives. 

"Salem,  Oregon,  Oct.  20,  1886. 

"Mr.  Speaker:  Your  committee  ou  Public  Lands,  to  wlioiii  was  referred 
Senate  Bill  No.  38,  beg  leave  to  report  the  same  back  for  the  consideration  of 
the  House,  with  the  recommendation  that  it  do  not  pass.  Our  reason.s  for  such 
recommendations  are  these:  1st.  The  House,  on  the  16th  of  the  month,  passed 
House  Bill  No.  138,  which  provides  for  reducing  the  price  of  state  lands  to  one 
dollar  per  acre  as  minimum  price,  the  same  price  as  provided  in  this  bill;  but 
while  the  former  increased  the  quantity  that  could  be  purchased  to  640  acres 
for  a  settler,  it  provided  that  only  320  acres  could  be  purchased  by  a  person 
not  a  settler.  The  Senate  bill  provides  that  any  citizen  of  the  United  States 
may  purchase  640  acres,  therein  conflicting  with  the  former,  and  rendering  it 
very  easy  for  speculators  to  secure  all  the  remaining  state  lauds  that  may  be 
desirable,  and  inviting  just  such  a  state  of  affairs  as  the  House  bill  was  intended 
to  prevent. 

"2ud.  This  Senate  bill  provides  for  no  affidavit  of  the  applicant,  as  has 
been  usual  in  former  laws,  to  the  effect  that  the  applicant  is  the  first  or  only 
claimant  to  such  lands  and  knows  of  no  pi-ior  settler  claiming  any  portion  of 
said  lands,  and  would  be  likely  to  result  in  hardship  to  the  poorer  class  of 
settlers.  All  of  which  is  respectfully  submitted, 

"Lee   Laughlin, 
"0.  A.  Stearns, 

"Committee." 

Mr.  Smith  filed  a  minority  report,  stating  that  the  majority  of  the  lands 
embraced  were  practically  worthless,  and  cited  the  fact  that  there  was  but 
7,225.82  acres  of  such  lands  sold  during  the  past  two  years.  That  with  price 
reduced  to  one  dollar  per  acre,  and  amount  of  acres  allowed  a  purchaser  in- 
creased the  lands  would  be  speedily  sold.  Of  this  there  was  little  doubt,  as 
everything  indicated  a  similar  scooj)  as  that  following  the  passage  of  the  no- 
torious swamp  land  bill  of  1870,  when  nearly  all  the  swamp,  and  overflowed 
lands  in  the  state  of  Oregon  were  filed  ou  before  the  governor's  signature  to  the 
law  became  cold. 

After  much  debate,  in  which  John  Minto  called  attention  to  the  significance 
of  the  striking  out  of  the  clause  in  the  original  bill  requiring  the  would  be  pur- 
chaser to  assei-t  citizenship  in  the  state  of  Oregon,  an  endeavor  to  substitute 
the  minority  report,  the  report  of  the  majority  of  the  committee  was  adopted 
by  a  vote  of  37  to  17. 

On  Oct.  23rd  the  bill  was  taken  up,  as  on  the  calendar,  read  a  third  time, 
and  after  a  brief  but  stormy  debate  was  defeated  by  a  vote  of  26  to  26,  the 
speaker  easting  his  vote  for  the  affirmative. 

Early  in  the  session,  the  state  treasurer,  Earheard,  had  endeavored  to  have 
removed  that  clause  in  the  old  swamp  land  law  requiring  "proof  of  reclama- 
tion" before  issuing  title  to  swamp  lands.  This  effort,  I  had  defeated,  as  it 
would  cut  off  all  attempts  to  adjust  the  claims  of  settlers,  as  to  the  swampy 
character  of  the  land  and  prevent  them  from  establishing  the  justice  of  their 
claims  that  the  lands  were  not  swamp  within  the  meaning  of  the  grant  to  the 
state. 


472  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

Just  prior  to  fiual  adjournmeut  in  tlie  hour  of  greatest  confusion  preceding 
the  final  fall  of  the  Speaker's  gavel,  a  page  handed  me  a  note  from  a  friend  in 
the  Senate  notifying  me  that  the  secretary  had  sent  to  that  body  a  resolution, 
which  had  passed  it  without  ceremony,  a  resolution  that  I  had  better  watch 
out  for.    The  resolution  was  as  follows : 

No.  14 

"Resolved  by  the  Senate,  the  House  concurring:  That  it  is  the  opinion 
of  this  body,  that  where  appropriations  (should  be  applications)  for  the 
purchase  of  swamp  lands  have  been  regularly  made,  and  the  terms  and  con- 
ditions of  the  law  under  which  they  werd  made  have  been  fully  complied  with, 
excepting  the  complete  reclamation  of  the  lands  applied  for,  and  where  such 
lands  have  been  duly  listed  to  the  state  by  the  secretary  of  the  interior,  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  hoard  of  commissioners  for  the  sale  of  school  and  university 
lands,  etc.,  to  sell  and  convej^  to  such  applicants  such  lands,  without  requiring 
proof  of  reclamation." 

I  saw  a  page  from  the  Senate  hand  the  message  to  the  speaker,  who  in 
turn  passed  it  to  the  clerk,  who,  amid  the  din  read  the  resolution.  As  soon  as 
he  had  finished  I  was  on  my  feet  and  obtaining  recognition  from  the  speaker, 
briefly  remarked  that  "this  resolution  is  quite  remarkable,  in  that  it  declares 
it  to  be  a  duty  of  the  state  land  board  to  ignore  and  disregard  a  plain  law  of  the 
state  that  they  had  sworn  to  obey,"  and  I  therefore  moved  to  lay  the  resolu- 
tion on  the  table.  It  was  with  difficulty  that  the  House  could  be  called  to  order 
for  a  vote,  but  when  the  tellers  announced  that  my  motion  had  carried,  I  felt 
that  I  had  scored  at  least  twice  against  the  combined  land  grabbers  and  grafters 
of  the  state,  though  they  had  defeated  my  eiforts  in  remedial  legislation. 

Although  defeated  in  my  attempts  to  secure  the  required  changes  in  the 
land  laws  of  the  state,  my  failure  was  through  no  neglect  nor  lack  of  work  and 
effort  on  my  part,  as  my  activities  were  confined  to  the  lower  branch  of  the 
legislature,  and  in  that  branch  I  had  prevailed  against  the  combined  interests 
and  opposition  of  the  entire  swamp-land  ring,  a  strong  lobby,  and  the  active 
hostility  of  a  majority  of  the  state  administration.  I  had  for  the  first  time 
made  the  case  of  the  settler  versus  the  land  grabber  so  plain  that  thereafter  it 
Avould  be  difficult  to  hoodwink  a  legislature  into  passing  laws  for  the  privileged 
few.  Penumbra  Kelley,  a  conscientious  and  able  member  of  the  House  from 
Multnomah  county,  remarked  in  explanation  of  his  vote  on  House  Bill  No.  138, 
after  my  arraignment  of  Q.  A.  Brooks  and  the  swamp-land  ring,  "that  he  had 
served  two  previous  terms  as  representative  from  his  county  and  had  read  and 
heard  much  pertaining  to  swamp  land,  but  he  had  never  before  understood  the 
iniquities  of  the  law  as  he  now  understood  it,  and  could  now  cast  his  vote  in 
full  confidence,  and  understandingly. " 

Many  others  expressed  to  me  similar  views,  and  the  fact  that  from  that  time 
on,  the  aggressiveness  of  the  land  thieves  was  on  the  wane,  indicates  to  me  that 
my  labors  were  not  fruitless. 

In  prohibitive  legislation,  my  defeat  of  the  Senate  bill  alone  saved  to  the 
common  school  funds  of  the  state  several  hundred  thousands  of  dollars,  in  the 


L 


W.   T.   NEWBY 
Founder    of    McMinnville 


ROBERT  KINNEV 
Pioneer  miller  and  exporter  of  flour  from  Yamliill  and  Marion  Counties 


THE  CENTKXNIAL  HISTOKY   OK  OKHCiON  \7?, 

sail'  of  its  lauds,  besides  giving  to  tliousautls  of  actual  settlers  lioiues  that  otliei-- 
wise  could  not  have  been  had  exeopt  by  paying  tribute  to  speculators. 

My  activity  as  a  legislator  was  sufficient  reason  lor  jireventivc  measures 
being  taken  by  the  political  bosses,  who  wci'c  nearly  al\va>s  cillicr  interested 
in  the  exploiting  of  the  public  domain  or  allied  for  aggressive  and  protective 
purposes  with  these  corporate  interests,  to  insure  my  retirement  to  private 
life.  Thus,  while  having  shown  my  ability  and  loyalty  to  the  people  who 
elected  me,  and  being-  doubly  qualified  from  my  experience  of  one  term,  and 
acquaintance  with  hold-over  members,  I  was  the  logical  candidate  to  succeed 
myself  for  the  ensuing  term,  the  bosses  thought,  or  pretended  to  think,  the 
eastern  part  of  the  county  should  be  represented  at  the  next  term  and  delib- 
erately ignoring  my  claim  to  succeed  myself,  the  nomination  was  given  to  a 
Republican  living  near  Lakeview.  As  the  new  candidate,  though  an  able  and 
very  popular  young  man,  had  no  record  of  active  sympathy  with  the  settlers 
to  appeal  to  them,  in  the  ensuing  election  he  received  simply  his  party  vote 
and  was  defeated. 

Politicians  of  both  j^arties  were  ever  afterwards  shy  of  an.y  attempt  to  inject 
local  issues  into  their  party  nominations  as  such  alwaj's  resulted  in  disnipting 
party  lines  and  in  many  instances  defeating  well  arranged  political  progi-ams. 

The  knowledge  gained  in  my  legislative  career  of  the  chicanery  and  cor- 
ruption of  party  politics  resulted  in  weakening  my  faith  in  party  politics,  and 
rendered  me  skeptical  of  the  fulsome  promises  and  pledges  of  office-seekers. 

Though  casting  my  first  vote  for  Abraham  Lincoln  when  he  ran  for  president 
for  the  second  time,  and  voting  for  every  succeeding  Republican  candidate  for 
the  presidency  since  that  time,  excepting  when  the  silver  issue  was  the  i^ara- 
mount  issue,  when  ]\IcKinley  and  Bry-an  were  the  opposing  candidates,  when  I 
voted  for  the  latter.  I  have  permanently  allied  myself  with  the  Prohibition 
party  as  representing  the  fight  against  the  greatest  social,  moral  and  political 
enemy  of  civilization,  the  liquor  interests,  which  undoubtedly  have  for  years 
past,  and  now,  control  both  the  old  political  parties  and  corrupt  and  demoralize 
every  branch  of  national  and  numicipal  government. 

An  issue,  world  wide,  nation  wide,  and  state  wide  that  does  more  to  debauch 
and  demoralize  the  human  race  than  any  other  cause,  and  which,  unless  checked, 
and  divorced  from  governmental  protection  and  exploitation  is  destined  to  over- 
throw the  best  government  on  earth  and  make  a  by-word  and  reproach  of  Lin- 
coln's definition  of  ours  as  a  "government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for 
the  people."  O.A.Stearns. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

COiN'yEUVATlOX   OF  NATURAL  RESOURCES THE  STATE  OF  NATURE — GAME  AND  FISH — • 

PRAIRIE   AND   TIMBER — FREE   LANDS   AND   LAND   GRANTS — SOIL   AND   IRRIGATION — 
FORESTS   WEALTH,    MOUNTAINS  AND   WATER  POWERS 

The  tirst  American  settlers  iu  Oregon  found  the  country  in  a  state  of  nature, 
uumarred  and  unimproved  by  the  hand  of  man.  The  Indians  had  subsisted  here 
for  a  long  and  unknown  period  on  what  they  found  ready  to  take  with  their  hands, 
or  such  crude  contrivances  of  primitive  art  as  would  catch  fish  or  ensnare  wild 
animals.  Their  development  had  not  passed  beyond  the  age  of  stone  mortars 
with  stone  pestles  for  gi-iuding  mills  of  the  seed  crops  of  native  plants  and  nuts, 
and  the  simple  bow  and  arrow  of  all  ages  of  barbarism  to  bring  down  the  wild 
goose  or  the  unsuspecting  deer.  Nature  furnished  not  only  generous  supplies 
of  food,  but  also  the  skins  and  rich  furs  of  wild  animals  for  clothing.  What 
more  could  be  desired?  Nothing!  And  the  Indian  had  no  incentive  or  reason 
to  disturb  this  order  of  Providence.  And  nature  was  not  disturbed,  and  every- 
where herds  of  elk,  deer  and  antelope,  the  aristocrats  of  the  wild  game  world, 
roved  and  pastured  practically  undisturbed  by  the  desires  of  men.  There  were 
here  throughout  Oregon  when  the  first  Christian  missionaiy  came,  an  abundance 
of  wild  game,  elk,  deer,  antelope,  bears,  wolves,  foxes,  beaver,  marten,  otter,  wild 
goats,  wild  sheep,  muskrats,  wild  geese,  swans,  cranes,  ducks,  pheasants,  grouse, 
quail  and  smaller  birds  and  animals.  And  upon  this  natural  provision  of  nature, 
and  such  edible  plants,  roots  and  seeds  as  naturally  grew  here  without  cultiva- 
tion, a  population  of  wild  Indians,  variouslj'  estimated  at  from  twenty  to  forty 
thousand  lived  in  all  the  comfort  their  imperfect  development  could  comprehend. 
Various  estimates  have  been  made  of  this  native  population ;  but  the  one  given 
by  Lieut.  Wilkes,  prepared  with  care  to  find  out  the  facts,  is  probably  as  near 
correct  as  any  ever  made.  It  is  copied  here  not  onlj'  to  show  the  number  of 
the  Indians,  but  also  to  give  the  names  and  divisions  of  them  in  the  year  1842, 
as  near  as  could  be  gathered  by  a  competent  and  painstaking  public  official : 

Vancouver  and  W^ashington  Islands   5,000 

From  the  parallel  of  50°  to  54°  40'  north 2,000 

Penn"s  Cove,  Whidbey 's  Island,  and  mainland  opposite  (Seat- 
chat)    650 

Hood's  Canal  (S(iuamish  and  Toando) 500 

At  and  about  Okanogan    300 

About  Colville,  Spokane,  etc 450 

Willamette   Falls   and   Valley    275 

Pillar  Rock,  Oak  Point,  and  Col.  R 300 

475 


476  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  ; 

Clallams : 

Port   Discovery    150 

Port  Townseucl    70 

New   Dungeness    200 

Walla  Walla,  including-  the  Nez  Perces,  Snakes,  etc 1,100 

Killamouks,  north  of  Umpqua 400 

Closset  tribe ;  Capt.  Flattery,  Quiniault,  to  Pt.  Grenville  ....  1,250 
Blackfeet  tribes  that  make   excursions   west  of  the   Rocky 

Mountains     1,000 

Birch  Bay    300 

Fraser"s  River   500 

Chenooks    209 

Clatsops    220 

At   the   Cascades    150            i 

At   The  Dalles    250 

Yakima  River    100 

Shutes  River  (Des  Chutes)   125 

Umpquas 400 

Rogue  Rivers  500 

Klamets.      (Klamaths)     300 

Shastys.     (Shastas)    500 

Kalapuyas.     (Calapooias) 600 

Nisqually      200 

Chikeeles  and  Puget  Sound  700 

Cowlitz  Klackatacs.     (Klickitats)     350 

Port  Orford  Suquamish    150 

Total     19,204 

As  the  Indians  in  accounting  for  their  people  counted  only  the  adult  males 
and  took  no  aecomit  of  women  and  children  it  is  probable  that  the  real  popula- 
tion of  all  the  Indian  tribes  depending  ^^pon  nature  for  support  was  about  fifty 
thousand.  This  would  give  to  the  Indian  estimate  one  woman  to  each  man,  and 
ten  thousand  children.  Indian  families  were  never  large  anywhere  in  North 
America.  The  stress  of  barbaric  life,  which  placed  upon  the  mother  not  only 
the  burden  of  child-bearing,  but  also  the  greater  labor  in  providing  food  and 
clothing  and  moving  from  i^lace  to  place,  powerfully  repressed  any  increase  of 
population. 

But  as  it  is,  it  is  easy  to  see  what  a  bountiful  provision  nature  had  made  for 
the  support  of  man.  And  if  unaided  nature  could  support  the  improvidence  of 
fifty  thousand  Indians,  what  might  have  been  done  with  the  same  resources  if 
they  had  been  thoughtfully  conserved  and  supplemented  with  the  cultivation 
of  the  soil  and  the  protecting  care  of  common  sense?  The  white  man  reversed 
all  the  ideas  and  traditions  of  the  red  man  in  the  conservation  of  natural  re- 
sources. He  turned  his  battery  of  fire-arms  on  the  half  tame  elk,  deer,  and  ante- 
lope, and  soon  well  nigh  exterminated  the  natural  stock.  He  hooked,  netted, 
seined,  trapped  by  every  conceivable  device,  the  fish,  and  sold  the  pack  to  foreign 
lands.  He  fired  the  grassy  prairies  and  drove  away  the  pheasants,  grouse  and 
quail ;  he  fired  the  timber  and  drove  out  other  game  and  destroyed  their  coverts 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  177 

;iud  proleotiug  sliultor.  lie  poisoned  the  geese  and  ducks  for  pulling  up  his 
wheat,  and  killed  the  remaining  ducks  for  sport.  The  Indian  rebelled  and  fought 
to  the  last  ditch  for  the  beauties  of  nature  and  his  natural  food — and  when  ex- 
hausted, the  white  man  put  him  on  a  Reservation  and  supported  him  in  idle- 
ness with  national  taxes.  Wliicli  was  the  wiser  of  the  two  races?  Later  on  in 
tliis  chapter  it  will  be  seen  liow  the  white  man  suffered  for  his  folly  and  sur- 
rendered to  his  enemy. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  this  Oregon  country  in  its  state  of  nature  l)e- 
fore  the  white  man  came  here  was  the  richest  region  in  animal  life  on  the  face  of 
tiie  globe :  as  it  was  also  the  richest  iu  animal  life  millions  of  years  ago  before  the 
i)veseut  mountain  ranges  were  elevated  from  the  dej^ths  of  the  ocean.  In  tlie 
lour  years  from  1834  to  1838,  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  shipped  from  Old  Ore- 
gon over  ten  million  pelts  of  fur  bearing  animals  to  China  and  England.  These 
pelts  were  made  of  the  skins  of  beaver,  marten,  otter,  silver,  red  and  black  foxes, 
niuskrats,  bears,  ermine,  fisher,  lynx,  mink,  wolf,  badger,  swan,  and  raccoon,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  elk,  deer,  antelope,  wild  goats,  and  sheep  that  were  not  killed  for 
their  hides. 

In  the  matter  of  tish  anil  game  the  improvidence  of  Oregouians  has  not  been 
greater  than  that  of  the  people  of  other  States;  although  blessed  with  a  greater 
abundance  of  tlie.se  most  attractive  and  valuable  natural  sources  of  food.  The 
art  and  business  of  preserving  the  salmon  in  all  its  delicacy  for  food  was  per- 
fected on  the  Columbia  j'iver  in  Oregon.  The  first  salmon  canning  establishment 
was  Viuilt  on  the  Columbia  in  the  year  1866,  by  Hume  Brothers ;  and  from  that  be- 
ginning the  business  rapidly  spread  along  the  river  and  up  and  down  the  Pacific 
coast  as  far  north  as  the  Aleutian  Islands  in  Alaska.  And  from  that  little  can- 
nery packing  about  four  thousand  cases  of  fish,  the  first  year,  and  not  knowing 
whether  it  could  be  sold  or  not,  the  business  has  so  grown  in  importance  and 
wealth  producing  power  that  the  Columbia  river  shipped  772,668  cases  in  the 
year  1911,  more  than  five  million  dollars  worth  of  fish,  and  could  have  sold  twice 
that  amount.  This  is  an  increase  of  33  per  cent  on  the  output  of  canned  salmon 
in  1910,  and  nearly  double  the  amount  of  1909. 

The  value  of  the  various  kinds  of  salmon  shipped  from  the  Columbia  river 
during  that  period  was :  772,688  cases  canned  salmon,  at  $5.50  a  case,  $4,249,674 ; 
85,000  tierces  of  pickled  salmon  at  $100  a  tierce,  $850,000 ;  800,000  pounds  of 
frozen  fish,  at  11  cents  a  pound,  $55,000;  total  value,  $5,154,674.  In  the  same 
period  there  were  6,575,377  bushels  of  wheat  shipped  out  of  the  Columbia  river 
district  to  various  ports,  and  this  at  80  cents  a  bushel  had  a  value  of  $5,260,301.- 
60,  or  only  about  $100,000  more  than  the  value  of  the  salmon. 

It  seems  incomprehensible  that  the  greed  and  selfishness  of  mankind,  even 
those  most  benefited,  should  have  been  so  short-sighted  as  to  well  nigh  destroy 
such  a  great  source  of  natural  wealth — the  harvesting  of  five  million  dollars 
worth  of  a  fish  crop  without  owning  the  river  that  produced  it,  or  spending  a 
dollar  for  planting  or  cultivation.  Yet  such  was  the  haste  and  greed  for  fish  that 
the  cannerymen  came  near  exterminating  the  salmon,  fifteen  years  ago ;  and  to 
protect  the  great  industry  the  towns  people,  country  farmers,  and  professional 
iiuni — persons  not  directly  profited  by  the  salmon  fisheries — were  compelled  to 
unite  in  demanding  of  the  legislature  legislation  to  protect  the  salmon,  and  to 
keep  up  the  supply  of  fish  with  artificial  hatcheries.     In  this  way  the  great  sal- 


478  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

mon  fisher}'  interests  and  a  great  natural  source  of  food  for  mankind,  lias  been 
saved  from  destruction. 

In  the  same  way  and  by  the  same  unrestrained  greed  and  short-sighted  poUcy 
of  handling  the  sturgeon  fishing  interest,  that  most  excellent  food  fish,  has  been 
well  nigh  utterly  exhausted  in  the  Columbia  river.  So  plentiful  was  this  fish 
twenty-five  years  ago,  and  so  easily  taken  that  thousands  of  big  sturgeon,  some 
of  them  ten  feet  in  length,  were  thro-ivn  away  at  the  Portland  markets  for  want  of 
a  consumer.  Now  the  fish  are  very  scarce  and  retail  in  the  Portland  markets  at 
twenty  cents  per  pound.  The  same  fate  has  overtaken  the  prince  of  all  game 
fish — -the  mountain  trout.  ' '  Game  hogs ' '  of  every  kind  and  degree  have  pursued 
these  fish  to  the  head  waters  of  all  the  streams ;  so  that  now  there  is  nothing  be- 
tween the  trout  and  total  extinction  except  the  orderly  and  scientific  control  of 
the  trout  streams  by  Government  protection  and  State  hatcheries.  That  ti'out 
hatcheries  can  be  made  as  successful  as  Salmon  hatcheries  is  amplj'  proved  by 
the  experience  of  Mr.  John  Teal,  of  Dallas,  in  Polk  County,  who  owns  and  oper- 
ates a  private  hatchery  of  his  own  and  where  he  has  produced  and  raised  over 
100,000  fine  trout  from  ponds  fed  by  spring  water. 

So  far  in  the  history  of  conservation  of  fish  and  game,  the  legislature  has  con- 
sidered only  the  demands  of  the  sportsmen  and  the  salmon  packers.  Fish  and 
game  as  an  article  and  resource  for  food  for  the  people  generally  has  had  very 
little  consideration.  The  most  reliable  and  instructive  document  on  this  sub- 
ject is  the  report  of  Mr.  Geqrge  H.  Cecil,  supervisor  of  forest  reserves  in  the 
State;  and  from  which  is  taken  for  a  record  of  this  interest  at  this  date  the  fol- 
lowing extracts: 

' '  In  the  Cascade  national  forest,  it  is  estimated  that  30  elk  are  in  the  forests  at 
this  time;  in  the  Malheur  national  forest,  elk,  which  were  formerly  exceedingly 
plentiful,  have  dwindled  to  20,  which  range  the  high  mountain  areas  ia  the  north- 
eastern portion  of  the  forest.  Hunters  kill  on  an  average  of  about  five  annually, 
but  the  larger  number  are  destroj'ed  by  predatory  animals. 

' '  In  the  Oregon  national  forest  there  are  about  75  elk,  and  the  law  is  rigidly 
enforced  here  and  one  is  rarely  taken  by  hunters.  In  the  Siskiyou  national  forest 
there  are  three  bands  of  elk.  These  are  in  the  northwestern  part  of  the  forest 
and  include  about  50  head.  Since  1908,  none  have  been  killed  by  hunters,  and  it 
is  believed  they  are  increasing  in  number. 

"There  are  probably  200  elk  in  the  Siuslaw,  and  during  the  past  few  years 
they  have  seemed  neither  to  increase,  nor  decrease,  predatory  animals  killing  off 
the  per  cent  of  the  increase.  During  the  past  few  years  a  few  elk  have  been  com- 
ing into  the  Umatilla  forest,  and  as  many  as  13  have  been  counted  there.  About 
125  elk  are  believed  to  range  in  the  Whitman  national  forest,  where  the  hunters 
kill  annually  an  average  of  25,  while  predatory  animals  kill  a  large  number  and 
as  a  result  there  is  a  decrease.  About  15  elk  range  in  the  Crater  Lake  Forests  near 
the  headwaters  of  the  middle  fork  of  the  Rogue  river,  but  the  gray  wolf  destroys 
nearly  all  of  the  young  and  when  there  are  severe  winters  pull  down  the  weak 
ones. 

"There  are  100,000  of  the  various  species  of  deer  in  the  Oregon  forests.  Of 
these  the  hunters  kill  about  14,000  annually,  while  predatory  animals  kill  prac- 
tically 20,000  in  the  same  length  of  time.     Panthers  and  wolves  kill  a  large  per 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON   .  47'J 

cent  of  the  fawns,  and  even  the  old  deer  are  killed  in  this  way  when  they  are 
weakened  by  the  severe  storms  of  the  winter. 

"Antelope  are  less  nnnierous  than  in  years  past,  there  being  probably  about 
4,800  in  the  high  desert.  These  are  not  killed  so  extensively  as  deer  and,  being 
fleet  of  foot,  are  not  destroyed  by  predatory  animals  so  readily,  save  when  young. 

' '  Of  game  birds,  grouse  are  being  killed  in  great  numbers  by  hunters  and  birds 
of  prey,  while  supervisors  in  the  forests  report  that  pheasants  gather  in  great 
numbers  in  the  low  mountains  along  the  river  bottoms  and  small  streams.  Their 
number  seems  to  remain  about  stationary.  Quail  are  found  in  all  the  forests, 
but  in  smaller  numbers  than  grouse  or  pheasants,  while  sage  hens  and  prairie 
chickens  are  scarce.  The  forests,  it  is  estimated,  contain  about  40  per  cent  of  the 
productive  capacity  of  game  birds." 

Water  fowl  are  either  decreasing  in  numbers,  or  remaining  stationary,  the  re- 
ports stating : 

"Ducks,  geese  and  swans  are  found  in  the  lakes,  sloughs  and  streams  of  the  Des 
Chutes  drainage  system  area.  A  large  number  of  them  nest  there  each  year. 
Very  few  are  found  in  the  streams  west  of  the  summit  of  the  Cascades,  as  there 
are  no  suitable  feeding  grounds.  The  geese  and  swans  do  not  seem  to  be  decreas- 
ing, though  there  is  no  apparent  increase.  The  present  condition  seems  to  be 
about  85  per  cent  of  the  productive  capacity.  Ducks  seem  to  be  decreasing  at 
the  rate  of  about  2%  annually,  due  mainly  to  hunters. 

"The  Crater  forest  seems  to  be  an  exceedingly  attractive  region  for  the  hunter 
and  fisher,  including  campers  and  huckleberry  pickers. 

"It  is  estimated  that  there  are  not  less  than  5,000  persons  who  pass  from  one 
to  six  weeks  time  each  season  hunting  and  fishing  in  this  forest.  This  seemingly 
large  number  is  due  mainly  to  the  fact  that  the  Crater  Lake  national  park  is  sur- 
rounded almost  entirely  by  the  Crater  national  forest,  and  of  course  a  great  num- 
ber of  the  persons  who  visit  the  lake,  do  more  or  less  hunting  and  fishing  on 
their  way  to  the  Forest,  both  going  and  coming. 

' '  In  the  national  forest  area  of  Oregon  there  are  estimated  to  be  about  24,000 
coyotes,  12,000  wildcats,  7,500  bears,  300  cougars  (panthers),  and  900  wolves, 
which  annually  kill  stock  valued  at  $120,000,  besides  being  responsible  for  the 
destruction  of  numerous  game  animals  and  birds.  A  cougar  will  destroy,  during 
its  lifetime,  on  an  average,  1,800  to  2,500  deer,  while  the  grey  wolf  is  hardly  less 
destructive.  In  a  snowfall  of  only  two  and  a  half  feet,  a  wolf  will  easily 
pull  down  any  deer  within  a  short  time.  The  cougar  kills  cattle  and  horses, 
while  the  coj'otes  chief  prey  is  sheep. 

■ '  Other  species,  such  as  red  and  grey  foxes,  lynx  and  skunks,  are  very  destruc- 
tive  to  game  birds." 

The  notice  of  the  fish  and  game  resources  of  the  State  in  the  year  1912  would 
be  imperfect  and  insufficient  if  the  work  of  President  Taft  and  State.  Game 
Warden  Wm.  L.  Finley  was  not  duly  recognized.  On  May  6,  1911,  the  Presi- 
dent issued  an  order  making  Clear  Lake  reservoir  and  site,  and  contiguous  lands 
owned  by  the  government,  in  Klamath  county,  a  bird  reserve.  This  will  make 
about  25,000  acres  in  one  body  a  reserve  for  wild  birds  where  no  pot  hunter  will 
be  allowed  to  get  in  his  deadly  work.  This  is  a  natural  breeding  place  for  water 
fowl.  Following  up  this  policy  with  an  intelligent  and  energetic  administration 
of  his  office.  IMr.  Finley  has  secured  all  the  State  lands  about  the  State  capital. 


480  ,  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

amounting  to  over  3,000  acres,  to  be  reserved  for  wild  birds,  and  to  these  lands 
public-spirited  farmers  OMTiing  adjoining  lands  have  agreed  to  add  their  own 
holdings,  make  a  bird  reserve  in  the  heart  of  the  Willamette  Valley  of  over  20,- 
000  acres.  The  public-spirited  conduct  of  these  farmers  is  in  sharp  contrast 
with  the  citj^  gentry  who  go  out  to  kill  everything  in  sight  no  matter  if  it  is  the 
last  bird  in  the  State. 

LAND  AND  LAND  GRANTS 

No  country  that  the  white  man  ever  settled  upon  in  America  was  ever  better 
suited  to  his  uses  and  ambition  than  the  Willamette,  Umpqua,  and  Rogue  River 
valleys.  Here  were  great  areas  of  rich  prairie  land  cleared  ready  for  the  plow. 
All  the  man  had  to  do  was  to  inclose  his  field  with  a  fence,  plow  and  sow  the  seed, 
and  an  abundant  harvest  was  his  reward.  Here  close  at  hand  was  timber  for 
fencing,  house-building  and  firewood.  Unlike  the  prairies  of  Illinois,  and  the 
sage  plains  of  Eastern  Oregon  and  Idaho,  the  farmer  did  not  waste  half  his  time 
in  hauling  firewood  and  fencing  for  fifty  miles  before  he  could  begin  a  farm  or 
erect  a  house.  And  more  than  this,  the  mild  climate  united  with  the  soil  and  the 
groves  of  timber  to  bid  him  welcome,  and  comfortably  live  in  a  tent  or  under  a 
wagon  sheet  until  with  his  own  hands  he  had  erected  his  house.  And  if  anything 
more  could  be  added  to  complete  the  Oregon  Paradise,  a  beneficent  government 
dealt  it  out  with  a  liberal  hand.  Everj^  husband  and  wife  were  given  a  mile 
square  of  rich  land  as  a  free  gift.  All  they  had  to  do  was  to  stake  it  out  and 
record  their  claim.  And  government  encouragement  did  not  even  stop  there ; 
but  grants  of  land  were  liberally  given  in  aid  for  public  free  schools  for  all  chil- 
dren, university  education  for  the  favored  few,  and  agricultural  college  educa- 
tion for  all  that  could  reach  that  fountain  head  of  scientific  knowledge.  The 
government  did  not  stop  even  there ;  but  after  providing  free  farms,  free  homes, 
free  schools,  free  agricultural  knowledge,  instruction  and  experimentation,  and 
a  free  university  the  same  fountain  head  of  free  gifts  added  to  all  these,  grants  of 
land  to  build  wagon  roads  and  railroads — and  hard  cash  for  steamboat  canals, 
deepening  of  river  channels  and  improvement  of  harbors  for  shipping  and  en- 
trance thereto  from  the  ocean.  In  addition  to  the  lands  donated  to  settlers  for 
homesteads,  the  United  States  government  has  given  to  the  people  of  Oregon, 
lands  as  follows : 

Wagon  road  construction  land  grants,  2,453,932.32  acres,  including  Oregon 
Central  and  Military  road,  845,536  acres;  Corvallis  and  Yaquina  Bay  road, 
90,240  acres;  Willamette  Valley  and  Cascade  Mountain  wagon  road,  861,504 
acres;  Dalles  Military  road,  556,832.67  acres;  Coos  Bay  and  wagon  road,  99,- 
819.35  acres. 

Railroad  construction  land  grants,  4,812,298.64  acres;  including  Northern 
Pacific,  602,684.94  acres;  Oregon  and  California  3,821,901.80  acres;  Oregon  Cen- 
tral, 387,711.90  acres. 

Swamp  lands,  351,743.16  acres;  Public  buildiugs,  6,400  acres;  Agricultural 
College,  90,000  acres ;  State  University,  46,000  acres. 

Grants  of  land  for  common  schools,  3,404,302  acres;  for  charitable  educa- 
tional penal  and  reformatory  institutions,  136,080  acres;  for  internal  improve- 
ments 500,000  acres,  making  a  grand  total  of  eleven  million,  six  Irandred  and 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  481 

fifty-eight  thousand,  three  hundred  and  fifty-five  acres,  making  a  tract  of  land 
exceeding  in  area  that  of  several  of  the  Atlantic  coast  States. 

With  the  exception  of  the  railroad  grants  these  land  grants  applied  to  and 
benefited  all  parts  of  the  State.  And  in  addition  to  these  grants  46,000  acres 
were  granted  with  salt  springs  which  through  neglect  of  State  officials  were 
never  selected  and  were  lost  to  the  State.  The  grant  of  lands  in  aid  of  the  con- 
struction of  a  railroad  from  Astoria  to  Forest  Grove,  was  also  lost  because  no 
company  or  capitalist  would  undertake  the  construction  of  the  road  for  the 
grant — 1,280,000  acres,  and  now  worth  for  the  timber  thereon  over  a  hundred 
million  dollars.  .In  every  practicable  way  the  U.  S.  government  has  fostered 
and  favored  the  development  of  Oregon;  as  if  desirous  to  raalce  amends  for  the 
great  mistake  of  giving  up  a  part  of  Old  Oregon  to  England. 

IRRIGATION 

In  Eastern  Oregon  there  are  vast  areas  of  arid  land  which  on  aeount  of  its 
aridity  can  produce  but  little  of  grain  or  forage  for  man  or  beast,  yet  with  water 
produces  enormous  crops.  To  remedy  this  neglect  of  nature  a  paternal  govern- 
ment has  taken  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  public  lands  and  used  he  same  in 
carrying  water  for  many  miles  in  irrigation  canals  and  delivering  the  same  at 
actual  cost  to  the  farmer  with  which  to  irrigate  his  crops,  and  make  the  desert 
blossom  as  the  rose.  Irrigation  water  will  thus  in  Eastern  and  Central  Oregon 
soon  be  supporting  in  comfort  a  large  population  of  prosperous  farmers  with 
consequent  towns,  cities,  schools  and  all  the  refinements  of  civilization. 

On  this  vital  subject  of  irrigation,  the  State  Engineer,  John  H.  Lewis,  has 
furnished  the  following  important  data. 

"The  Deschutes  river  at  Benham  Palls,  has  a  mean  annual  discharge  of 
1,220,000  acre  feet  of  water,  as  shown  by  eight  years  records.  The  minimum 
year  furnished  1,070,000  acre  feet,  so  that  it  is  safe  to  say  that  there  is  avail- 
able at  this  point  for  irrigation  purposes,  one  million  acre  feet  of  water.  This 
will  irrigate  333,000  acres  of  land,  or  a  strip  one  mile  wide,  and  520  miles  long. 

' '  The  regular  flow  will  ultimately  irrigate  about  120,000  acres  between  Bend 
and  the  Crooked  River.  Every  drop  of  the  remaining  water  can  and  should  be 
stored  for  irrigation  purposes  through  the  construction  of  a  60-foot  dam  at  Ben- 
ham  Falls.  This  could  be  released  in  the  summer  and  diverted  near  the  Cline 
Falls  for  the  irrigation  of  110,000  acres  on  Agency  Plain,  for  the  irrigation  of 
60,000  acres  in  the  Crooked  River  bottom  near  Prineville,  and  by  diverting  above 
Bend,  irrigate  50,000  acres  in  the  Benham  Falls  segregation  just  south  of  Prine- 
ville. 

"The  entire  flow  at  the  head  of  the  river  can  be  used  for  the  irrigation  of  about 
60,000  acres  of  land  above  the  Benham  Falls  reservoir  without  affecting  these 
figures,  as  the  seepage  will  all  be  collected  in  the  reservoir  below. ' ' 

This  is  only  one  river  in  Eastern  Oregon.  To  the  work  of  the  Des  Chutes 
must  be  added  that  of  the  Klamath.  Sprague  Williamson,  Chewaucan,  Crooked, 
John  Day,  White  River,  Silvies,  ]\Ialheur,  Owyhee,  Powder,  Snake,  Burnt,  Grand 
Ronde,  and  Umatilla  rivers.  And  when  all  their  waters  are  utilized  for  irriga- 
tion and  power  Eastern  Oregon  will  become  one  of  the  most  populous  and  pros- 
perous regions  of  the  United  States. 

Vol.  1—3  1 


482  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

THE  GREAT  FORESTS 

For  full  fifty  years  the  Pioneer  settlers  and  their  descendants  considered  the 
vast  forests  of  the  Coast,  Cascade  and  Blue  Mountain  ranges  of  mountain  as 
fit  only  for  wild  beasts,  and  an  incumbrance  if  not  a  nuisance  to  the  country. 
They  all  declared  with  one  voice  that  Oregon  had  the  finest  timber  and  the 
greatest  forests  in  the  world.  These  great  trees  would  be  valuable  sometime,  but 
not  in  our  day.  They  were  not  the  first  people  in  America  that  failed  to  appre- 
ciate the  value  of  the  timbered  regions.  The  author  of  this  book  remembers  with 
lively  appreciation  the  toil  and  troubles  of  getting  rid  of  the  giiand  oak,  hickory, 
walnut,  poplar,  and  sugar  maple  trees  in  IMorgan  County,  Ohio,  sixty-two  years 
ago,  in  order  to  raise  corn,  wheat  and  tobacco  on  the  land.  If  those  trees,  grand 
and  old,  were  standing  there  todaj'-,  they  would  bring  more  money  as  lumber 
than  all  the  profit  of  agriculture  on  the  same  land  for  the  last  forty  years.  It 
was  not  until  about  the  year  1890  that  the  Oregon  forests  seemed  to  have  any 
value  for  timber.  Warned  by  the  steady  exhaustion  of  the  fine  forests  in  Michi- 
gan and  Pennsylvania,  a  few  venturesome  lumbermen  came  to  Oregon  and  made 
purchases  on  the  finest  tracts  of  timber  for  eight  to  ten  dollars  an  acre ;  or 
about  twenty  cents  per  M  for  the  timber  on  the  stump.  Even  at  that  price, 
in  the  subsequent  financial  panic  many  of  the  same  lands  were  resold  for  less 
money  or  taken  for  debts.  Investment  in  Oregon  timber  lands  began  to  revive 
in  the  year  1901,  and  many  fine  tracts  were  bought  from  homesteaders  for  five 
dollars  an  acre,  and  millions  of  acres  were  taken  up  under  the  stone  and  timber 
Act  of  Congress  by  the  paying  of  the  locators,  falsely  swearing  they  wanted 
the  lands  for  their  own  use,  when  in  fact  they  were  but  the  ' '  dummy ' '  entrymen 
of  eastern  speculators  grabbing  timber  lands  wherever  they  could  be  found,  and 
in  many  cases  importing  their  perjured  locators  from  the  Eastern  States  by  the 
car  load.  By  these  corrupt  land  theft  schemes,  many  men  became  millionaires 
in  a  few  years,  and  a  few  of  them  being  indicted  and  prosecuted  for  their  crimes 
in  such  infamous  work  were  sent  to  the  penitentiary. 

The  amount  of  commercial  timber  in  the  State  of  Oregon  has  been  estimated 
by  competent  men  to  be  at  this  date  (1912),  not  less  than  five  hundred  billion 
board  measure  square  feet.  Timber  is  now  selling  on  the  stump  in  accessible 
regions  of  the  state  at  one  dollar  and  a  half  per  thousand  feet.  That  would  make 
a  value  of  seven  hundred  and  fifty  million  dollars  for  the  standing  timber  of 
Oregon.  If  to  this  stumpage  cost  is  added  the  expense  of  logging,  delivery  to 
the  mill,  and  manufacture  into  rough  lumber  (estimated  at  $8.00  per  thousand), 
there  is  the  enormous  and  incomprehensible  sum  of  four  thousand  million  dollars 
added  to  the  stumpage  value  of  the  timber,  or  a  grand  total  of  wealth  in  rough 
lumber  of  four  thousand  seven  hundred  and  fifty  million  dollars,  which  Oregon 
timber  can  develop  in  this  State.  Here,  then,  is  seen  the  great  necessity  for  con- 
servation of  timber.  This  is  the  greatest  item  of  perishable  wealth  in  the  State. 
The  prevention  of  forest  fires  by  well-trained  forest  rangers  becomes  a  duty  in 
which  all  are  interested.  The  preservation  of  forest  reserves  is  second  to  no 
other  interest  in  the  State. 

But  who  owns  all  this  vast  wealth  of  timber  ?  Not  the  state  of  Oregon.  The 
state  had  millions  of  dollars  in  that  possible  treasury ;  but  through  incompetent 
or  corrupt  public  officials  all  the  school  lands  in  the  timbered  regions  were  sold 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  483 

out  to  timber  land  speculators  for  a  tithe  ot"  their  real  value.  After  President 
Taft  came  into  office  he  ordered  an  investigation  of  the  timber  land  ownership. 
Comniissiouer  Herbert  Knox  Sinilh  niaile  the  investigation  and  reported  as 
follows : 

( 1 )  The  concentration  of  a  dominating  control  of  our  standing  timber  in  a 
comparatively  few  enormous  holdings,  steadily  tending  toward  a  central  control 
of  the  lumber  industry. 

(2)  Vast  speculative  purchase  and  holding  of  timber  land  far  in  advance 
of  any  use  thereof. 

(3)  An  enormous  increase  in  the  value  of  this  diminishing  natural  resource 
with  great  profits  to  its  owners.  This  value,  by  the  vei*y  nature  of  standing? 
timber,  the  holder  neither  created  nor  substantially  enhances. 

The  former  Chief  of  Field  Service  of  the  General  Land  Office,  H.  H.  Schwartz, 
stated  officially  (1909)  that  the  Timber  and  Stone  Act — has  resulted  in  the  sale 
of  over  12,000,000  acres  of  valuable  timber  lands,  of  which  fully  10,000,000 
acres  were  transferred  to  corporate  or  individual  timber-land  investors  by  the 
entrymen.  These  lands  brought  to  the  people  or  general  government  a  gross 
sum  of  $30,000,000.  At  the  date  of  sale  they  were  reasonably  worth  $240,000,000. 
The  profit  of  over  .$200,000,000  went  not  to  the  needy  settler  engaged  in  sub- 
duing the  wilderness,  but  to  the  wealthy  investors.  Not  over  a  fractional  part 
of  one  per  cent  of  the  timber  purchased  from  the  United  States  under  this  Act 
is  held,  consumed,  or  even  cut  by  the  men  and  women  who  made  the  entries. 

Five-elevenths  of  the  country's  privately  owned  standing  timber  is  in  the 
Pacific  Northwest  (California,  Oregon,  Washington,  Idaho  and  Montana)  1,103 
billion  feet.  One-half  of  this  is  now  owned  by  thirty-seven  holders ;  many  of  these 
are  closely  connected.  This  section  now  furnishes  only  one-sixth  of  the  annual  cut. 
Thus  its  timber  is  being  largely  held  for  the  future,  and  the  large  owners  there 
will  then  be  the  dominating  influence  in  the  industry  and  make  the  people 
pay  any  price  they  demand. 

THE    MOUNTAINS 

The  grand  mountains  of  Oregon,  long  considered  serious  and  immovable  ob- 
structions to  travel,  trade  and  eonunerce,  and  at  best  only  a  scenic  attraction  to  the 
landscape,  are  now  seen  in  the  light  of  electrical  science  to  be  one  of  the  greatest 
sources  of  life,  liealth,  wealth  and  comfort  which  the  State  possesses.  The  grand 
scheme  of  nature  which  lifts  the  water  from  the  bosom  of  the  Pacific  ocean  in 
vapor,  and  by  the  ever-recurring  landward  breezes  carries  it  over  the  State  of 
Oregon  to  its  highest  mountains,  where  the  rarified  and  frigid  atmosphere  con- 
denses the  same  into  the  snow  falls  on  the  mountain  tops,  aud  rains  at  lower 
levels,  is  now  seen  to  be  the  conservation  of  light,  heat  and  power  beyond  the 
ken  of  men  to  measure  in  dollars  or  millions  thereof.  Diminutive,  weak,  short- 
sighted man  may  flatter  himself  that  he  has  been  able  to  squeeze  a  few  millions 
out  of  his  fellow  man  by  this  monopoly  of  the  gifts  of  nature  intended  for  the 
common  use  of  mankind.  But  what  are  his  millions,  his  monopoly,  or  his  life, 
compared  with  the  stupendous  forces  and  working  of  physical  laws  which  build 
up  continents,  carry  oceans  to  the  mountain  tops  automatically  to  generate  all 
the  life  of  our  globe  for  inexpressible  ages  of  time.    The  scientist  mav  set  down 


484  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

in  horse  power  what  he  can  see  in  the  power  of  a  mountain  stream  for  a  year; 
hut  he  cannot  measure  the  life  of  the  stream  any  more  than  he  can  determine  • 
the  age  of  our  planet.  Man  is  wholly  powerless  to  increase  or  decrease  the  fun- 
damental unit-  of  a  water  power.  He  may  for  a  brief  period  store  up  in  a  reser- 
voir the  surplus  energj^  of  a  stream,  and  thus  increase  its  value ;  but  he  cannot 
increase  the  original  unit  of  value.  For  these  considerations  this  greatest  gift 
of  nature  made  known  to  mankind  by  unravelling  the  secrets  of  electricity, 
should  be  absolutely  controlled  and  administered  by  the  State  for  the  use  of  all 
its  citizens  on  exactly  the  same  terms  and  conditions.  And  thus  it  is  seen  that 
the  mountains  and  forest  reserves,  holding  and  conserving  the  great  blanket  of 
snow  deposited  by  winter  storms,  to  be  turned  loose  by  the  summer's  heat  and 
sent  down  the  streams  to  turn  innumerable  turbine  wheels  generating  electric 
power,  are  one  of  the  State 's  greatest  sources  of  wealth  and  power.  And  by  the 
.just  and  wise  use  of  this  power,  furnished  and  administered  under  the  control  of 
State  laws,  every  household  and  citizen  of  Oregon  should  soon  have  all  the  light, 
heat  and  power  needed  to  make  the  house  comfortable  throughout  the  year,  and 
do  the  work  of  plowing  the  fields,  harvesting  the  grain  and  hauling  to  market  the 
crops  at  one-fourth  of  the  expense  for  such  necessaries  by  present  methods. 

This  vast  water  power  is  generated  by  the  grand  elevations  of  the  Oregon 
mountains ;  which  are  as  follows : 


Adams,  Mt 12,424  feet 

Crater  Lake    : 6,177  feet 

Crescent   Lake    5,025  feet 

Diamond  Peak    8,807  feet 

Hood,  Mt 11,225  feet 

Jeffei-son,  Mt 10,350  feet 

McLoughlin,   Mt 9,760  feet 

Odell  Lake  4,990  feet 

Pauline  Peak 7,387  feet 

Pilot  Rock   6,104  feet 

Saddle  Mountain   6,976  feet 

Scott  Peak 8,938  feet 

Siskiyou  Peak  7,662  feet 

Sterling  Peak   7,377  feet 

Sugar  Loaf   8,415  feet 

Thielsen,  Mt 9,250  feet 

Three  Sisters 10,250  feet 

Union  Peak 7,698  feet 

Yainax  Butte    7,277  feet 

Tamsay  Peak   8,248  feet 

Eagle  Cap   9,686  feet 


The  United  States  geological  survey  has  completed  a  careful  estimate  of  the 
available  water  power  of  Oregon  from  which  is  taken  the  following  statistics: 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  485 

Horsepower 

Minimum  Maximaim 

Columbia  River   (proper)    4,060,000  6,250,000 

Willamette   v 602,000  1,670,000 

Deschutes     953,000  1,920,000 

Umpqua  River   80,000  160,000 

Mt.  Hood  Rivers    200,000  400,000 

Rogue  River 80,000  160,000 

Minor  Tributaries  Columbia 718,000  1,230,000 

Totals 5,975,(H)()       10,560,000 

With  possibilities  of  developing  10,000,000  horsepower  in  Oregon,  where 
less  than  one-fourth  of  a  million  horsepower  is  now  utilized,  and  when 
it  is  considered  that  only  a  little  more  than  5,000,000  horsepower  are  today 
utilized  in  the  entire  United  States,  it  is  argued  by  the  directors  of  the  geological 
survey  that  there  is  not  a  remote  possibility  that  the  water  power  of  this  region 
can  ever  be  monopolized  by  a  single  corporation  combine  or  commercial  trust. 
Such  a  prediction  is  based  upon  the  hope  that  justice  and  common  user  rights 
of  the  gifts  of  nature  may  prevail.  But  experience  has  already  shown,  that  on 
account  of  the  controlling  power  of  the  money  trust  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  friendly,  if  not  directly  interested  relations  of  the  managers  of  the  money 
trust  with  that  of  the  associated  power  companies  of  the  Northwest,  it  is  now 
practically  impossible  to  secure  capital  to  develop  water  power  enterprises  in 
opposition  to  those  now  already  established.  So  that  the  price  to  the  consumer 
of  electric  water  power  service  in  the  State  of  Oregon  is  now  ten  times  greater 
than  similar  service  to  the  people  of  Ottawa  in  the  Canadian  Dominion.  And 
notwithstanding  the  vast  water  power  of  the  State  of  Oregon,  larger  than  that 
of  all  the  States  of  the  Union  from  the  [Mississippi  river  to  the  Atlantic  ocean, 
the  people  of  Oregon  are  compelled  to  pay  higher  rates  for  light,  heat,  and 
power  than  the  people  of  any  other  State  in  the  Nation. 

For  the  value  and  importance  of  the  water  power  of  Oregon,  reference  is 
again  made  to  the  most  valuable  public  service  of  State  Engineer  Lewis.  He 
joins  in  the  opinion  that  the  Des  Chutes  river  is  the  most  wonderful  stream  in 
the  world,  and  states  the  following,  facts  to  prove  it  and  says : 

"Between  Benham  Falls  and  Cline  Falls  there  is  1,300  feet  fall.  About 
sixty  per  cent  of  the  one  million  acre  feet  of  water  will  be  discharged  through 
the  dam  for  irrigation  purposes,  during  July  and  August,  and  will  be  available 
for  the  development  of  power  which  can  be  transmitted  economically  from  two 
to  four  hundred  miles  for  the  pumping  of  water  to  irrigate  other  lands  say 
along  the  Columbia  river.  This  water  at  a  100  foot  drop  immediately  below  the 
dam  will  furnish  56,800  horsepower,  which  at  50  per  cent  plant  efficiency  will 
lift  2,500  second  feet,  100  feet  above  the  Columbia  river,  for  the  irrigation  of 
200,000  acres  of  land.  There  is  another  fall  of  100  feet  a  short  distance  below 
and  above  the  first  diversion  for  irrigation,  and  the  amount  of  summer  power 
which  can  be  developed  in  the  1,300  feet  fall  to  the  last  diversion  at  Cline  Falls 
is  almost  inconceivable." 

' '  Sixteen  dam  sites  have  been  located  on  the  Des  Chutes  in  the  narrow  rock 


486  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

walled  canj^on  from  the  Columbia  river  up  to  a  point  just  below  the  junction 
with  the  Metolius.  With  4,000  second  feet  at  the  1,300  feet  of  fall  which  can  be 
developed  at  these  sites,  600,000  theoretical  horse  power  can  be  generated.  "With 
the  low  and  high  year  flow  equalized  at  the  Benham  Falls  reservoir,  and  with 
a  120  foot  dam  in  the  Crooked  river  about  40  miles  above  Prineville,  this  low 
water  flow  can  be  increased  to  about  6,000  second  feet,  and  the  power  to  nearly 
900,000  horse  power.  This  is  about  six  times  the  present  installed  steam  and 
hydro-electric  machine  capacity  in  the  vicinity  of  Portland,  and  about  40  times 
the  low  water  power  development  at  Oregon  City." 

This  is  but  one  river,  and  although  a  wonderful  river,  Oregon  has  many 
others  furnishing  vast  power.  Mt.  Hood  sends  down  half  a  dozen  rivers,  and 
keeps  the  flow  of  water  up  the  whole  j'ear  round. 

RED   MAN  AND  WHITE   MAN 

When  the  native  red  man  found  the  new-comer  white  man  taking  possession 
of  his  land,  killing  his  game  and  driving  it  away,  depriving  him  and  his  family 
of  their  natural  God-given  sources  of  sustenance,  he  went  to  war;  and  fought 
the  white  man  to  the  best  of  his  ability.  He  was  conquered  in  battle  and  placed 
on  a  Reservation  to  keep  the  peace.  Sixty  years  later  this  same  white  man  finds 
an  enemy  seizing  his  sources  of  life,  light,  heat  and  comfort  through  the  cunning 
instrumentalities  of  legalized  monopolies.  Does  he  bravely  oppose  the  new 
enemy  like  the  Indian?  No!  But  he  attends  primary  elections,  and  votes  this 
way  and  that  way,  and  every  other  way  but  the  right  way,  and  his  enemy  wins 
every  time,  elects  the  rulers,  makes  the  laws,  and  charges  all  the  traffic  will 
bear  and  still  leave  the  worker  alive  to  earn  more  taxes.  The  monopoly,  the 
trust  combine,  the  corrupt  or  incompetent  legislature  of  his  own  making  has 
captured  the  white  man — and  put  him  on  a  Reservation. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
1849—1910 

GOLD  AND  SILVER  IN  ANCIENT  TIMES THE  CHARACTER  OF  MINERS  IN  ANCIENT  TIMES 

MINING  LAWS  IN  AMERICA DISCOVERY  OP   GOLD  IN   CALIFORNIA DISCOVERIES 

IN  OREGON — PRESENT  CONDITIONS  OP  MINING  IN  OREGON — MINES  OF  OTHER  VAL- 
UABLE   MINERAL   DEPOSITS THE   INFLUENCE   OF    MINES  ON   THE   STATE 

Tlie  Bil)le  coutains  frequent  references  to  the  Gold  of  Ophir,  and  the  Silver 
of  Tarshish,  dating  back  to  over  a  thousand  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ.  lu 
that  early  period  of  recorded  history  neither  gold  or  silver  was  coined  into  ex- 
changeable money,  but  passed  from  hand  to  hand  in  trade  by  weight,  the  little 
pieces  of  all  sorts  and  sizes  being  weighed  in  scales  for  every  transaction.  The 
first  statesman  of  those  ancient  days  that  conceived  the  idea  of  coining  gold  and 
silver  into  pieces  of  definite  weight  to  pass  current  as  money,  as  we  present  day 
people  use  it,  was  probably  Croesus  the  typical  rich  man  of  all  history.  King  of 
Lydia,  six  hundred  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ.  Lydia  was  a  small  kingdom 
in  the  western  part  of  Asia  Minor  which  after  many  years  of  fighting  with  the 
Greeks  finally  secured  access  to  the  Mediterranean  sea  at  Smyrna  and  entered 
upon  a  great  era  of  commercial  prosperity.  Lydia  has  passed  into  history  as  the 
industrial  power  of  the  ancient  world,  and  Croesus,  its  most  illustrious  King,  has 
become  the  synonym  of  the  rich  man  for  all  time.  While  the  small  streams  of  that 
country  did  produce  some  gold  dust,  the  probability  is  that  the  invention  of 
coining  the  gold  into  money,  and  the  seaport  access  to  the  trade  and  commerce 
of  the  cities  of  the  great  sea  enabled  the  Lydian  merchants  to  monopolize  the 
commerce  of  that  region  and  increase  the  wealth  of  the  country  and  the  riches 
of  its  enterprising  King  by  trade.  The  lesson  of  that,  and  all  succeeding  gold- 
bearing  regions,  seems  to  be,  that  gold  and  silver  have  always  been  the  stimu- 
lants of  enterprise  and  new  discoveries. 

Following  down  the  history  of  mankind  in  connection  with  mines  not  a  single 
sign  of  wealth  or  prosperity  is  discovered  attaching  to  the  common  man  who 
found  a  mine  of  any  sort,  until  after  the  formation  of  the  American  Republic.  The 
reason  of  this  is  found  in  the  laws  of  all  countries,  except  those  of  the  United 
States,  which  made  mines  or  deposits  of  minerals  the  property  of  the  King, 
Crown  or  Government.  And  for  the  same  reason  miners  in  all  countries  but  our 
own  have  been  in  many  cases  slaves.  I\Ien  convicted  of  crime,  or  rebellion  against 
the  established  authority,  would  be  sentenced  to  a  life  of  servitude  in  govern- 
ment mines — no  matter  whether  the  mines  were  of  gold,  silver,  diamonds,  salt, 
copper,  lead  or  iron.  For  a  thousand  years  the  salt  mines  of  Cracow  have  been 
alternately  the  work  house  and  living  tomb  of  unfortunate  criminals  or  rebels 
of  PoLnnd,  Russia,  Sweden,  Bohemia,  and  Austria.     The  Spaniards  sent  their 

487 


488  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

own  criminals  to  wear  out  their  lives  in  the  mines  of  Spain,  and  when  short  of 
help  boldly  seized  Protestant  religionists  in  the  Netherlands,  or  elsewhere,  and 
consigned  them  to  a  life  of  unpaid  toil.  And  when  they  seized  Mexico  and  Peru 
they  forced  the  harmless  and  inoffensive  natives  to  toil  in  chains  until  life  was 
exhausted  to  produce  silver  for  the  Government  of  Spain.  If  there  is  any  crime 
against  humanity  that  old  Spain  has  'not  been  guilty  of  history  makes  no  record 
of  it. 

One  of  the  first  questions  of  great  importance  which  confi'onted  the  first  states- 
man of  our  Nation  was  the  disposal  of  the  public  lands  with,  or  without  the  min- 
erals therein  contained. 

In  the  colonies  before  the  Revolution  the  title  to  the  common  minerals  passed 
under  the  common  law  rule,  to  the  owner  of  the  soil ;  and  the  colonies,  when  they 
entered  the  Federation  retained  control  of  these  lands.  But  the  mineral  lands 
owned  by  the  United  States  after  the  Revolution  were  disposed  of  under  three 
statutes. 

1.  An  Ordinance  (May,  1785)  entitled  "An  Ordinance  for  ascertaining  the 
mode  of  disposing  of  lands  in  the  Western  Territory,"  which  was  of  the  va^est 
character. 

2.  The  Lode  Law  of  1866. 

3.  The  General  Mining  law  of  1872,  known  as  the  law  of  the  apex. 

There  was  siibstantially  no  mining  done  in  the  United  States  till  the  purchase 
of  Louisiana  and  the  acquisition  of  the  lead  mines  of  Missouri,  which  had  been 
one  of  the  most  alluring  baits  of  Law's  Mississippi  scheme.  As  a  result  of  the 
Louisiana  purchase,  a  law  was  passed  in  1807  to  the  effect  that  "the  President 
of  the  United  States  shall  be  and  is  hereby  authorized  to  lease  any  lead  mine 
which  has  been  or  may  hereafter  be  discovered  in  the  Indian  Territory  for  a 
period  not  exceeding  five  years."  The  leasing  of  mineral  lands  was  entrusted  to 
the  War  Department,  but  it  did  not  impose  on  it  a  heavy  burden  till  1845,  when, 
after  the  extinction  of  the  Michigan  Indian  titles  in  1843,  active  mining  com- 
menced in  the  native  copper  deposits  of  Lake  Superior.  For  two  years  only,  sub- 
sequently to  1845,  the  system  of  leasing  was  carried  out.  It  was  the  system  in- 
herited from  the  mother  country,  and  badly  practised  when  applied  on  the  large 
scale  by  inexperienced  officials. 

In  his  interesting  address  to  the  American  Institute  of  Mining  Engineers  on 
"A  Centui-y  of  Mining,"  Abraham  S.  Hewitt  tells  of  the  process  by  which  the 
leasing  system  was  supplanted  by  the  out-and-out  purchase  system : 

"For  a  few  years  the  rents  were  paid  with  tolerable  regularity,  but  after 
1834,  in  consequence  of  the  immense  number  of  illegal  entries  of  mineral  lands 
at  the  Wisconsin  land  office,  the  smelters  and  miners  refused  to  make  any  further 
payments,  and  the  Government  was  entirely  unable  to  collect  them.  After  much 
trouble  and  expense,  it  was,  in  1847,  finally  concluded  that  the  only  way  was  to 
sell  the  mineral  land,  and  do  away  with  all  reserves  of  lead  or  any  other  metal, 
since  they  had  only  been  a  source  of  continual  embarrassment  to  the  department. 

"Meanwhile,  by  a  forced  construction  (afterward  declared  invalid)  of  the 
same  Act,  hundreds  of  leases  were  granted  speculators  in  the  Lake  Superior  cop- 
per region,  which  was  from  1843  to  1846  the  scene'  of  wild  and  baseless  excite- 
ment. The  bubble  burst  during  the  latter  year;  the  issue  of  permits  and  leases 
was  suspended  as  illegal,  and  the  Act  of  1847,  authorizing  the  sale  of  the  min- 


TPIE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  489 

eral  lands  and  a  geological  survey  of  the  distriet,  laid  Ihr  fuundation  of  a  more 
substantial  property." 

The  first  mining  excitement  in  the  United  States  followed  the  first  successful 
effort  to  mine  the  metallic  copper  of  Lake  Superior,  and  as  we  have  seen,  the 
result  was  the  adoption  of  the  sale  in  preference  to  the  lease  system.  The  next 
modification  of  importance  followed  the  rush  for  gold  in  California,  then  a  re- 
mote area,  newly  acquired  by  conquest  and  subsetpient  treaty.  To  meet  local 
exigencies,  a  mining  code  was  framed  by  the  miners,  through  methods  curiously 
illustrative  of  the  working  of  popular  institutions. 

When  Mexico  succeeded  in  overthrowing  the  rule  of  the  King  of  Spain,  and 
set  up  the  Mexican  Republic  in  1821,  one  of  the  first  acts  of  the  new  government 
was  to  abolish  Spanish  titles  and  regulations  of  mines.  Mexico  was  at  that  time, 
and  probably  is  yet,  the  richest  country  in  mineral  resources  in  the  world.  So 
that  when  California  was  occupied  by  the  United  States  the  Mexican  mining  laws 
were  in  force,  and  till  1849  the  conquered  province  remained  under  military  rule. 
Colonel  Mason,  the  governor,  while  still  ignorant  that  the  treaty  of  Guadaloupe 
Hidalgo  had  been  signed  on  Febr\iai'y  2,  issued  the  following  proclamation  from 
Monterey  on  February  12,  1848 : 

"From  and  after  this  date,  the  IMexican  laws  and  customs  now  prevailing  in 
California  relative  to  the  denouncement  of  mines  are  hereby  abolished." 

"The  legality  of  the  denouncements  which  have  taken  place,  and  the  posses- 
sion obtained  under  them  since,  till  the  occupation  of  the  country  by  the  United 
States  forces,  are  questions  which  will  be  disposed  of  by  the  American  Govern- 
ment after  a  definite  treaty  of  peace  shall  have  been  established  between  the  two 
Republics. ' ' 

Without  questioning  the  right  of  Colonel  ]\Iason  to  revoke  arbitrarily  the  exist- 
ing mining  law.  the  miners  obeyed,  and  framed  rules  and  regulations,  not  only 
for  regulating  the  conduct  of  mining,  but  for  the  mode  of  acquiring  the  mines 
themselves,  although  all  of  them  were  virtually  trespassers  on  the  public  domain. 

Hence  arose  the  custom,  afterward  embodied  in  the  United  States  statute, 
of  allowing  miners  to  create  a  mining  distriet  and  constitute  themselves  a  legis- 
lative body,  whose  rules  and  regulations,  if  not  contrary  to  either  Federal  or 
State  or  Territorial  laws,  have  a  binding  obligation.  These  self -constituted  legis- 
lators in  California  followed  the  Mexican  code  so  far  as  it  applied  to  discovery 
and  development,  but  they  introduced  into  their  mining  code  a  principle  which 
had  no  place  in  any  modern  mining  statute.  To  them  the  ownership  of  the 
surface  was  subsidiary  to  that  of  the  lode,  or  quartz  vein,  which  might  happen 
to  crop  out  at  any  given  spot.  Therefore  they  conceded  to  the  owner  of  the  out- 
crop the  right  to  follow  his  discovery  to  any  depth  and  under  the  "dip,  spur, 
and  angle  clause"  of  their  amateur  regulations,  created  extra-lateral  rights 
and  introduced  the  law  of  the  apex,  which  came  to  be  the  distinguishing  feature 
of  the  statutes  passsed  in  1866  and  1872,  and  which  has  remained  unaltered  till 
today.  This  anomalous  law  of  the  apex  was  apparently  copied  from  an  old  cus- 
tom confined  to  the  High  Peak  district  of  Derbyshire,  England,  and  probably  in- 
corporated in  the  California  mining  code  at  the  suggestion  of  some  English  min- 
ers. Judge  Field,  who  was  ultimately  elevated  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  but  who  had  been  one  of  the  pioneers  of  California — an  alcalde  before  the 
admission  of  the  State — a  legislator  in  the  first  Assembly,  and  a  state  judge,  thus 


490  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

grapliically  describes  the  process  by  which  tliese  mining  regulations  were  framed 
by  these  early  intelligent  miners : 

"The  discovery  of  gold  in  Calif oimia  was  followed,  as  is  well  known,  by  an 
immense  immigration  into  the  State,  which  increased  its  population  within  three 
or  four  years  from  a  few  thousand  to  several  hundred  thousand.  The  lands  in 
which  the  precious  metals  were  found  belonged  to  the  United  States,  and  were 
unsurveyed  and  not  open  by  law  to  occupation  and  settlement.  Little  was  known 
of  them  further  than  that  they  were  situated  in  the  Sierra  Nevada  mountains. 
Into  these  mountains  the  emigrants  in  vast  numbers  penetrated,  occupying  the 
ravines,  gulches,  and  canyons,  and  probing  the  earth  in  all  directions  for  the 
precious  metals.  Wherever  they  went  they  carried  with  them  that  love  of  order 
and  system  and  of  fair  dealing  which  are  the  prominent  characteristics  of  our 
people.  In  every  district  which  they  occupied  they  framed  certain  rules  for  their 
government,  by  which  the  extent  of  the  ground  they  could  severally  hold  for  min- 
ing was  designated,  their  possessory  right  to  such  ground  secured  and  enforced, 
and  contests  between  them  either  avoided  or  determined.  These  rules  bore  a 
marked  similarity,  varying  in  several  districts  only  according  to  the  extent  and 
character  of  the  mines ;  distinct  provision  being  made  for  different  kinds  of  min- 
ing, such  as  placer  mining,  quartz  mining,  and  mining  in  drifts  and  tunnels. 

' '  They  all  recognized  discovery,  followed  by  appropriation,  as  the  foundation 
of  the  possessor's  title,  and  development  by  working  as  the  conditions  of  its  reten- 
tion. And  they  were  so  framed  as  to  secure  to  all  comers  within  practicable  lim- 
its absolute  equality  of  right  and  privilege  in  working  tSie  mines.  Nothing  but 
such  equality  would  have  been  tolerated  by  the  miners,  who  were  emphatically 
the  law-makers,  as  respects  mining,  upon  the  public  lands  in  the  State.  The  first 
appropriator  was  everywhere  held  to  have,  within  certain  well  defined  limits,  a 
better  right  than  others  to  the  claims  taken  up ;  and  in  all  controversies,  except 
as  against  the  Government,  he  was  regarded  as  the  original  owner  from  whom 
the  title  was  to  be  traced.  *  *  *  These  regulations  and  customs  were  ap- 
pealed to  in  controversies  in  the  State  courts,  and  received  their  sanction;  and 
properties  to  the  value  of  many  millions  rested  upon  them.  For  eighteen  years, 
from  1848  to  1866,  the  regulations  and  customs  of  miners,  as  enforced  and  molded 
by  the  courts,  and  sanctioned  by  the  legislation  of  the  State,  constituted  the  law 
governing  property  in  mines  and  in  water  on  the  public  mineral  lands." 

The  Argonauts  not  only  carried  to  the  west  coast  the  habits  of  self-govern- 
ment which  were  the  heritage  of  the  race,  but  carried  them  into  practice  with  the 
same  independence  and  originality  as  characterize  most  of  the  legislation  of  the 
State  Legislatures. 

THE   GREAT    DISCOVERY 

The  discovery  of  gold  in  California  on  the  19th  of  January,  1848,  was  one 
of  the  greatest  industrial  events  of  the  world.  At  first  thought  this  seems  to  be 
a  very  unfounded  statement.  But  a  careful  survey  of  the  whole  field  of  enter- 
prise, the  commerce  of  the  world,  and  the  standard  of  living  throughout  the 
United  States,  will  show  that  the  discovery  of  gold  wrought  a  greater  change  in 
the  United  States  and  the  financial  relations  of  this  country  to  other  nations 
than  any  other  fact  or  any  other  one  hundred  facts,  subsequent  to  the  inde- 
pendence of  these  states. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  491 

Up  to  the  year  1848  tlie  United  States  had  possessed  a  very  narrow  metallic 
base  fur  a  eireulating  luediiini.  And  what  the  eountry  did  possess  was  mostly 
silver  coin.  Gold  coin,  the  delight  of  kings  and  thr  sccpin'  df  millionaires,  was 
exceeding  scarce  in  the  United  States;  and  on  this  accdiinl  tin'  financial  standing 
ol"  this  country  and  the  rating  of  its  securities  were  pi-acticall.v  at  tiie  mercy  of 
the  Bank  of  England  and  the  house  of  Rothschilds,  wliii-li  linancial  institutions 
either  possessed  or  controlled  the  great  bulk  of  the  gold  coin  of  the  world.  When 
the  mines  of  California  connneuced  to  pour  out  their  great  flood  of  gold,  every 
line  of  business  in  the  whole  of  the  United  States  took  on  new  life.  And  within 
five  years  after  this  great  discovery,  there  were  more  manufacturing  establish- 
ments started  in  the  United  States  than  had  been  for  a  generation  before  that 
event.  The  banking  institutions  took  on  a  new  phase  altogether.  From  secur- 
ing circulating  notes  with  deposits  of  state  bonds,  which  were  not  payable  in 
gold,  and  of  doubtful  specie  value  on  any  liquidation  of  assets,  the  banks  began 
to  accumulate  gold.  Gold  begot  confidence  as  nothing  else  ever  had  before,  and 
people  more  freely  deposited  their  savings  in  banks.  Prom  a  starving  little  near- 
to-shore  business,  the  banks  were  enabled  to  extend  accommodations  to  manufac- 
turers and  producers  of  wealth.  And  railroads  that  had  been  for  twenty  years 
creei)ing  out  slowly  from  Atlantic  seaports  to  the  Alleghany  mountains,  found 
sale  for  their  securities,  pushed  on  over  the  mountains  and  out  into  the  great 
Mississippi  vallej',  and  on  across  the  continent  reaching  Portland,  Oregon,  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  before  they  had  expected  to  get  to  Chicago,  under  the  old  paper 
money  financiering  days  before  the  discovery  of  the  gold.  The  flood  of  gold 
changed  the  whole  face  of  affairs,  put  new  life  into  all  business  and  commercial 
undertakings,  brought  all  the  states  and  communities  together  under  one  single 
standard  of  values,  and  pushed  the  United  States  to  the  front  as  the  greatest 
wealth-oroducing  nation  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

And  here  Oregon  comes  to  the  front  again.  The  discovery  which  lifted  Amer- 
ica above  all  nations,  was  made  by  an  Oregonian.  James  W.  Marshall,  the  dis- 
coverer of  gold  in  California,  was  an  Oregonian.  He  came  to  Oregon  in  the  immi- 
gration of  1844,  and  not  finding  much  to  do  here,  went  down  to  California  two 
years  later.  He  was  a  handy  sort  of  a  man,  could  build  a  house,  run  a  sawmill 
or  keep  store.  In  California  he  made  himself  useful  to  the  old  pioneer,  Capt. 
Sutter,  and  was  taken  into  Sutter's  business  as  a  partner,  and  was  sent  up  from 
Sacramento  into  the  Sierra  Nevada  mountains  to  select  a  site  and  build  a  sawmill. 
He  selected  the  point  at  Coloma,  on  the  south  fork  of  the  American  river,  and 
Imilt  the  mill.  After  turning  on  the  water  on  his  mill  wheel,  he  had  occasion  to 
go  and  look  at  the  tail-race,  and  thereon  the  19th  of  January,  1S48,  discovered 
the  shining  particles  of  gold  in  the  tail-race  where  the  water  had  washed  the 
gold  from  the  sand.  Two  other  Oregonians  who  had  been  employed  by  Marshall 
to  help  around,  and  build  the  mill — Charles  Bennett,  and  Stephen  Staats  of  Polk 
County — were  there  at  the  mill,  and  were  called  to  look  at  the  gold  in  the  water 
and  confirm  the  discovery. 

The  discovery  spread  like  wildfire  and  gold  seekers  rushed  in  from  all  quar- 
ters. But  it  was  not  known  in  Oregon  until  five  months  after  the  discovery. 
And  then  the  Oregonians  went  wild.  Everybody  that  could  get  away,  rushed  to 
California,  and  nobody  was  left  but  old  men,  boys  and  women  folks.  Two-thirds 
of  the  Oregon  men  started  for  California.     Only  five  men  were  left  in  Salem, 


492  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

and  only  a  few  women,  children  and  some  Indians  were  left  at  Oregon  City. 
Pack  trains  were  the  first  means  to  get  to  the  gold  fields ;  and  after  that  a  train 
of  fifty  wagons  started.  The  first  account  of  the  gold  received  in  Oregon  by  sea 
was  on  July  31, 1848.  The  little  schooner  Honolulu  from  San  Francisco  sailed  in 
over  fhe  Columbia  bar  and  slowly  beat  her  way  up  the  river,  and  finally  tied  up  to 
an  oak  tree  where  the  west  end  of  the  steel  railroad  bridge  in  Portland  now  stands. 
The  Captain  of  the  schooner  was  in  a  hurry  to  discharge  cargo  and  get  away. 
He  made  haste  to  load  up  with  all  the  meat  and  flour  his  ship  would  carry  and 
then  bought  up  all  the  picks,  pans  and  shovels  he  could  find  in  town.  And  when 
he  got  everything  aboard,  he  made  knowii  the  news — and  it  spread  as  if  by  the 
wireless  telegraphy  of  sixtj^  years  later. 

THE  OREGON  MINT  AND  BEAVER  MONEY 

The  Oregon  rush  to  California  for  gold  resulted  in  bringing  back  within  a 
year  unimaginable  wealth.  From  poverty  the  Oregonians  had  leaped  to  great 
riches  at  a  single  bound.  The  miners  not  only  returned  loaded  down  with  gold 
dust,  but  the  few  people  that  had  remained  in  Oregon  had  got  rich  shipping  down 
to  the  mines  their  flour,  beans,  bacon  and  lumber.  From  a  legal  tender  currency 
of  beaver  skins  and  bacon  sides,  Oregonians  were  struggling  with  a  currency  of 
gold  dust.  An  ounce  of  gold  dust  was  practically  worth  $16,  but  the  Oregon  mer- 
chants would  not  take  it  for  goods,  for  more  than  $11,  while  the  Hudson  Bay 
Company,  having  some  coined  money,  was  buying  up  gold  dust  at  $10  an  ounce, 
and  shipping  it  to  the  mint  in  London.  This  condition  of  affairs  caused  the  cir- 
culation of  a  petition  to  the  Oregon  Provisional  Government,  setting  forth  that  in 
consequence  of  the  neglect  of  the  United  States  government,  the  people  must 
combine  against  the  greed  of  the  merchants ;  and  the  provisional  government 
must  at  once  set  up  an  Oregon  mint  to  coin  the  gold  dust  into  legal  tender  money. 
It  was  represented  as  a  basis  of  action  that  there  was  then  in  February,  1849, 
$2,000,000  worth  of  gold  dust  ready  to  be  coined.  That  was  about  six  times  as 
much  money  per  capita  of  the  population  as  there  is  now,  or  ever  has  been  since 
1852.  And  prices  of  everything  went  up  accordingly.  Beef  was  ten  to  twelve 
cents  a  pound  on  the  block ;  pork  sixteen  to  twenty  cents ;  butter  sixty-two  cents 
to  seventy-five  cents — nearly  double  what  it  is  today;  flotir  was  $14  per  barrel; 
potatoes  $2.50  a  bushel,  and  apples  $10  a  bushel. 

The  petition  for  the  mint  was  favorably  considered  by  the  provisional  legisla- 
ture, and  a  bill  was  passed  to  authorize  it  and  to  coin  money.  Two  members  of 
the  legislature — IMedorum  Crawford  and  W.  J.  Martin  voted  against  the  measure 
on  the  grounds  that  it  was  inexpedient  and  a  violation  of  the  constitution  of  the 
United  States.  The  acts  provided  for  an  assayer,  melter  and  coiner,  and  an  alloy 
was  forbidden  in  the  money.  Two  pieces  only  were  to  be  coined — one  to  weigh 
five  pennyweights,  and  one  ten  pennyweights,  and  both  to  be  pure  gold.  The 
coins  were  to  be  stamped  on  one  side  with  the  Roman  figure  V  for  the  smaller  coin, 
and  the  other  with  the  figure  ten  on  one  side.  And  on  the  reverse  sides  the 
words  "Oregon  territory"  with  the  date  of  the  year  around  the  face,  with  the 
arms  of  Oregon  in  the  center.  The  officers  of  this  mint  were  James  Taylor,  di- 
rector, Truman  P.  Powers,  treasurer,  "W.  H.  Willson,  melter  and  coiner  and 
George  L.  Curry,  assayer.    The  mint  succeeded  in  coining  $50,000  of  these  coins 


f  THE  NEW 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  493 

before  Governor  Joseph  Lane  reached  Oregon  and  eloscd  it  np.  Nobody  was 
ever  prosecuted  for  issuing  this  money,  although  it  was  a  cK'ar  viohition  of  the 
constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States. 

But  Governor  Lane  did  not  stop  the  coining  ol'  gold  dust.  Although  the  ter- 
ritorial mint  was  closed  up,  the  need  of  currency  of  certain  value  still  remained. 
And  to  supply  that,  a  partnership  was  formed,  called  the  "Oregon  Exchange 
Company, ' '  which  at  once  proceeded  to  coin  gold  on  its  own  responsibility.  The 
members  of  that  company  were:  W.  K.  Kilborne,  Theophilus  Magruder,  James 
Taylor,  George  Abernethy,  W.  H.  Willson,  W.  H.  Rector,  J.  G.  Campbell,  and 
Noyes  Smith.  Rector  made  the  stamps  and  dies.  The  engraving  was  done  by 
Campbell.  Rector  acted  as  coiner,  and  no  assaying  was  done.  This  company 
coined  about  $55,000  worth  of  gold  into  two  pieces  to  circulate  as  tokens  of  five 
and  ten  dollars,  respectively.  This  coinage  raised  the  price  of  gold  dust  from 
twelve  to  eighteen  dollars  an  ounce,  and  saved  a  vast  amount  of  money  to  the 
honest  miners.  Engravings  of  the  "beaver  money",  as  this  last  coinage  was 
called,  are  show^a  on  another  page. 

The  general  etfect  of  the  wealth  of  gold  brought  back  from  California  was 
beneficial  to  Oregon ;  yet  in  all  too  many  instances  it  proved  the  ruin  of  many 
men  whose  sudden  i-ise  to  riches  induced  habits  of  profligacy  and  dissipation 
from  which  they  never  recovered.  Many  men  brought  back  as  much  as  thirty 
or  forty  thousand  dollars  washed  out  of  the  California  streams  within  a  year  or 
two ;  and  then  threw  it  away  on  idle  dissipation,  and  had  to  start  in  again  at  the 
bottom  of  the  ladder  encumbered  with  bad  habits  and  remorseful  regrets. 

The  discovei-y  of  gold  in  California  powerfully  influenced  the  future  of 
Oregon.  Down  to  that  time  Oregon  was  in  the  lead  of  all  settlement,  discovery, 
trade,  commerce  and  population  on  the  Pacific  coast.  All  the  people  of  all  the 
Eastern  States  who  knew  anything  of,  or  cared  anything  for  the  Pacific  Coast, 
thought  only  of  Oregon.  Lewis  and  Clark's  wonderful  Expedition  across  the 
Continent,  Astor's  settlement  at  Astoria,  the  wonderful  emigration  of  the  Pio- 
neers across  two  thousand  miles  of  mountains  and  deserts,  the  unique  founding 
of  an  American  State  in  the  Oregon  wilderness,  with  its  laws,  armies,  courts, 
constitution  and  twenty  thousand  people,  the  mighty  Columbia  river  draining 
half  a  continent,  the  vast  forests,  rich  soil,  mild  climate  and  heroic  ]Missionaries, 
all  separately  and  combined,  united  in  giving  Oregon  such  a  standing  and  pres- 
tige with  Eastern  people  and  the  world  as  to  have  made  this  the  leading  Amer- 
ican State  of  the  Union  west  of  the  Mississippi  river.  But  the  discovery  of  gold 
by  :ilarshall  flew  upon  the  wings  of  the  wind— north,  south,  east  and  west — and 
in  six  months  the  fame  of  California  had  completely  eclipsed  pioneer  Oregon, 
and  become  the  Mecca  of  the  soldiers  of  fortune  from  the  whole  civilized  world. 

If  the  discovery  of  gold  had  not  turned  the  tide  of  population  to  California, 
the  Columbia  river  valley,  wdth  Oregon  as  the  controlling  factor,  would  have 
been  developed  by  agriculture,  fisheries,  lumbering,  ship  building  and  city  mak- 
ing as  the  first  nnit  of  State  building  and  Commerce  on  the  Pacific  Coast.  The 
riches  of  the  gold  mines  in  both  California  and  Oregon,  are  but  trifles  now  in 
comparison  with  the  wealth  of  Oregon  annually  taken  from  the  soil  in  wheat, 
wool,  beef  and  fruit,  or  from  the  forests  in  lumber  or  from  the  rivers  in  fish,  and 
commerce.  But  the  gold  put  California  in  the  lead,  and  her  people  were  wise  in 
time  to  develop  wealth  from  the  soil  as  well  as  from  the  mines. 


494  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

THE  DISCOVERY  IN  OREGON 

As  the  continued  discoveries  of  gold  spread  northward  in  California  and 
finally  to  Siskiyou  county  in  that  State  it  became  necessaiy  for  the  miners  to  get 
a  new  base  of  supplies  this  side  of  the  Sacramento  Valley.  To  meet  this  state  of 
affairs  pack  trains  of  mules  were  put  on  the  route,  first  between  Scottsburgh  on 
the  Umpqua  river,  and  the  mines,  and  then  between  the  Willamette  valley  and 
the  mines.  One  of  these  pack  trains  owned  by  James  Cluggage  and  James  R. 
Poole,  camped  for  the  night  on  the  ground  now  covered  by  the  town  of  Jackson- 
ville; and  after  staking  out  their  animals  went  in  search  of  water  up  the  little 
gulch  south  of  the  present  town  known  as  Rich  gulch.  And  here  after  scraping 
out  a  hole  to  fill  with  water  they  saw  a  lot  of  placer  gold.  From  this  find  they 
extended  their  examination  of  the  gulch,  and  finally  to  the  nearby  channel  of 
Jackson  creek,  and  found  plenty  of  gold  wherever  they  examined  these  streams. 
This  discovery  was  made  in  1851,  and  was  the  first  discovery  of  paying  gold- 
mines in  Oregon.  Prior  to  this  date  (1849)  some  Oregonians  going  down  to  the 
California  mines  did  find  colors  of  gold  at  the  old  fort  of  Rogue  River  down  below 
the  point  where  the  town  of  Gold  Hill  is  now  located.  But  as  it  was  not  worth 
working  it  was  never  reported  as  a  discovery.  After  this  discovery  of  gold, 
Cluggage  and  Poole  filed  on  land  claims  adjoining  the  gold  discovery  and  laid  out 
the  town  of  Jacksonville,  and  both  became  wealthy  and  influential  citizens. 
From  this  discovery  on  Jackson  Creek,  the  discoveries  rapidly  extended  east  and 
west  until  all  the  mountain  regions  of  Jackson,  Josephine  and  Curry  Counties 
had  been  thoroughly  explored,  and  many  millions  of  dollars  taken  out.  Gold  was 
discovered  first  in  Josephine  County  by  a  party  of  sailors  who  deserted  their 
ship  at  Crescent  City  on  hearing  of  the  discovery  in  the  Rogue  River  valley,  and 
made  their  way  across  the  mountains  to  the  head  waters  of  the  Illinois  river, 
and  commenced  prospecting  in  the  vicinity  of  the  old  mining  camp  of  Waldo. 
Here  they  struck  ' '  pay  dirt, ' '  and  so  rich  as  to  attract  many  others  to  the  place, 
which  from  that  date  on  went  by  the  name  of  "Sailor  Diggins. "  And  here  in 
Josephine  County  was  organized  the  first  mining  district  in  Oregon ;  and  of  which 
the  following  is  a  copy  of  their  rules  and  regulations : 

(Copy) 

"Oregon's  first  mining  code 

"Know  all  men  by  these  Pi-esents:  That  we,  the  miners  of  Waldo  and  Alt- 
house  in  Oregon  Territory,  being  in  convention  assembled  for  the  purpose  of 
making  rules  to  regulate  our  rights  as  miners,  do  hereby  on  the  first  day  of 
April,  1852,  ordain  and  adopt  the  following  rules  and  regulations  to  govern 
this  camp. 

"Resolved,  1st.  That  50  cubic  yards  shall  constitute  a  claim  on  the  bed  of 
the  creek  extending  to  high  water  on  each  side. 

"Resolved,  2nd.  That  forty  feet  shall  constitute  a  bank  or  bar  claim  on  the 
face  extending  back  to  the  hill  or  mountain. 

"Resolved,  3rd.  That  all  claims  not  worked  when  workable,  after  five  days, 
be  forfeited  or  jumpable. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  495 

"Resolved,  4tli.  That  all  disputes  arising  from  iiiiuiiig  claims  shall  he  settled 
hy  arbitration,  and  the  decision  shall  be  final. 

"E.  J.  NORTHCUTT, 

"chairman." 

Eollowiug  the  discovei'ies  ol'  gold  in  -Jackson  and  Josephine  Counties  came 
the  discovery  of  the  gold  dust  in  the  sea  beach  sands  in  Coos  and  Curry  Coun- 
ties. In  1853  there  were  more  than  a  thousand  men  washing  gold  out  of  the 
black  sand  along  the  sea  shore  south  of  Coos  Bay.  This  gold  is  supposed  to  have 
been  washed  down  into  the  ocean  by  the  coast  rivers ;  and  evei'y  big  storm  carried 
back  in  a  fresh  lot  of  gold  dust  within  the  reach  of  the  miner  who  has  patience 
enough  to  woi'k  the  sands  over  often  enough  to  get  the  gold  dust  out  of  them. 

The  first  discovery  of  this  sea  beach  gold  was  claimed  to  have  been  made  by 
some  half-breeds  in  1852  at  the  mouth  of  a  creek  a  few  miles  north  of  Coquille 
near  where  Randolph  appears  on  the  map.  The  gold  was  so  very  fine  that  the 
use  of  a  microscope  was  often  necessary  to  detect  it ;  but  notwithstanding  that, 
with  the  use  of  quicksilver  it  could  be  recovered  in  paying  quantities.  Hundreds 
of  machines  have  been  invented  and  patented  to  save  that  sea  beach  gold  ;  and  yet 
none  of  them  seems  to  have  much  advantage  over  the  original  methods  of  the 
first  miners  using  the  quicksilver.  The  sand  in  which  this  sea  beach  gold  is 
found  exists  not  only  on  the  present  day  sea  shore  but  is  also  found  on  the  an- 
cient sea  shore  line  forty  miles  back  in  the  interior  on  the  upper  Coquille  river. 
A  very  large  deposit  of  this  gold  bearing  sand  was  found  on  an  ancient  sea 
shore  line  one  and  a  half  miles  back  of,  and  180  feet  above  the  level  of  the  pres- 
ent sea  beach.  Here  the  depth  of  the  gold  bearing  sand  varies  from  one  to 
twelve  feet  in  a  deposit  that  is  from  three  to  five  hundred  feet  wide  and  covered 
with  a  deposit  of  white  sand  showing  not  a  particle  of  gold  dust.  The  surface 
of  this  deposit  is  covered  with  a  dense  forest ;  and  the  gold  bearing  black  sand 
contains  trunks  of  trees  of  great  size  in  a  good  state  of  preservation. 

THE  DISCOVERY  IN  EASTERN  OREGON 

Ten  years  after  the  discovery  in  Jackson  County  came  the  discovery  on 
Burnt  river  in  Eastern  Oregon.  It  came  about  in  this  wise.  Undoubtedly  the 
first  discovery  of  gold  in  Eastern  Oregon  was  that  which  has  passed  into  history 
as  the  "Blue  Bucket  Mines."  Of  this  discovery  two  versions  are  given.  A 
small  party  of  innnigrants  were  on  their  way  from  the  Jlissouri  river  to  the 
Willamette  valley,  and  was  camped  at  some  point  which  the  first  discoverer 
(W.  J.  Herren)  supposed  to  be  on  the  upper  branches  of  the  Malheur  river  in 
what  is  now  Malheur  county,  in  the  year  1852.  And  while  at  this  camp  and 
herding  his  cattle  Herren  picked  up  a  piece  of  shining  metal  on  the  rocky  bed 
of  the  nearby  creek,  and  carried  it  into  camp  as  a  curiosity.  Another  specimen 
was  found  and  brought  to  another  wagon  in  the  party.  No  one  in  the  party 
could  tell  what  the  metal  was,  and  no  one  thought  of  it  being  gold,  although  the 
pieces  were  hammered  and  flattended  on  a  wagon  tire.  It  was  said  these 
nuggets  were  thrown  into  a  tool  chest  and  lost  and  forgotten.  The  other  story 
is  as  follows:  That  a  train  of  immigrants  after  great  trials  and  perils  from  In- 
dians and  hard  travel  came  to  a  creek  in  that  Malheur  region  where  the  leader 


496  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

of  the  party  died,  and  the  party  halted  for  a  half  day  to  give  the  man  decent 
burial.  And  while  here  a  woman  of  the  pax'ty  took  advantage  of  the  stop,  and 
the  water  in  the  creek,  to  do  some  washing ;  and  with  her  clothes  and  her  buckets 
she  went  down  the  little  stream  below  the  camp  to  do  her  work,  taking  her  chil- 
dren along  with  her.  And  while  so  engaged  the  children  played  and  paddled 
in  the  creek  and  picked  up  the  pretty  pebbles  and  threw  them  in  a  bucket — a 
blue  bucket — in  which  they  were  carried  to  the  camp  and  examined  by  all  the 
party,  hammered  on  a  wagon  tire,  flattened  out,  and  no  one  could  tell  what  the 
shining  metal  pebbles  were;  but  years  afterwards,  and  after  the  discovery  of 
gold  in  California,  a  sailor  seeing  one  of  the  nuggets  declared  it  to  be  gold. 
These  are  the  Blue  Bucket  stories.    Now  for  their  work  on  real  gold  miners. 

Early  in  1861,  wonderful  stories  reached  California  miners  of  a  great  gold 
discovery  at  Oro  Fino,  in  Washington  Territory.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there 
was  no  such  a  place  in  that  Territory  at  that  time.  But  it  served  to  attract 
attention  to  new  and  wonderful  "diggins, "  and  to  bring  four  men  up  to  Port- 
land, Oregon  in  seach  of  the  wonderful  mines.  These  four  men  were  David 
Littlefield,  Henry  Grifan,  William  Stafford,  and  G.  W.  Scriver— Mr.  Littlefleld 
is  still  active  in  Baker  county,  and  his  likeness  appears  on  another  page.  On 
reaching  Portland  these  men  found  the  Oro  Fino  story  to  be  a  romance  without 
any  foundation.  But  while  walking  the  streets  of  Portland  to  find  out  the 
facts  of  the  case  and  take  a  new  start  they  fell  in  with  a  man  who  had  heard 
the  story  of  the  ' '  Blue  Bucket  Mines ' ',  and  was  so  full  of  it  that  he  was  confident 
he  could  lead  a  party  right  to  the  spot  where  the  gold  could  be  picked  up  in 
buckets  full.  This  enthusiast,  whose  name  was  Adams,  declared  he  had  been 
with  the  party  of  immigrants  and  knew  just  how  to  go  to  the  "Blue  Bucket" 
find,  and  he  produced  three  other  men  who  vouched  for  him  and  corroborated 
his  story,  declaring  they  had  been  with  Adams  when  the  Blue  Bucket  gold  was 
discovered.  There  were  some  valiant  liars  about  Portland  in  those  days.  All 
that  Adams  wanted  was  men,  arms,  and  supplies  enough  to  make  the  trip  and 
stand  off  the  Indians.  A  party  of  fiftj'-tliree  men  in  addition  to  the  eight  already 
mentioned  was  soon  formed,  well  armed  and  equipped,  and  on  the  way  to  the 
Blue  Mountains,  to  find  the  long  lost  "Blue  Bucket."  Leaving  The  Dalles 
the  party  proceeded  southeast  crossing  Des  'Chutes  river  at  the  old  Emigrant 
crossing,  then  up  that  stream  to  Crooked  River,  then  up  Crooked  River  to  its 
headwaters  near  Wagon  Tire  mountain,  then  out  on  to  the  desert  where  the  water 
gave  out,  and  Adams  showed  signs  of  being  lost.  To  make  a  long  and  disagTce- 
able  story  short,  it  is  enough  to  say,  that  the  party  wandered  around  for  weeks 
among  the  headwaters  of  Silvie's  river,  John  Day  river  and  finally  reached 
Alalheur  river  and  run  up  against  the  Strawberry  Ranch.  During  all  this  dis- 
appointment the  curses  against  Adams  and  his  three  friends  were  both  loud 
and  deep.  Threats  to  kill  him  unless  he  found  the  mines  within  three  days  were 
made ;  then  one  day  only  was  given  him ;  and  then  he  was  tried  by  a  jury  and 
expelled  from  the  camp  under  penalty  of  death  if  he  returned.  Littlefield  and 
his  three  friends  saved  the  poor  man's  life  from  day  to  day  because  he  worked 
harder  than  any  other  man  in  the  party.  Littlefield  secretly  carried  food  to 
the  man  after  he  had  been  expelled  from  the  camp,  and  saved  him  from  starva- 
tion. Finally  the  party  broke  up,  the  great  majority  returning  to  the  Willam- 
ette vaUey.     The  four  Californians  and  a  few  others  then  started  on  an  inde- 


Oil   the  li'tt-    DAVID    I.ITTLEFIKIJ).    st  i 
(In  the  right— BlilH'E  ClliliS 

DISlDVEliED  r.nU}   IN    KASTKUN   OUEliOX— ISCI 


^rF 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  497 

pendent  prospecting  expedition,  and  wandering  through  the  mountains  panning 
the  Siind  in  every  little  stream,  they  finally  crossed  over  the  divide  between 
Burnt  and  Powder  rivers,  just  above  the  old  town  of  Auburn  and  coming  down 
Elk  Creek  they  camped  on  the  night  of  October  23,  1861,  in  a  ravine  which 
they  afterwai'ds  named  Grifilin  gulch.  Here  Henry  Gi'iffin  sunk  a  prospect  hole 
three  feet  deep  to  bed  rock  and  struck  the  first  gold  found  in  Eastern  Oregon — 
not  counting  the  Blue  Bucket  myth.  Prom  this  discovery  on  Griffin  gulch  gold 
discoveries  were  extended  all  over  the  Blue  Mountains  region.  The  question 
may  be  asked,  if  there  ever  was  such  a  discovery  as  the  Blue  Bucket  find  why 
was  it  not  found  again.  Hundreds  of  men  have  for  many  yeai-s  searched  for 
those  mines.  There  can  be  no  doubt  but  what  the  Blue  Bucket  discovery  has 
been  found  and  worked  out  long  ago.  The  Blue  Bucket  find  was  probably  in 
Grant  county  in  the  Canyon  City  region,  and  the  original  finders  of  that  gold 
were  simply  lost  on  the  trail  west,  hurrying  through  the  country  in  fear  of  the 
Indians,  and  for  that  reason  could  never  go  back  and  find  the  place  again. 

HOW  THE  GOLD  FOURED  INTO  PORTLAND 

The  columns  of  the  Oregoniau  of  the  years  1861  and  62  are  the  best  record 
of  the  great  gold  hunting  stampede  to  and  successful  hunt  for  gold  in  Eastern 
Oregon  that  exists;  and  the  columns  of  that  paper  are  noV  freely  used  to  fur- 
nish the  record  of  mining  experiences  and  successes  for  this  work.  The  follow- 
ing extracts  are  taken  without  alteration  or  abbreviation  and  credited  to  the 
Oregonian  of  50  years  ago.  In  estimating  amounts  of  gold  found  the  reader 
will  bear  in  mind  that  an  ounce  of  miner's  gold  was  worth  sixteen  dollars. 

Prom  the  Oregonian,  July  23,  1861 : — There  ai'e  now  arriving  in  this  city 
by  steamer,  stage  and  private  conveyance  hinidreds  of  miners  on  their  way  to  the 
mines.  The  Julia  on  ilonday  was  crowded.  "We  learn  from  persons  from  Yreka 
that  the  exodus  from  Northern  California  is  immense.  Parties  are  constantly 
going  to  the  mines  by  way  of  Klamath  Lake.  The  Red  Bluffs  Independent  says 
there  is  a  perfect  stampede  from  that  section.  Many  from  the  LTpper  Willam- 
ette go  by  the  different  roads  across  the  Cascades.  By  the  Julia  last  evening 
$28,000  came  down  from  the  Nez  Perces  mines. 

April,  1862 : — The  Mountaineer  tells  the  story  that  a  miner,  while  on  his  way 
to  Salmon  river,  struck  rich  diggings  and  that  having  no  bag  for  his  gathered 
gold,  he  filled  one  of  his  India  rubber  boots  with  it  and  at  the  last  date  was  filling 
the  other. 

The  steamers  from  San  Prancisco  bring  large  numbers  bound  for  the  mines 
and  the  overland  stage  comes  every  day  loaded  with  miners.  Besides,  we  have 
reason  to  believe,  that  numbers  of  miners  from  California  take  the  route  east 
of  the  mountains  to  AValla  AValla.  There  will  probably  be  nearly  or  about  5,000 
persons  at  the  mines  by  October.  Tracy  &  Company  brought  down  last  night, 
per  steamer  Julia,  $12,000  in  gold  dust. 

December  4,  1861 : — Walla  Walla  News — A  man  by  the  name  of  Wiser, 
from  Benton  County,  took  out  $5,000  in  two  days  in  Baboon  Gulch,  Salmon 
river  diggings. 

The  Washington  Statesman  made  its  first  appearance  at  Walla  Walla  on 
Friday  1st. 

Provisions  are  very  high  at  Oro  Fiiio.  Flour  30  cents  pn-  pound ;  liaeon,  sugar 
and  apples,  50  cents  per  pound. 


498  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

Nine  men,  packers,  came  down  on  the  Julia  witli  from  $50,000  to  $60,000  in 
hand,  the  result  of  their  summer's  work  in  the  mines.  Tracy  &  Co.'s  express 
brought  down  $45,000.  The  whole  amount  which  was  brought  down  by  the 
Julia  was  about  $150,000. 

October  28th,  1861 :— On  the  13th  inst.  as  Crayton,  Bledsoe,  D.  C.  Cole- 
man, and  others  seven  in  all,  had  reached  about  eight  miles  on  the  Salmon  River 
trail,  beyond  the  Cold  Springs,  they  were  stopped  by  Eagle  of  the  Light  with 
a  party  of  about  60  men,  40  of  whom  were  Snake  Indians  and  the  balance  Nez 
Perces.  Eagle  of  the  Light  positively  forbid  them  to  cross  his  country,  and 
threatened  death  if  they  persisted,  and  declared  that  he  was  going  to  drive  all 
the  whites  out  of  his  country.  Crayton  who  spoke  Nez  Perces  somewhat  argued 
with  him  for  an  hour,  but  to  no  purpose.  The  Indian's  determination  was  fixed. 
Whereupon  the  party  returned  a  short  distance  and  camped  to  wait  for  the 
miners  to  come  up  so  that  their  force  would  be  strong  enough  to  push  their  way 
through.    Since  that  time  I  have  not  heard  that  the  party  has  moved. 

From  the  Oregonian  of  March  31,  1862  :—H.  Miller  ^^Tites  to  the  Walla 
Walla  Statesman  under  date  of  Florence,  January  14: 

"Scarcely  a  miner  here  would  stay  by  a  claim  if  he  were  not  sui'e  that  it 
would  pay  him  $25;00  a  day  in  good  weather.  During  the  Fall,  when  rockers 
could  be  used  to  advantag-e  instances  of  miners  making  from  $300  to  $500  a  day 
were  common  and  less  than  $50  was  not  spoken  of.  As  high  as  140  ounces  a 
day  have  been  taken  out. 

' '  The  body  of  a  man  was  found  a  short  time  ago  on  Camas  prairie  partially 
devoured  by  the  wolves.  No  doubt  Spring  will  disclose  the  bodies  of  many  who 
have  perished  there." 

A  party  of  roughs  recently  attempted  to  trample  on  the  mining  laws  in 
Florence  in  a  disputed  claim  affair  when  suddenly  about  200  resolute  men 
armed  with  rifles  and  shotguns  came  down  upon  them  unawares  and  immediately 
put  a  stop  to  their  malicious  designs. 

January  31,  1862 : — A  letter  from  Florence,  Salmon  River,  dated  Decem- 
ber 22,  to  the  Mountaineer,  contains  this  interesting  item: 

"Another  rich  claim  has  been  opened  by  Messrs.  Wilson  &  Tolly  on  Summit 
Flat  near  town,  in  which  two  men  with  a  rocker  are  averaging  from  75  to  100 
ounces  per  day.  Warren  &  Co.,  are  also  doing  well  about  50  yards  from  here, 
making  about  $100  to  $500  per  day  to  the  man  and  othera  doing  nearly  as  well. 
Claims  that  pay  from  $20  to  $50  per  day  to  the  man  sell  for  $300  to  $500.  Flour 
is  selling  at  from  50  to  75  cents ;  bacon,  75  cents  to  $1,  and  good  siapply  on  hand. 
Weather  very  cold,  and  tonight  snow  is  falling  fast;  it  is  now  about  two  and 
one-half  feet  deep.  Yet  pack  trains  are  arriving  daily  and  there  is  no  fear  of 
scarcity  of  provisions  this  Winter." 

Mr.  Wiser  of  Yamhill,  is  a  successful  miner.  Last  Fall  with  two  others,  he 
purchased  a  gold  claim  on  the  Salmon  river,  for  which  the  company  agreed  to 
pay  $6,000.  They  worked  the  claim  two  months,  and  his  part  of  the  gains  was 
$12,000.  He  left  the  claim  with  his  partners,  who  will  work  it  this  Winter,  if 
they  can,  and  at  anj'  rate  keep  off  trespassers.  He  estimates  that  the  claim  will 
be  worth  to  each  of  the  partners  at  least  $100,000. 

From  Mr.  L.  Day,  Tracy  &  Co.'s  express  messenger,  who  arrived  last  night 
on  the  Julia,  we  learn  that  he  brought  $30,000  in  gold  dust ;  also  that  news  had 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  499 

been  reci'ix  rd  \'vou\  Powder  f.'iver  tli.at  diggings  had  been  struck  at  that  locality 
paying  I'l'om  10  to  20  ounces  per  day  to  the  hand,  and  that  the  gold  is  very 
coarse,  iiiuch  resemliliiig  the  Calil'oriiia  stock. 

The  Dalles,  February  6,  1862. 

"Mr.  Jones  arrived  yesterday  with  the  express  all  right.  Seven  men  arrived 
last  evening  frona  AValla  Walla,  part  oi:  them  with  feet  badly  frozen.  They  left 
Mr.  IJi-own  of  Walla  W^alla  on  the  road  between  John  Day's  and  the  Deschutes, 
exhausted.  They  buried  him  alive  in  the  snow,  but  with  both  feet  frozen. 
Messrs.  Palmer  and  Hatchet  went  from  Deschutes  to  his  assistance,  but  returned 
last  evening  without  find  him.  Brown  had  about  30  pounds  of  gold  dust  with 
him.  The  party  left  William  Albright  at  John  Day's  with  450  express  letters 
and  70  pounds  of  dust. 

Mr.  Jones  left  here  this  evening  with  two  men  to  bring  the  express  through 
and  if  possible,  to  find  and  bring  in  Mr.  Brown.  This  man  is  of  the  firm  of 
Brown  &  Stanifore. 

"A  party  arrived  this  evening  from  Grande  Ronde.  One  of  them  found 
Brown  on  the  road  and  slept  with  him  all  night  (4th)  left  him  at  10  A.  M.,  (5th) 
buried  in  the  snow  and  alive,  but  unable  to  use  his  feet  at  all.  There  are  reports 
of  others  frozen  on  the  road,  but  none  definite.  No  snow  in  Grande  Ronde  Val- 
ley. Frozen  men  all  doing  well.  Moody  will  have  all  the  toes  of  his  right  foot 
taken  off  tomorrow  by  Dr.  H.  L.  Roberts." 

Mr.  Schriver,  from  the  Grande  Ronde,  as  late  as  the  12th  of  January,  brings 
a  letter  from  which  are  made  these  extracts : 

' '  All  the  settlers  in  here  now  live  at  one  place,  for  protection  from  the  Snakes. 
There  are  five  log  houses  here,  ten  men,  two  women,  and  eight  children,  who 
comprise  all  the  actual  settlers  in  the  valley.  Ten  or  twelve  men  are  wintering 
at  the  Powder  River  mines,  to  be  ready  for  operations  in  the  Spring.  I  have  seen 
good  prospects  from  there.  Mr.  Coffin,  of  Portland  is  going  to  build  a  mill  here. 
They  have  got  the  millsite  taken  up  and  some  improvements  on  it." 

"Walla  Walla — Great  distress  exists  here  on  account  of  the  severity  of  the 
weather.  A  number  of  the  stores  and  saloons  are  closed,  for  the  reason  that  the 
proprietors  are  unable  to  procure  wood  to  keep  them  warm.  Wood  is  selling  at 
$30.00  per  cord :  flour  $24.00  per  barrel ;  board  $15  per  week,  and  other  things 
in  proportion. 

All  along  the  road  between  the  Dalles  and  Walla  Walla  provisions  are  almost 
exhausted.  On  the  Umatilla  and  at  Willow  Creek  the  settlers  are  living  exclu- 
sively on  beef,  and  must  continue  to  do  so  until  relief  can  be  sent  to  them  from 
The  Dalles. 

Januarj'  20,  1862 : — From  the  Mountaineer  extra  of  January  20th :  On  Mon- 
day last,  about  noon,  John  James,  Esq.,  in  charge  of  Tracy  &  Co.'s  express,  ar- 
rived at  The  Dalles,  bringing  with  him  300  pounds  of  treasure  and  a  large 
number  of  letters.  From  Mr.  James  we  learn  many  particulars  of  the  ill-starred 
trip  in  which  Jagger,  Allphin.  and  Davis  lost  their  lives  and  so  many  othei'S  suf- 
fered untold  horrors. 

On  Sunday  morning,  January  12,  Messrs.  James  Gay,  W.  H.  Moody,  F.  M. 
Allphin,  and  Pat  Davis  started  out  to  reach  the  Deschutes  on  foot.  After  in- 
credible suffering  the  first  two  succeeded  in  reaching  their  destination.  The  party 
had  not  made  more  than  four  miles  from  the  John  Day  when  Mr.  Allphin  gave 


500  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

out  and  lay  down  by  the  side  of  the  traih  Mr.  Davis  proceeded  probably  a  mile 
further,  when  he  became  exhausted  and  turned  back.  Neither  of  these  men  have 
since  been  heard  from  and  the  probabilities  are  that  they  died  that  night. 

On  Wednesday,  January  15,  Messrs.  J.  Mulkey,  T.  S.  Jeffries,  H.  "Wellington, 
Wm.  Riddle,  Dougal  McDonald,  J.  E.  Glover,  C.  Nichols,  H.  S.  Niles,  and  I.  E. 
Jagger  left  John  Days  for  the  Deschutes.  They  were  out  two  days  and  two 
nights.  Jagger  was  the  first  one  of  his  party  that  gave  out.  He  was  left  on 
the  road,  about  15  miles  from  the  Deschutes,  and,  although  not  frozen,  was  utterly 
exhausted.  Mr.  Wellington,  the  last  man,  left  him  at  daybreak  on  the  16th. 
Of  this  party  Niles  is  the  only  one  that  escaped  uninjured.  Messrs.  Riddle  and 
Jeffries  are  frozen  all  over,  and  the  balance  suffered  greatly  in  their  hands,  feet 
and  ears.    Jagger,  without  doubt,  has  perished. 

"Gold, — many  hunted;  sweat,  bled  and  died  for  gold." 
-     ' '  The  Days  of  old,  the  days  of  Gold 
Have  passed  away  as  a  tale  that  is  told ; 
But  their  memory  dear  will  linger  still. 
And  brighter  grow  down  life's  long  hill. 
In  forty-nine,  and  the  days  of  old. 
You  dug  your  wealth  from  the  Mountains  bold. 
But  the  days  of  old,  and  the  days  of  Gold, 
Have  passed  away,  as  a  tale  that  is  told. ' ' 

The  foregoing  is  the  history  of  primitive  placer  mining  in  Oregon.  After  the 
shallow  placers  were  worked  out  by  pans,  rockers,  and  sluices,  then  came  the 
larger  operators  with  hydraulic  pipes,  giants,  reservoirs  and  long  canals  to  bring 
in  water  to  wash  down  vast  deposits  of  gold  bearing  gravel  in  hills  and  bench 
deposits.  And  after  that  came  the  last  and  most  perfect  work  of  man's  inventive 
ability  to  find  and  reclaim  the  grains  of  gold  from  mother  earth — the  power 
dredge.  This  aggregation  of  steam  power,  dredges,  elevators,  rockers  and  screens 
floating  boatlike  in  a  channel  excavated  by  the  great  machine  itself  is  now  at 
work  not  only  in  Oregon  but  all  over  the  world  wherever  placer  gold  is  found  in 
quantities  which  justifies  the  expenditure  of  building  a  dredge  that  may  cost  fifty 
or  one  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

After  the  shallow  placers  were  exhausted  the  miners  turned  their  attention 
to  the  discovery  of  the  sources  from  which  the  placers  were  fed — the  veins  of 
gold  bearing  quartz  in  the  hills.  Much  monej^  has  been  expended  in  Oregon  in 
sinking  shafts,  running  tunnels  and  building  mills  to  crush  the  gold  bearing  rock 
that  has  been  lost  because  the  vein  deposits  would  fail,  the  ore  prove  refractory, 
or  too  poor  to  work  at  a  profit.  The  greatest  discovery,  and  one  which  has  enabled 
miners  to  work  over  at  a  profit  piles  of  tailings  from  abandoned  mines  and  quartz 
mills,  and  work  low  grade  and  refractory  ores,  is  what  is  called  the  "Cyanide 
Process. ' '  This  was  simply  the  use  of  the  chemical  known  as  the  Cyanide  of 
Potassium  (a  deadlj^  poison)  to  recover  fine  pax'ticles  of  gold,  and  gold  allied 
with  various  minerals  that  would  not  give  it  up  to  any  other  re-agent.  The  cyan- 
ide process  of  saving  fine  gold  in  quartz  mill  treatment  was  invented,  discovered 
and  proved  at  Glasgow,  Scotland,  in  1888 ;  and  was  practically  proved  and  devel- 
oped at  the  Crown  Mines  at  Karangahake  in  Australia  in  the  year  1889.  Thomas 
Melville,  an  old  Auckland  Australian  resident,  floated' the  Crown  Mines  Company 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  501 

ill  fllasgow,  and  after  doing  so,  in  company  with  some  of  his  shareholders  they 
tested  the  new  Cyanide  process  discovery  in  a  small  way,  and  found  it  so  success- 
ful that  it  was  then  adopted  at  the  Crown  mine  mills  in  Australia ;  and  from  that 
tH>f>:iiiiiine:  it  spread  all  over  the  world  wherever  there  were  gold  mines. 

Besides  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Oregon  mines  noticed  above,  gold  has  been 
found  in  the  State  in  many  other  places,  the  largest  and  most  promising  deposits 
being  at  the  Bohemia  mines  in  Lane  County.  Here  a  large  amount  of  money 
has  been  expended  not  only  on  the  mines,  but  on  wagon  roads  and  a  railroad  to 
ciieapen  transportation ;  and  the  prospects  are  that  one  of  the  largest  gold  mines 
will  be  developed  here. 

Gold  has  also  been  found  at  the  head  of  the  Clackamas  river  in  Clackamas 
County,  at  the  head  of  the  Nehalem  river  in  Tillamook  County,  on  the  Chewaucan 
mountain  in  Lake  County,  and  gold,  silver  and  lead  have  been  found  in  the 
Cascade  Range  on  the  headwaters  of  the  North  Santiara  river  in  Marion  County. 
The  most  beautiful  specimens  of  wire — natural  wire  gold,  in  the  world  is  found 
in  these  last  named  mines. 

METAL  PRODUCTION  IN  OREGON 

In  Oregon,  according  to  Charles  G.  Yale,  of  the  U.  S.  Geological  Survey,  the 
total  value  of  the  mine  production  of  gold,  silver,  and  copper  in  1910  was  $700,- 
676,  against  $827,001  in  1909,  which,  however,  also  included  the  value  of  the 
lead  produced  in  that  year.  The  ore  treated  in  1910  was  82,132  short  tons,  against 
59,281  tons  in  1909.  The  production  of  gold  decreased  from  $781,964  in  1909 
to  $679,488  in  1910 ;  that  of  silver  increased  from  27,827  oz.  valued  at  $14,470, 
to  35,978  oz.  valued  at  $19,428 ;  that  of  copper  fell  off  from  235,000  lb.  valued  at 
$20,550,  to  13,861  lb.  valued  at  $1760;  and  that  of  lead  declined  from  400  lb.  in 
1909  to  nothing  in  1910.  Baker  County  led  in  gold  production  with  an  output 
of  $401,002,  mostly  from  deep  mines,  followed  by  Josephine  with  $150,048  from 
both  placer  and  deep  mines.  All  of  the  copper  production  and  29,835  oz.  of  the 
silver  output  also  came  from  Baker  County,  whose  output  of  gold,  silver  and 
copper  was  valued  at  $418,873  in  1910.  The  combined  gold  output  from  south- 
western Oregon  in  1910  was  $209,324,  of  which  $130,103  was  placer  gold.  The 
placer  gold  output  of  this  region  decreased  $55,149  in  1910.  The  mines  of  north- 
eastern Oregon  produced  $470,164  in  gold  in  1910  of  which  the  placer  yield  was 
$40,822  and  the  deep-mine  yield  .$429,342.  The  placers  of  this  region  showed 
an  increase  of  $4,756  in  1910  and  the  deep  mines  a  decrease  of  .$42,311.  The 
total  number  of  active  mines  shows  little  change,  but  some  of  the  larger  ones 
have  become  less  productive.  The  hydraulic  mines  are  the  most  productive 
placers  and  their  number  is  the  greatest.  The  deep  mines  of  the  state  are  yield- 
ing large  quantities  of  milling  ore,  but  the  grade  of  ore  worked  has  declined 
nearly  one-half.  Baker  County  is  still  the  largest  producer  of  gold.  It  has 
alinut  50  or  60  producing  mines  about  half  of  which  are  placers. 

OTHER  MINERAL  DEPOSITS 

Besides  gold,  Oregon  has  promising  deposits  of  cement,  copper  and  soda,  all 
of  which  are  now  in  a  fair  way  for  successful  development.    The  cement  deposits 


502  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

of  Baker  county  have  been  taken  up  by  practical  manufacturers  of  cement,  and 
active  work  to  develop  the  deposits  over  a  large  scale  is  now  organized.  Of  the 
copper  deposits  in  Baker  and  Josephine  Counties  regular  shipments  of  ore  or 
matte  has  been  going  on  for  some  time.  And  of  the  deposits  of  soda  in  Lake 
County,  the  state  has  leased  the  Summer  Lake  deposit  to  a  California  Company, 
while  the  Oregon  Borax  Company  is  now  at  work  to  develop  the  deposits  in 
Alkali  Lake  in  the  same  County. 

There  are  many  Salt  Springs  in  the  State  but  they  have  never  been  utilized 
on  a  commercial  basis. 

The  discovery  of  paying  mines  has  been  a  powerful  factor  in  the  settlement 
and  upbuilding  of  the  state.  In  the  first  place  it  settled  the  Indian  question  in 
both  Southern  and  Eastern  Oregon.  The  gold  miners  were  a  very  positive 
lot  of  people.  All  they  asked  was  to  be  let  alone  to  dig  gold;  and  when  the 
Indians  would  not  agree  to  that  proposition  the  tug  of  war  came.  Either  the 
gold  miners  must  go,  or  the  Indian  must  go — and  it  was  the  Indian  that  had 
to  go.  In  the  second  place  the  mines  furnished  a  reliable  currency  on  which  to 
do  business,  and  plenty  of  it;  and  that  started  the  wheels  of  commerce,  built 
the  steamboats  on  the  Columbia,  gave  Oregon's  chief  city  its  first  substantial 
and  enduring  start  as  the  commercial  metropolis  of  the  Columbia  river  valley. 
In  the  third  place,  the  mines  gave  many  a  hard  pressed  farmer  the  means  to 
pay  ofi:  his  debts  and  to  build  a  comfortable  home  and  improve  his  farm.  In  the 
fourth  place  it  gave  a  start  to  the  towns  in  the  mining  regions,  like  Jackson- 
ville, Baker,  La  Grande  and  The  Dalles.  All  these  towns,  and  many  others, 
got  their  start  on  gold  miners'  gold,  and  they  have  been  powerful  agents  in  or- 
ganizing society,  building  school  houses,  churches,  highways  and  all  the  means 
of  improving  the  country  and  inviting  settlements.  The  gold  miners  gold  was 
a  positive  and  enduring  benefit  and  blessing  to  the  State.  Therefore,  comfort, 
and  good  health  to  the  hardy  old  prospector  and  miner ;  and  may  his  days  be 
long  in  the  land  that  his  courage  and  toil  reclaimed  from  barbarism  and  deliv- 
ered over  to  civilization. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
1843—1911 

INTERNAL  IMPROVEMENTS THE  FIRST  FERRY  AND  CANAL THE  FIRST  MAIL  CAR- 
RIERS— THE  FIRST  STEAMBOATS — THE  FIRST  EXPRESS  LINES — THE  FIRST  TELE- 
GRAPH— THE  FIRST  RAILROADS 

The  work  of  internal  improvements  in  Oregon  commenced  in  the  Legisla- 
tion of  the  Provisional  Government  on  June  22,  1844.  The  first  propositions 
were  for  grants  of  franchises  to  John  McLoughliu,  to  Hugh  Burns,  and  to 
Robert  Moore  to  establish  a  ferry  across  the  Willamette  river  at  Oregon  City. 
Burns  being  the  owner  of  a  townsite  on  the  west  side  of  the  river  succeeded  in 
getting  the  franchise. 

At  the  same  time  an  effort  was  made  to  give  McLoughlin  a  franchise  to  con- 
struct a  Canal  and  Locks  around  the  Falls  in  the  river.  This  proposition  was 
renewed  from  time  to  time  in  favor  of  McLoughlin,  but  never  adopted.  The 
same  proposition  was  afterwards  in  different  Legislatures  revived  from  time 
to  time  but  never  passed  imtil  1872  when  an  Act  was  passed  by  the  legislature 
giving  to  a  Corporation  controlled  by  Bernard  Goldsmith  and  Joseph  Teal,  a 
state  subsidy  of  .$200,000,  and  the  necessary  legal  rights  to  prosecute  the  work. 
Under  that  Act  the  Canal  was  built  and  ha^  been  operated  down  to, the  present 
time,  developing  an  enormous  water  power  in  the  interest  of  private  manufac- 
turing corporations,  as  well  as  electrical  power  generation.  To  get  rid  of  those 
franchises  given  away  by  the  State  Legislature  and  made  valuable  by  a  gift  of 
State  money,  and  make  the  Canal  free  to  all  common  carriers,  the  State  and 
National  Governments  has  been  compelled  to  pay  the  private  corporation  over 
a  half  million  dollars,  getting  nothing  for  the  money  but  the  Canal,  and  leaving 
in  the  hands  of  the  private  corporations  the  water  power  rights  of  much  greater 
value  than  the  Canal.  A  lot  of  inexperienced  old  ladies,  or  ten  year  old  chil- 
dren could  certainly  have  done  better  for  the  State  than  the  Governors  and 
Legislators  that  represented  the  State  in  this  stupid,  if  not  criminal  manage- 
ment of  the  public  interests. 

The  first  wagon  road  proposed  in  the  Provisional  Legislature  was  on  June 
24th,  1844,  when  JNIr.  Love  joy  presented  a  petition  from  residents  of  Yamhill 
asking  for  the  location  and  construction  of  a  road  from  the  Yamhill  river  south 
to  the  forks  of  the  "Willamette,  about  one  hundred  miles. 

The  first  carriers  of  letters  or  mail  generally,  were  private  persons  acting 
independently  of  any  government  authority  and  charging  their  own  rates  for 
the  service;  the  usual  charge  for  carrying  a  letter  from  Southern  Oregon  to 
California  was  fifty  cents.  After  the  gold  mines  was  discovered  in  Eastern 
Oregon,  private  persons  engaged  in  carrying  the  mail,  and  they  were  however 

503 


504  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

soon  superseded  by  the  messengers  of  the  Express  Companies  carrying  both 
mail  and  gold  dust.  The  first  mail  carriers  in  the  Willamette  valley  usually 
started  from  Oregon  City  going  up  one  side  of  the  valley  and  down  the  other 
side  distributing  their  mail  from  house  to  house,  or  leaving  it  at  central  points 
with  the  pioneer  storekeepers. 

The  first  mails  carried  by  authority  of  the  United  States  in  Oregon  was  in 
the  closing  months  of  1847.  Hugh  Burns  had  been  executing  a  contract  with 
the  Provisional  Government  in  1846  to  carry  the  mail  every  six  months  from 
Oregon  to  Weston,  Missouri,  for  fifty  cents  for  each  single  letter  sheet ;  and  other 
persons  had  in  much  the  same  way  been  carrying  letters  to  parts  of  the  Willam- 
ette valley  and  down  to  Astoria.  But  the  authority  of  the  Provisional  Gov- 
ernment was  merely  nominal.  In  1847  the  U.  S.  Postal  Department  appointed 
John  M.  Shively  Special  Postal  Agent  for  Oregon,  and  he  thereupon  advertised 
and  let  contracts  to  carry  the  U.  S.  Mails  from  Oregon  city  to  Astoria,  and  from 
Oregon  City  to  Marysville,  which  is  now  known  as  Corvallis. 

The  next  enterprise  after  the  mail  carriers,  and  even  ante-dating  them  some- 
what was  the  transportation  on  the  rivers  by  little  boats  propelled  by  sails  or 
oars  as  the  necessity  of  the  case  required.  There  was  a  regular  line  of  these 
public  carriers  between  Oregon  City  and  Fort  Vancouver;  and  at  all  times 
boatmen  could  be  hired  for  special  service  to  carry  freight  or  passengers. 

THE  FIRST  STEAMBOATS 

Out  of  the  sail  boat  traffic  grew  the  necessity  for  larger  accomodations,  and 
the  ambition  of  the  townsite  proprietors  soon  formulated  the  scheme  for  the  first 
steamboat.  For  the  supremacy  and  to  be  first  on  the  water  with  a  steam  pro- 
pelled craft,  Astoria  and  Milwaukie  were  rivals.  Oregon  City,  Vancouver  and 
Portland  were  even  larger  and  more  pretentious  towns ;  but  Astoria  and  old  Mil- 
waukie had  the  superior  energy  and  courage  for  the  venture. 

There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  discussion  as  to  whom  was  due  the  credit  for 
building  and  operating  the  first  American  steamboat  on  the  rivers  of  Oregon.  As 
the  man  is  still  living  in  Portland  who  knows  all  about  this  history,  we  will  give 
his  story  of  the  whole  matter  and  settle  the  question  for  all  time. 

As  to  the  building  of  the  old  Lot  Whitcomb,  Jacob  Kamm  can  truthfully  say 
"all  of  which  I  saw,  and  a  part  of  which  I  was."  The  Lot  Whitcomb  was 
launched  at  the  town  of  Milwaukie,  six  miles  above  Portland  on  Christmas  day, 
1850,  now  sixty-two  years  ago.  In  his  notice  of  the  early  steamboats.  Judge  Strong 
seems  to  think  that  the  Columbia,  a  boat  projected  by  General  Adair,  and  built 
at  upper  Astoria  in  1850,  was  the  first  boat.  But  that  fact  can 't  be  well  decided 
between  the  two  contestants  for  the  honor,  as  both  boats  were  built  in  the  same 
year,  and  there  is  no  accessible  evidence  showing  which  boat  ' '  took  to  the  water ' ' 
first.  Strong  says  that  the  mechanics  building  the  Columbia  were  paid  sixteen 
dollars  a  day  for  their  work,  and  the  common  laborers  handling  lumber  were  paid 
from  five  to  eight  dollars  a  day  in  gold  dust.  They  certainly  fared  better  than 
the  men  working  on  the  Whitcomb,  for  they  got  no  pay  until  the  boat  was  run- 
ning and  earning  something,  and  then  they  had  to  take  pay  in  wheat,  and  farm- 
ers produce,  and  convert  it  into  cash  or  ' '  store  pay ' '  as  best  they  could. 

The  history  of  the  Lot  Whitcomb  is  mixed  up  Anth  the  struggle  between 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  505 

rival  towns  for  the  location  of  the  future  eity.  Mr.  Lot  Whiteomb,  one  of  the  most 
energetic  and  ambitious  men  of  early  Oregon  pioneer  days,  had  located  his  land 
claim  on  the  present  site  of  the  town  of  Milwaukee  in  1847,  and  with  the  aid  of 
Captain  Joseph  Kellogg,  who  arrived  in  the  fall  of  1848,  started  in  to  build 
a  city.  He  had  got  together  enough  machinerj'  to  build  a  little  saw  mill,  and 
was  shipping  little  "lots"  of  lumber  to  the  embryo  town  of  San  Francisco, 
in  '49  and  '50;  the  profits  on  which  were  so  large,  that  he  was  enabled  to 
liuy  the  old  bark  Lausanne  that  had  brought  the  fifty-two  Methodist  mis- 
sionaries out  here.  In  the  Lausanne  were  a  pair  of  engines  and  all  the 
necessary  machinery  for  a  steamboat.  These  engines  had  evidently  been  sent 
out  in  the  bark  from  New  York,  for  the  express  purpose  of  building  a  steam- 
boat on  the  Willamette  or  Columbia  rivers,  and  had  been  forgotten,  or  over- 
looked as  not  necessary  to  the  Methodist  mission;  and  so  Whitcomb  looked 
upon  his  "find"  in  the  bottom  of  the  ship  as  an  act  of  Providence  to  enable  him 
to  build  a  steamboat,  and  with  her  aid  annihilate  the  pretensions  of  the  little 
town  of  Portland.  Whitcomb  lost  no  time  in  getting  those  engines  to  Milwaukie 
and  made  all  possible  haste  to  build  his  boat.  He  had  taken  time  by  the  fore- 
lock and  hunted  up  a  man  at  Sacramento,  California,  that  was  qiialified  to  build 
a  steamboat.  That  man  he  found  in  the  person  of  a  young  man  named  Jacob 
Kamm,  who  was  born  in  Switzerland,  and  coming  to  the  United  States  and  to  St. 
Louis  had  learned  the  business  of  an  engineer  on  the  J\Iississippi  river  steamboats 
from  the  bottom  up,  and  had  his  papers  to  show  his  qualifications.  Whitcomb  at 
once  engaged  Mr.  Kamm.  and  brought  him  to  Oregon  to  put  up  the  engines  and 
boilers,  and  put  all  the  machinery  in  the  boat. 

This  was  a  great  opening  for  the  young  engineer,  and  Jacob  Kamm  was  the 
man  to  fully  appreciate  it  and  make  the  most  of  his  opportunity.  Young,  am- 
bitious to  succeed,  industrious,  frugal,  and  thoroughly  conscientious  in  the  dis- 
charge of  every  dut.y,  and  in  protecting  and  promoting  the  interests  of  his  em- 
ployer, he  won  the  confidence  of  everybody,  and  his  fortune  was  made  in  the 
good  name  and  good  standing  he  secured  from  this  first  employment  in  Oregon. 
So  that  from  that  time  on  Jacob  Kamm  never  lacked  employment  at  the  highest 
wages,  nor  friends,  nor  chances  to  get  ahead  in  the  battle  of  life. 

While  Mr.  Kamm  was  entrusted  with  the  most  important  work  of  putting  in 
and  operating  the  machinery  of  the  new  boat,  Mr.  W.  L.  Hanscom  was  employed 
to  build  the  hull  and  cabin.  All  hands  worked  together  with  a  hearty  good  will 
to  complete  the  boat  and  make  the  best  showing  possible;  although  the  reputed 
owners.  Lot  Whitcomb  and  Berryman  Jennings,  were  in  such  straitened  circum- 
stances as  to  be  scarcely  able  to  pay  the  board  bills  of  the  men ;  having  expended 
all  their  means  to  the  purchase  of  the  engines  and  machinery.  The  boat  was  prac- 
tically finished  and  launched  on  Christmas  day,  1850.  Wm.  Henry  Harrison 
Hall  was  employed  as  pilot,  Jacob  Kamm  as  engineer,  while  the  builder,  Hanscom, 
acted  as  master  in  running  the  boat  until  she  was  paid  for  and  the  necessary 
papers  issued  by  the  collector  of  customs  at  Astoria.  No  authority  from  the  gov- 
ernment could  be  had  to  run  the  boat  until  the  evidence  was  filed  in  the  custom 
house  that  the  men  who  built  the  boat  had  all  been  paid.  Here  w^as  a  veritable 
"snag"  right  in  front  of  the  first  steamboat  that  was  about  as  bad  as  a  hole 
in  he'-  bottom.  The  collector  of  customs  might  wink  .at  some  violation  of  law, 
and  allow  Hanscom  and  Kamm  to  run  her  up  and  down  the  Willamette,  and  over 
to  Vancouver,  and  down  to  St.  Helens,  but  the  Whitcomb  nuist  not  dare  to  venture 


,  506  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

down  to  the  Astoria  custom  house  without  the  receipts  in  full  of  all  labor,  machin- 
erj'  and  material  bills.  Some  high  financing  had  to  be  done,  and  done  quickly. 
So  Whiteomb  and  Jennings  formed  a  syndicate — the  first  syndicate  in  Oregon — 
and  got  Abernethy  to  head  the  paper,  and  then  circulated  it  among  the  wheat 
growing  farmers  up  in  the  valley  and  they  subscribed  dollars  payable  in  wheat ; 
and  finally  enough  cash  and  farmers'  produce  was  put  into  the  syndicate  to  pay 
for  Oregon 's  first  steamboat ;  Hanscom  took  cash  as  far  as  it  would  go,  and  wheat 
for  the  balance;  Kamm  took  wheat  and  sold  it  to  the  Oregon  City  merchants 
and  finally  everybody  that  had  a  dollar  against  the  boat  got  their  pay ;  Hanscom 
ran  her  down  to  Astoria,  filed  a  clear  bill  of  health  on  the  creditors'  account, 
and  General  Adair  issued  the  authority  to  run  on  the  Willamette  and  Columbia 
rivers;  and  the  Lot  "Whiteomb  took  the  head  of  the  fleet  of  the  hundreds  of  steam- 
boats that  have  followed  in  her  wake ;  and  John  C.  Ainsworth  was  appointed  her 
first  master. 

As  population  increased,  business  on  the  rivers  increased,  and  became  more 
remunerative,  while  the  stimulus  of  the  greater  business  in  the  future  incited 
others  to  try  their  luck  at  steamboating  Avhich  has  always  been  an  attractive  pur- 
suit in  new  countries,  where  there  were  navigable  rivers.  Other  boats  were  pro- 
jected and  built. 

On  December  29,  1860,  there  being  at  that  time  no  law  under  which  a  cor- 
poration could  be  organized  in  Oregon,  J.  C.  Ainsworth,  P.  F.  Bradford,  S.  G. 
Reed  and  R.  R.  Thompson  applied  to  the  legislature  of  Washing-ton  territory  and 
procured  a  charter  incorporating  said  persons  and  their  associates  in  the  name 
of  the  "Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company."  These  men  were  at  that  time 
owners  of  several  steamboats,  plying  on  the  Columbia  river  from  Portland  to 
Lewiston  in  Idaho  and  from  Portland  to  Astoria;  and  also  owners  of  a  port- 
age railroad  around  the  Cascades  of  the  Columbia.  And  after  so  incorporating 
the  Company  proceeded  to  build  a  railroad  14  miles  long  on  the  jDortage  to  pass 
The  Dalles  rapids  and  falls  of  the  Columbia.  These  portage  railroads  thus 
constructed  in  conxiection  with  the  steamboats  owned  by  the  Company,  gave  to 
that  Corporation  a  practical  monopoly  of  all  the  business  on  the  great  river,  and 
constituted  the  first  great  transportation  monopoly  in  Oregon.  Under  the  first 
organization,  the  stockholders  were  R.  R.  Thompson,  120  shares;  Ladd  &  Til- 
ton,  80;  T.  W.  Lyles,  76;  L.  W.  Coe,  60;  Jacob  Kamm,  57;  J.  C.  Ainsworth,  40; 
A.  H.  Barker,  30;  S.  G.  Reed,  26;  Benjamin  Stark,  19;  Josiah  Myrick,  12; 
Richard  Williams,  7 ;  J.  W.  Ladd,  4 ;  G.  W.  Pope,  4 ;  J.  M.  Oilman,  4 ;  George 
W.  Hoyt,  3 ;  532  shares  at  $500  a  share,  making  $266,000.  On  October  18,  1862, 
the  company  was  reorganized  under  the  general  incorporation  law  of  Oregon 
with  the  following  shareholders:  Bradford  &  Co.,  738  shares;  R.  R.  Thompson, 
672 ;  Harrison  Olmstead,  558 ;  Jacob  Kamm,  354 ;  L.  W.  Coe,  336 ;  T.  W.  Lyles, 
210 ;  J.  C.  Ainsworth,  188 ;  A.  H.  Parker,  160 ;  S.  G.  Reed,  128 ;  Ladd  &  Tilton, 
78;  Josiah  Myrick,  66;  Richard  Williamis,  48;  A.  H.  Grenzebach,  52;  J.  W. 
Ladd,  48;  J.  M.  Gilman,  44;  P.  P.  Doland,  42;  E.  J.  Weekes,  42;  S.  G.  Reed 
Agent,  40 ;  J.  W.  Ladd  Agent,  40 ;  Joseph  Bailey,  36 ;  0.  Humason,  34 ;  J.  S. 
Ruckle,  24;  George  W.  Hoyt,  18 ;  Ladd  &  Tilton,  16 ;  J.  H.  Whittlesey,  8 ;  making 
a  total  of  3,988  shares  of  the  nominal  value  of  $1,994,000.  As  an  illustration  of 
the  earning  power  of  the  boats  at  the  rates  charged  for  freight,  fares  and  other 
services,  the  f ollo\\ing  transcript  is  taken  from  the  company 's  books  at  The  Dalles : 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  507 

For  the  steamboat  Col.  Wright,  for  March  27,  1862 $2,625.00 

For  the  steamboat  Co.  Wright,  for  March  28,  1862 2,446.00 

For  the  steamboat  Col.  Wright  for  March  31,  1862 1,570.00 

For  the  steamboat  Tenino,   for  April     9,   1862 1,405.00 

For  the  steamboat  Okaiiagon,  for  April  11,  1862 3,540.00 

For  the  steamboat  Okanogan,  for  April  15,  1862 1,622.30 

For  the  steamboat  Okauogau,  for  April  18,  1862 1,020.00 

For  the  steamboat  Tenino,    for   April   22,    1862 3,232.00 

For  the  steamboat  Okanogan,  for  April  25,  1862 3,630.00 

For  the  steamboat  Tenino,   for   April   27,    1862 3,289.00 

For  the  steamboat  Tenino,    for   April    29,    1862 2,595.00 

For  the  Steamboat  Tenino,    for   May      5,    1862 6,780.00 

For  the  steamboat  Okauogau,  for  May  11,  1862 2,145.00 

For  the  steamboat  Tenino,    for   May    13,    1862 10,945.00 

For  the  steamboat  Okauogau,  for  May  17,  1862 2,265.00 

For  the  steamboat  Okanogan,  for  May  26,  1862 6,615,00 

These  daily  receipts  were  for  up  the  river  passenger  tickets  only  iu  the  gold 
fever  rush  to  the  mines  of  that  year,  and  were  the  daily  sum  total  for  freight, 
passenger  fares,  meals  and  drinks  at"  the  bar.  On  single  up  trip  of  the  Tenino 
took  iu  $18,000.00. 

The  rates  of  freight  charged  were  "all  the  traffic  would  bear;"  and  for  meas- 
urement tons,  were 

From  Portland  to  The  Dalles,  121  miles,  per  ton ..$10.00 

From  Portland  to  Umatilla,   217   miles,   per  ton 20.00 

From  Portland  to  Wallula,    240   miles,    per   ton 25.00 

From  Portland  to  Lewiston,  407  miles,  per  ton 40.00 

Passenger  Charges 

Portland  to  The  Dalles $  5.00 

Portland  to  Umatilla 10.00 

Portland  to  Lewiston 20.00 

Owing  to  the  high  rates,  opposition  boats  were  started  from  time  to  time  on 
both  the  Columbia  and  Willamette  rivers ;  the  most  noteworthy  of  which  was  the 
People's  Transportation  Company  in  1862.  This  company  was  organized  by  C.  D. 
Kingsley,  David  McCully,  Leonard  White,  Stephen  Coffin  and  S.  T.  Church; 
of  which  Coffin  was  president,  A.  C.  R.  Shaw,  treasurer,  and  Church,  secretary. 
This  company  maintained  its  existence  against  the  big  monopoly  doing  a  fair  busi- 
ness and  serving  the  people  of  the  Willamette  valley  well  for  nearly  twelve  years, 
and  then  sold  out  to  Ben  Holladay,  who  will  be  noticed  further  along. 

By  1871,  the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad  was  in  the  zenith  of  its  prosperity 
and  desired  to  use  the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company  facilities  in  eounee- 
tion  with  their  enterprise.  They  proposed  to  purchase  a  control  of  the  Oregon 
Steam  Navigation  Company  stock,  aud  invited  an  interview  with  an  authorized 
committee  from  the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company  to  meet  in  New  York 
City.  Mr.  Thompson  and  Mr.  Ainsworth  were  appointed  with  authority  to 
sell.    They  met  the  company  in  New  York,  and  after  much  talk  and  frequent 


508  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

disagreements,  they  effected  the  sale  of  three-fourths  of  the  capital  stock  of 
the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company,  at  the  rate  of  $2,000,000  for  the  whole, 
taking  one-half  of  the  amount  in  N.  P.  R.  R.  Company  bonds  at  par  and  giv- 
ing easy  time  for  money  payments.  The  old  owners  of  the  company  retained 
one-fourth  of  the  stock  and  continued  in  the  management,  so  they  considered 
that  they  had  made  a  good  sale,  but  subsequent  events  proved  it  to  be  a  mistake. 
Through  the  failure  of  Jay  Cooke  &  Company,  in  1873,  the  Northern  Pacific 
was  forced  into  liquidation  and  the  bonds  that  the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation 
Company  directors  still  held  and  could  have  sold  for  cash  at  ninety  cents,  drop- 
ped to  ten  cents.  The  three-fourths  of  the  capital  sold  to  the  Northern  Pacific 
passed  into  the  hands  of  the  bankrupt  estate  of  Jay  Cooke  &  Company,  and 
here  it  remained  locked  up  for  a  long  time.  This  failure  served  to  shrink 
values  all  over  the  United  States.  The  result  was  that  Oregon  Steam  Naviga- 
tion Company  stock  went  down  in  the  crash  with  other  stocks.  A  plan  was 
adopted  by  the  trustees  of  the  estate  of  Jay  Cooke  &  Company  to  pay  its  creditors 
in  kind.  Each  creditor  accepting  the  proposition  received  fourteen  per  cent  of 
his  claim  in  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company  stock  at  forty  per  cent  of 
its  par  value.  This,  as  the  creditors  slowly  and  reluctantly  came  forward 
to  accept,  began  to  throw  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company  stock  on  the 
Philadelphia  and  New  York  markets.  Parties  taking  it  knew  nothing  about 
it,  and  offered  it  at  once  for  sale,  and  as  they  were  ignorant  of  its  value,  the 
Portland  directors  were  not  slow  in  improving  this  opportunity  to  buy  back 
a  sufficient  amount  as  would  again  give  them  control.  Some  of  it  was  pur- 
chased as  low  as  thirteen  cents  and  the  average  cost  of  enough  to  give  control 
was  about  twenty  cents  on  the  dollar,  so  in  the  end,  covering  a  period  of  about 
five  years,  they  found  themselves  the  owners  of  the  large  majority  of  the  stock 
at  about  half  the  amount  they  had  sold  for. 

In  1879,  Mr.  Villard  came  to  Oregon  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  purchas- 
ing the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company  property,  or  commencing  opposition. 
He  asked  J.  C.  Ainsworth  whether  he  and  his  associates  were  willing  to  sell.  Mr. 
Ainsworth  refused  to  take  less  than  $5,000,000.  An  inventory  of  the  company's 
property  was  made,  together  mtli  a  statement  of  the  earnings  for  several  years, 
with  an  offer  to  sell  50,320  shares  at  par.  The  directors  thought  it  was  too  big 
a  deal  for  Mr.  Villard  but  he  considered  it  a  bargain.  His  plan  was  to  form  a 
new  company,  the  Oregon  Railroad  and  Navigation  Company,  with  a  capital 
stock  of  $6,000,000  and  an  issue  of  $6,000,000  of  six  per  cent  bonds.  He  got 
an  option  till  October  1st,  by  paying  $100,000  in  cash,  which  called  for  40,320 
shares  of  stock  at  par,  to  pay  fifty  per  cent  cash,  twenty  per  cent  bonds  and 
thirty  per  cent  stock.  He  allowed  $1,000,000  stock  and  $1,200,000  in  bonds 
for  the  Oregon  Steamship  Company,  and  $2,000,000  stock  and  $2,500,000  bonds 
to  raise  the  cash  required  for  Ainsworth.  Leaving  $1,800,000  stock  and  $1,500,- 
000  bonds  for  the  purchase  of  thirty-five  miles  of  Walla  Walla  railroad  and 
Willamette  Valley  Transportation  &  Lock  Company.  $1,200,000  stock  and 
$800,000  bonds  were  reserved  for  new  steamers.  He  submitted  his  plans  to  Jay 
Gould,  but  got  a  cool  reception.  He  therefore  laid  the  proposition  before  his 
friends  in  the  east.  His  plan  was  to  unite  all  the  transportation  facilities  in 
Oregon.  He  asked  his  friends  to  join  in  exchanging  Oregon  Steamship  for 
Oregon  Railroad  &  Navigation  Company  securities,  and  to  subscribe  for  the 


THE  NEW  YORK 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  r)09 

required  cash  payments  for  bonds  at  ninety  with  a  bonus  of  seventy  per  cent  in 
stock.  He  received  a  prompt  response.  Thus  the  Oregon  Railroad  &  Navigation 
Company  grew  out  of  the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company,  and  the  Oregon 
Steam  Navigation  Company,  after  a  score  of  years  of  prosperity  unparalleled  in 
the  annals  of  steam  navigation,  passed  out  of  existence  in  1879.  The  Oregon 
Railroad  &  Navigation  Company  was  incorporated  June  13,  1879,  with  a  capi- 
talization of  $6,000,000,  divided  into  $100  shares.    Mr.  Villard  was  president. 

The  reference  to  Jay  Gould  above  revives  the  story  circulated  at  the  time 
that  when  the  United  States  was  proceeding  by  judicial  proceedings  in  the 
United  States  district  court  to  appropriate  a  right  of  way  for  the  canal  at  the 
Cascades,  and  the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company  was  resisting  the  pro- 
ceeding that  David  P.  Thompson,  who  had  no  love  for  the  Oregon  Steam  Naviga- 
tion Company,  sat  by  and  listened  to  the  testimony  of  Captain  Ainsworth,  and 
prompted  the  government  attorneys  to  compel  Ainsworth  to  tell  about  all  the  im- 
mense profits  of  the  company.  And  that  after  getting  it  on  record,  Thompson  sent 
the  figures  to  Villard,  who  telegraphed  a  sensational  stoi-y  to  the  western  papers 
saying  that  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad,  which  Gould  then  controlled,  would  im- 
mediately take  steps  to  extend  its  road  to  the  Columbia  river,  and  down  to  Port- 
land, thereby  expecting  and  intending  to  buy  the  0.  S.  N.  Company  for  a  song. 
But,  that  after  Gould  had  thus  flushed  the  game,  Villard  scurried  around  Wall 
Street,  got  cash  from  other  parties  and  rushed  to  Oregon  and  bought  out  Ains- 
worth &  Company  before  Gould  could  get  his  agent  out  here ;  making  a  good  il- 
lustration of  one  railroad  sharp-shaking  tlie  plum  tree  while  another,  just  a 
little  quicker  on  foot,  picked  up  the  plums. 

GREAT  OPPORTUNITIES 

When  the  great  field  of  virgin  soil,  rich  mines  and  great  forests  are  consid- 
ered, it  is  no  wonder  that  this  great  monopoly  so  greatly  prospered.  No  syndi- 
cate of  capitalists  ever  had  greater  opportunities.  And  while  they  made  mil- 
lions and  retired  with  great  fortunes,  yet  what  they  achieved  and  what  they 
took  away  was  but  a  drop  in  the  bucket  of  what  they  might  have  accomplished 
and  gained.  They  were  absolute  masters  of  all  the  country  east  of  the  Cascade 
mountains  in  Oregon,  Washington,  and  Idaho.  A  region  embracing  every  va- 
riety of  soil,  climate,  timber  and  natural  resources,  and  comprising  an  area  equal 
to  that  of  the  states  of  Maine,  Vermont,  New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts.  And 
yet  they  barely  touched  the  resources  of  wealth  along  the  margin  of  the  great 
river,  and  made  no  attempt  to  penetrate  the  rich  valleys  of  the  interior  with  cheap 
and  easily  constructed  feeder  railways.  They  made  so  much  money  out  of  so  small 
an  effort  that  the  glamor  of  the  great  wealth  blinded  their  eyes  to  the  greater 
possibilities  beyond  their  vision. 

THE   EXPRESS   CARRIERS 

The  carrying  of  mail  and  packages  antedated  the  United  States  mail  in 
Oregon  in  most  of  places ;  and  on  the  discovery  of  new  mines  was  carried  on  with 
much  energy  and  not  a  little  rivalry  between  the  pioneers  in  the  business.  The 
first  express  company  operating  in  Oi-egon  was  that  of  Todd  &  Co.,  which  com- 
menced business  in  1851,  and  sold  out  to  another  concern  in  the  same  line  named 


510  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Newell  &  Co.  in  1852.  The  same  year  Dugan  &  Co.,  which  was  allied  with 
Adams  &  Co.,  of  the  Atlantic  states,  commenced  business  in  Oregon.  As  busi- 
ness was  more  active  between  the  gold  camps  of  Southern  Oregon  and  the  lower 
towns  of  California,  the  express  business  was  large  and  important,  especially  in 
the  transportation  of  gold  ckist,  between  Jacksonville,  Oregon,  and  Shasta,  Cali- 
fornia, in  1852,  3  and  4.  On  this  line  T 'Vault's  Oregon  and  Shasta  express,  of 
which  Col.  T 'Vault,  who  had  been  postmaster  general  under  the  provisional 
government,  was  manager,  did  a  large  business.  In  1853  Adams  &  Co.,  supersed- 
ing Dugan  &  Co.,  commenced  business  in  Oregon  and  continued  until  the  better 
organized  Wells,  Fargo  &  Co.  came  into  the  Oregon  field  when  Adams  &  Co.,  and 
all  other  companies  retired  and  left  Wells,  Fargo  &  Co.  in  possession  of  the 
Oregon  business,  and  of  which  they  have  had  practically  a  monopoly  until  the 
present  day. 

THE  STAGE  LINES 

The  stage  line  service  followed  on  soon  after  the  establishment  of  the  express 
business,  the  first  service  of  this  kind  being  on  the  line  between  Portland  and 
Salem  in  1857,  where  the  Concord  stage  made  the  fifty-five  miles  in  one  day. 
In  1859  a  mail  and  passenger  coach  line  was  put  on  the  road  from  Salem  to 
Eugene,  and  shortly  after  extended  from  Eugene  to  Jacksonville.  And  this 
was  the  extent  of  the  accommodations  iintil  1860.  In  June,  1860,  the  California 
Stage  Company  placed  its  stock  on  the  line  from  Red  Bluffs  on  the  Sacramento 
river  to  Oakland  in  Douglas  county,  Oregon,  where  it  connected  with  the  line 
of  Chase  &  Co.,  running  stages  to  Corvallis,  and  where  Chase  &  Co.  connected 
with  the  Oregon  Stage  Company's  line  to  Portland;  thus  making  a  through 
mail  and  passenger  line  from  Red  Bluffs,  California,  to  Portland,  Oregon. 

THE  FIRST   TELEGRAPH 

Immediately  following  the  establishment  of  the  express  transportation  business 
in  Oregon,  came  that  of  the  electric  telegraph,  the  agitation  in  favor  of  which 
commenced  in  1854.  Charles  F.  Johnson,  an  agent  of  the  Alta  California  Tele- 
graph Company,  was  the  first  person  to  propose  a  telegraph  line  to  connect 
Portland,  Oregon,  with  the  California  cities,  and  finally  secured  support  enough 
from  the  Willamette  valley  people  to  induce  the  organization  of  a  company  and 
construct  a  line  of  posts  and  wire  from  Portland  to  Oregon  Citj^  in  1855 ;  the 
line  being  finished  to  Oregon  City,  November  5,  1855,  and  a  message  sent  over 
the  wire  to  Portland- on  November  16,  1855.  The  line  was  to  be  run  to  Lafay- 
ette, Dayton,  Salem  and  Corvallis.  The  completed  line  finally  reached  Salem 
by  September,  1856,  but  was  so  little  patronized  that  it  was  never  extended. to 
Corvallis,  nor  kept  in  repair,  and  was  finally  abandoned.  This  enterprise  was 
the  occasion  of  Fred  Waymire's  hot  speech  against  corporations  in  the  Consti- 
tutional Convention.     (See  Chapter  XV.) 

The  next  effort  to  secure  telegraphic  service  was  made  in  1861  by  J.  E. 
Strong,  of  Salem,  who  organized  an  Oregon  company  of  which  H.  W.  Corbett, 
John  McCraken;  S.  G.  Reed,  D.  F.  Bradford,  A.  G.  Richardson,  A.  L.  Lovejoy, 
and  C.  N.  Terry  were  officers  and  directors,  and  by  whom  the  first  telegraphic 
connection  was  made  with  the  telegraph  system  of  California.     In  1868  a  tele- 


LEA1)IX(;   STKAMI'.dAT   MKX    IX   THE   lllSTdKV    OK   THE   STAIE 


the" 

PUBL! 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  511 

^M-aphic  line  was  extended  i'roin  Portland  to  the  Dalles,  and  on  to  Boise  City, 
lilaho,  in  1869,  by  the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Co.  In  1876  the  line  was  ex- 
tended from  Portland  to  Astoria.  The  invention  of  the  telephone  eoming  in 
after  these  extensions  of  the  telegraph,  and  supplementary  thereto,  has  now 
heen  extended  all  over  the  state,  giving  to  nearly  all  the  farming  population 
nearly  the  same  advantages  of  the  telegraph  as  that  enjoyed  by  the  residents  of 
the  towns  and  cities. 

At  the  close  of  the  Centennial  in  Philadelphia  in  1876  a  newspaper  of  that 
city,  in  reviewing  the  exhibits  in  a  general  way,  among  other  things,  spoke  of 
a  very  ingenious  "mechanical  toy"  called  the  "telephone;"  and  in  addition  said 
tliat  there  were  those  who  believed  that  in  time  it  would  be  an  instrument  of 
"considerable  commercial  importance."  "But  we,  for  our  part,"  said  the 
newspaper,  "do  not  think  that  it  will  amount  to  much  beyond  being  an  inter- 
esting mechanical  toy."  Early  in  1878  the  late  Captain  George  J.  Ainsworth 
bought  the  right  to  introduce  the  telephone  in  Oregon.  He  made  several  ineflt'ectual 
attempts  to  establish  an  experimental  line  in  the  city  of  Portland,  and  became 
somewhat  discouraged  over  the  persistent  refusals  on  the  ground  that  the  "pesky 
thing  would  be  such  a  nuisance."  Finally  he  met  George  H.  Himes  on  the  corner 
of  Front  and  Washington  streets  one  morning  in  May,  1878,  and  related  his 
experience.  Mr.  Himes  said,  "Captain,  if  you  choose,  you  may  put  up  one  end  of 
your  experimental  line  in  my  printing  office  up-stairs  in  this  building,  and  I 
will  find  a  place  for  the  other  end  in  thirty  minutes."  Mr.  W.  T.  Shanahan,  a 
music  dealer  on  the  south  side  of  Morrison  street,  between  Second  and  Third, 
was  seen  and  he  consented  to  have  the  other  end  of  this  experimental  line  put 
up  in  his  store.  This  was  the  first  telephone  line  in  Oregon.  At  the  end  of  1878 
there  were  one  hundred  lines  in  Portland.  , 

R.\ILROAD   HISTORY   OP  OREGON 

The  first  proposition  of  a  railroad  to  Oregon,  or  in  Oregon,  is  contained  in 
a  memorial  to  congress  in  1846  by  George  Wilkes.  A  bill  had  been  introduced 
in  congress  requiring  the  president  to  establish  military  posts  between  the  Mis- 
souri and  the  Columbia  rivers,  at  suitable  distances,  and  authorizing  the  rais- 
ing of  a  regiment  of  mounted  riflemen  for  service  along  the  line  of  travel  and 
in  Oregon,  with  the  promise  of  a  mail  route  to  the  Pacific  and  talk  of  a  railroad 
to  the  Columbia  river.  On  this  basis  Wilkes  put  forward  his  proposition  of  a 
government  railroad  to  Oregon.  It  was  a  good  idea,  certainly;  but  fourteen 
years  in  advance  of  the  proposition  that  did  secure  a  railroad  from  Omaha  to 
San  Francisco.  In  1846  Oregon  was  ahead  of  California,  but  the  great  gold 
discovery  reversed  the  position  of  the  two  territories,  and  gave  our  rival  state 
what  certainly  woiild  have  come  fii-st  to  Oregon — a  transcontinental  railroad — 
but  for  that  discovery  of  gold  in  the  tail  race  of  Sutter's  saw  mill  by  Mar- 
shall and  Bennett  in  1848. 

The  first  Oregon  proposition  for  a  railroad  in  Oregon  was  mado  by  H.  M. 
Knighton,  the  original  owner  of  the  townsite  of  St.  Helens.  Mr.  Knighton  pro- 
posed to  make  good  the  claim  of  his  town  to  the  seaport  head  of  navigation  on 
the  Columbia  river  by  building  a  railroad  in  1851  from  St.  Helens  through  the 
Cornelius  pass  and  across  Washington  county  to  the  city  of  Lafayette,  that 
town  being  at  that  time  the  big  town  of  the  Willamette  valley.     In  this  propo. 


512  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

sition  Crosby  and  Smith,  the  owners  of  the  Milton  townsite,  also  joined.  In  an 
advertisement  of  this  road  in  the  Oregon  Spectator  of  November  28,  1850,  it 
is  recommended  as  "a  brilliant  chance  for  an  investment — that  an  unusual 
amount  of  the  stock  has  been  taken  abroad — that  the  road  will  be  finished  in  six 
months."  The  "booster"  started  early  in  Oregon.  Could  these  worthy  pio 
neei's  in  railroad  promotion  come  back  and  see  how  Mr.  James  J.  Hill  has  actu 
ally  appropriated  their  railroad  pass  and  put  an  electric  railroad  from  their 
hated  rival,  Portland,  into  Washington  county,  they  might  be  excused  for  some 
painful  regrets  as  to  what  might  have  been. 

Seven  years  after  Wilkes  proposition  the  territorial  legislature  of  Oregon 
took  up  the  subject  of  railroad  construction  in  the  Willamette  valley  and 
granted  charters  to  four  railroad  companies  at  the  session  of  1853-4.  These 
companies  were  named:  The  Willamette  Valley  Railroad  Company,  The  Ore- 
gon and  California  Railroad  Company,  The  Cincinnati  Railroad  Company, 
and  The  Clackamas  Railroad  Company.  The  Clackamas  Company  proposed  a 
railroad  around  the  falls  of  the  Willamette  river;  the  Cincinnati  Company 
proposed  a  road  from  the  town  of  that  name  in  Polk  county  to  the  Polk  county 
coal  mines  (wherever  they  were)  ;  the  Oregon  and  California  Company  pro- 
posed a  road  from  Eugene  City  to  some  point  in  the  Willamette  below  Oregon 
City;  and  the  Willamette  Valley  Company  proposed  a  road  from  Portland  to 
the  head  of  the  Willamette  valley.  In  each  case  commissioners  were  appointed 
by  the  legislature  to  organize  the  companies  and  start  the  machinery  to  con- 
struct the  railroad,  but  only  on  one  charter  was  any  action  taken.  And  that 
was  on  the  charter  for  the  Willamette  valley  railroad  to  be  constructed  from 
Portland  to  the  head  of  the  valley  on  the  west  side  of  the  Willamette  river. 
The  commissioners  to  organize  the  cornpany  were  Fred.  Waymire,  Solomon  Teth- 
erow,  James  S.  Holman,  Harrison  Linville,  Fielder  M.  Thorp,  J.  C.  Avery, 
James  O'Neill,  John  Thorp  and  Martin  L.  Barber.  They  held  one  meeting  on 
April  22,  1854,  at  Thorp's  Mills  in  Polk  county,  and  appointed  days  in  each 
county  to  receive  subscriptions  of  money  to  build  the  road;  but  not  a  dollar 
was  ever  subscribed. 

The  commissioners  (incorporators)  of  the  Oregon  and  California  Company 
were  Lot  Whitcomb,  N.  P.  Doland,  W.  Meek,  James  B.  Stephens,  William 
Holmes,  Charles  AValker,  Samuel  Officer,  William  Barlow,  John  Gribble,  Har- 
rison Wright,  J.  D.  Boon,  J.  L.  Parrish,  Joseph  Holman,  Wm.  H.  Rector,  Daniel 
Waldo,  Benjamin  F.  Harding.  Samuel  Simmons.  Ralph  C.  Geer,  William 
Parker,  A.  R.  Dimmick,  Hugh  Cosgrove,  Robert  Newell,  W.  H.  Willson,  Green 
McDonald,  James  Curl,  E.  H.  Randall,  Luther  Elkins,  John  Crabtree,  David 
Claypool,  Elmore  Keyes,  James  H.  Foster,  George  Cline,  John  Smith,  Ander- 
son Cox,  John  H.  Lines,  Jeremiah  Duggs,  John  N.  Donnell,  Asa  McCully,  Hugh 
L.  Brown,  James  N.  Smith,  William  Earle,  W.  W.  Bristow,  Milton  S.  Riggs, 
James  C.  Robinson,  P.  Wilkins,  William  Stevens,  Jacob  Spores,  Benjamin  Rich- 
ardson, E.  F.  Skinner,  James  Hetherly,  Felix  Scott,  Henry  Owen,  Benjamin 
Davis,  Joseph  Bailey,  J.  W.  Nesmitli  and  Samuel  Brown.  This  company  never 
organized.  In  all  this  list  the  to\\Ti  of  Portland  had  not  a  single  representative, 
and  the  west  side  of  the  Willamette  valley  had  only  one  name — J.  W.  Nesmith. 
This  was  a  Salem  scheme  opposed  to  the  west  side  of  the  Willamette  valley  and 
the  city  of  Portland.  Ten  years  later  Portland  repaid  the  kick  by  helping  the 
Oregon  Central  Railroad  Company  on  the  west  side  of  the  valley. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  513 

Thr  iR'xt  proposition  i'or  au  Oregon  railroiid  caiii.'  Iroui  Astoria  in  1858, 
wlii'u  tlie  legislature  ineorporated  the  Astoria  and  Willamette  Valley  Railroad 
Coiiijiaiiy  to  construct  a  railroad  to  run  from  Astoria  to  Salem,  and  thence  to 
Eugene  City.  The  capital  stock  of  this  company  was  first  fixed  at  five  million 
dollars  aud  afterwards  raised  to  ten  millions;  construction  work  to  commence 
within  two  years  and  the  road  to  be  completed  in  ten  years.  The  following 
named  persons  were  th-e  incorj3orators  authorized  to  secure  the  capital  stock  and 
organize  the  corporation:  John  Adair,  John  ilcClure,  J.  Inibrie,  Wm.  Wilson, 
James  Taylor,  J.  Welch,  C.  Boelling,  W.  W.  Parker,  P.  Wilkes,  W.  R.  Bassett, 
T.  R.  Cornelius,  Chas.  McKay,  ]\I.  Wolf,  R.  C.  Kinney,  Joe.  Meek,  R.  Bean,  W.  T. 
Newby,  Andy  Shuck,  Edward  Shiel,  J.  D.  Boon,  J.  H.  iloores,  W.  C.  Griswold, 
S.  Parker,  Jacob  Couser,  Jos.  Holman,  W.  H.  Rector,  L.  Westacott,  L.  F. 
drover,  E.  P.  Skinner,  E.  Bristow,  G.  Humphrey,  Jos.  Teal.  I.  R.  Moores,  P. 
Urattain,  A.  A.  Smith,  W.  C.  Gallagher,  B.  F.  Whitson,  Thos.  Kendall,  W.  Blair, 
Chas.  Drain,  R.  Newell,  J.  H.  Stevens,  J.  D.  Crawford,  H.  N.  Y.  Holmes.  A.  C. 
R.  Shaw,  J.  H.  Lewis,  B.  F.  Bureh,  H.  Linville,  J.  Thorp,  J.  C.  Avery,  J.  Barn- 
liart,  1.  N.  Smith,  Jno.  Kelsay,  A.  J.  Thayer,  Wm.  Gird,  I.  R.  Moore,  J.  Dohse. 
Leonard  &  Green,  Ladd  &  Co.,  Thos.  Pritchard,  Job  McNamee,  Thos.  Carter, 
n.  H.  Lowusdale,  J.  S.  Rinearson,  S.  W.  ]\Ioss,  Geo.  Abernethy.  W.  C.  Bowring, 
Thos.  H.  Smith,  and  H.  Stevens. 

The  iucoi'porators  never  acted  upon  their  charter  and  the  scheme  died  for 
want  of  funds. 

The  first  steps  to  build  a  railroad  in  the  state  of  Oregon,  followed  up  by  con- 
nected and  continuous  effects  aud  organization,  were  taken  at  Jacksonville,  in 
Jackson  county,  in  October,  1863.  Sporadic  meetings  had  been  held  and  cor- 
porations formed  prior  to  that  time  in  several  places  in  the  Willamette  valley 
proposing  to  build  railways,  but  nothing  had  resulted  but  talk  not  worth  re- 
rording.  That  the  first  substantial  effort  to  develop  the  state  by  railroad  trans- 
portation should  have  taken  form  at  a  small  interior  town  three  hundred  miles 
from  a  reliable  seaport  is  qiaite  remarkable,  but  not  unreasonable.  Jacksonville 
was  the  county  seat  and  trade  center  of  the  beautifiil  Rogue  river  valley,  which 
has  been  more  benefited  by  railroad  transportation  than  any  other  community 
between  the  Columbia  river  and  San  Francisco  bay.  Steamboats  could  run  up 
the  Sacramento  river  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  San  Francisco,  and 
other  boats  could  get  up  the  Willamette  river  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
miles  from  the  ship  landing  to  Eugene ;  and  teams,  pack  trains  and  stage  lines 
could  serve  a  limited  trade  and  population  in  all  the  region  on  the  north  and 
south  route  between  these  river  boat  termini.  But  limited  to  these  pioneer 
transportation  facilities,  the  trade  and  population  of  all  this  region  must  for- 
ever stand  still.  There  are  in  what  is  known  as  the  "Rogue  River  Yalley."  of 
which  Jacksonville,  Ashland.  Talent,  Medford,  and  Gold  Hill  are  trading 
points,  about  a  million  and  a  quarter  acres  of  fine  agricidtural,  timber,  mineral 
and  grazing  lands,  and  of  which  in  186.3  not  more  than  one-tenth  had  been  taken 
lip  by  actual  settlers.  The  pioneer  farmers  saw  the  necessity  and  the  immense 
l>ouefits  to  be  gained  from  a  railroad  which  should  pass  through  their  valley 
from  Portland  to  San  Francisco,  and  resolved,  although  poor  in  purse,  to  make 
the  best  effort  they  could  to  secure  such  a  road. 

In  the  spring  of  1863,  S.  G.  Elliott,  of  California,  had  arranged  with  George 
H.  Belden.  a  civil  engineer  of  Portland,  Oregon,  to  make  an  instrumental  sur- 

Vol.  I— 3  3 


514  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

vey  for  a  line  of  railroad  from  Marj'sville  to  Portland,  on  their  joint  account. 
They  commenced  their  \vork  at  Marysville  in  California,  in  May  and  reached 
Jacksonville  in  October.  Before  reaching  Jacksonville  they  had  sent  forward 
a  letter  to  the  author  of  this  book,  then  residing  at  Jacksonville,  requesting  him 
to  canvass  Jackson  county  for  aid  in  paying  the  expenses  of  their  survey,  which 
work  he  performed.  Upon  reaching  Jacksonville,  Elliott  and  Belden  disagTced 
as  to  which  of  them  should  have  the  control  of  the  line  of  survey  through  Ore- 
gon ;  Mr.  Belden  claiming  that  under  their  agreement  he  should  select  the  route, 
and  Mr.  Elliott  as  stoutly  claiming  that  as  chief  of  the  party  and  the  original 
proposer  of  the  undertaking,  he  was  entitled  to  such  control.  But  the  question 
which  proved  to  be  fatal  to  the  ambition  of  both  gentlemen  was  the  fact  that 
their  party  of  twelve  men  had  received  no  pay  for  six  months,  and  thei*e  was 
nothing  in  the  treasury  to  further  subsist  the  men  and  teams.  The  whole  party 
was  stranded  and  their  proposed  railroad  venture  wrecked.  Mr.  Elliott  left 
the  party  in  possession  of  all  its  eciuipmeut  and  returned  south  to  California, 
and  Mr.  Belden  also  left  and  proceeded  to  his  home  in  Portland,  and  this  ended 
the  connection  of  both  gentlemen  with  this  preliminary  survey. 

The  subscriptions  in  aid  of  this  first  work  on  an  Oregon  railroad  (not  consid- 
ering mere  portages  on  the  Columbia)  and  the  first  money  expended  in  the 
actual  construction  of  such  road,  followed  up  by  connected  and  continuous  work 
until  the  road  was  in  operation,  were  contributed  by  the  following  named  per- 
sons: 

SUBSCRIPTION  LIST  FOE   RAILROAD   SURVEY  FUND 

■'The  following  subscriptions  are  received  for  the  purpose  of  defraying  in 
part  the  cost  of  making  a  preliminary  survey  for  a  railroad  route,  connecting 
the  Pacific  Railroad  in  California  with  the  city  of  Portland,  Oregon,  we,  the 
undersigned  subscribers,  agree  to  pay  the  amount  hereunto  subscribed  by  us,  for 
the  above  purpose  to  S.  G.  Elliott,  on  demand  made  by  him.  On  the  final  or- 
ganization of  the  railroad  company,  it  shall  be  optional  with  the  undersigned 
subscribers  to  become  stockholders  in  said  company  to  the  amount  subscribed 
by  each,  at  the  rate  of  $10  per  share,  with  the  privilege  of  one  vote  to  each- 
share,  or  not.  If  they  choose  to  become  stockholders  as  above,  they  each  shall 
be  credited  on  the  books  of  the  company  for  the  full  amount  subscribed  by 
each.  If  they  do  not  become  stockholders,  said  company,  as  soon  as  able,  shall 
pay  them  back  the  amount  subscribed  by  each  without  interest.  It  is  further 
agreed  that  the  subscribers  to  this  list  shall  not  be  required  to  pay  or  made  liable 
for  any  amount  beyond  that  by  them  subscribed." 

October,  1863. 

Names.  Amount  Subscribed. 

C.  Boylery   $10.00  (Paid). 

John  Robison 40  bushels  of  wheat  at  Phoenix. 

D.  E.  Steaves $5.00  (Paid). 

G.  Nanylor   $2.50  (Paid). 

John  Holton $2.50   (Paid). 

M.  Mickelson $2.50   (Paid). 

R.  B.  Hargadiue $5.00  (Paid) . 


/,.//  y,^/,/  ,,,,,„,,,,,//,,  //,,  >/y,'^A, ■>,,/,,,    '/An 


0^^ 


.rlt'.A 


:\        v;- 


/' 


///U,v.-d</»>wvt-  ////////  y  /.j.t//.j  /  /    g^iw       y/y.j.i  //  /I.I  /fji/r  /ir    f.j  //ii  /f/i  /I   Ai/iry 


///  ,  /n-  /11//11/1  /^ 


ry  i 


.!:—  /y/.^_- 


TiiE     iiuNui;'  (.i;i;ui;xTiAi>.  a.\m  ai.i.\    issi  ]:i)    ju  .ialui:   ka.mm.  mjw 

NEARIXG   HIS   NINETY-YEAR    MILE    POST,     THESE    PAPERS    HAVE    BEEN    ISSUED 
TO  MR.  KAMM  FOR  OVER  SIXTY  YEARS 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OK  OREGON  515 

Xamcs.  Amount  Subscribid. 

E.  Emery   *r).UO   (Paid) . 

Lindsay  Applegate 10.00  (Paid) . 

0.  C.  Applegate $2.50  (Paid) . 

John  ^lurphy ')  bushels  of  wheat  at  Wagner  &  McCall's  mill. 

(Settled  by  note.) 

.1.  ('.  Tolniiui .$16.00    (Paid  in  supplies  and  30  bushels  of 

wheat  to  be  delivered  at  Wagner  &  McCall's 
mill.  (Settled  by  note.) 

P.  Dunn 50  bushels  of  wheat,  to  be  delivered  at  Wag- 
ner &  McCall's  mill.  Ashland.  (Settled  by 
note.) 

H.  F.  Bareii .$18.00  (Paid  in  supplies  to  S.  G.  Elliott.) 

Wagner  &  McCall 50  bushels  of  wheat,  delivered  at  Wagner  & 

McCall's  mill.     (Settled  by  note.) 

Enoch  Walker  $4.00  in  supplies.    (Paid  to  S.  G.  Elliott.) 

B.  F.  Myer 10  bushels  of  wheat,  at  Ashland  mills. 

W.  C.  Myer 10  busliels  of  wheat,  at  Ashland  mills. 

W.  Beeson  .  .■ 25  bushels  of  wheat  at  Ashland  mills.     (All 

three  settled  by  note.) 

J.  G.  Van  Dyke $3.50  (Paid  in  supplies  to  S.  G.  Elliott.) 

John  S.  Herriu 10  bushels  of  wheat  delivered  at  Foudray's 

mill.     (Settled  by  note.) 

Amos  E.  Rogers $10.00    (To  be  paid  in  board). 

('.  S.  Seargent  $2.00  (Paid). 

John  Watson 40  bushels  of  wheat,  delivered  at  Allen's  mill. 

Kmerson  E.  Gore $10.00  in  legal  tenders.  (Paid  in  wheat  at  Al- 
len's mill.) 

^I.  Riggs 20  (twenty)  bushels  of    wheat,  delivered    at 

Phoenix  mill. 

William  Wright 22  busliels  of  wheat,   at  Foudray's   Phoenix 

mill. 

Frederick  Heber 40  bushels  of  wheat,  at  Allen's  mill. 

S.  D.  Van  Dyke 25  bushels  of  wheat,  at  Phoenix  mill. 

John  Coleman $10.00  ( Paid ) . 

Joseph  A.  Grain 20  bushels  of  wheat,  at  Phoenix  mill. 

J.  T.  Glenn $25.00   (Paid  by  note). 

Wm.  Meyers $12.00   (Paid  by  note). 

W.  K.  Ish 25  bushels  of  wheat  at  Foudray  's  mill. 

H.  A.  Breitbarth   $2.50   (Paid). 

J.   Gaston    $10.00   (Paid). 

^IcLaughlin  &  Klippel   40  bushels  of  wheat,  to  be  delivered  at  Poole 

ranch.     (Paid  by  note.") 

W.  H.  S.  Hyde $').00   (Paid). 

J.  E.  Ross   40  liushels  of  wheal,  at  Allen's  mill. 

Aaron  Chambers   25  bushels  of  wheat,  at  Allen's  mill 

M.  Hanley $10.00  (To  be  paid  in  wheat  at  Allen's  mill). 

Granville  Sears   15  bushels  of  wheat,  at  E,  D.  Foudrav's  mill. 


516  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Names.  Amount  Subscribed. 

R.  S.  Belknap 20  bushels  of  oats,  to  be  delivered  at  Hunter's 

ferry. 

U.  S.  Hayden $10.00. 

John  Neuber $5.00  (Paid) . 

H.  Amerman $5.00  (To  be  paid  at  Gasburg) . 

Beall  &  Brother  100  bushels  of  wheat  at  Allen's  mill. 

Wm.  H.  Merriam 20  bushels  of  wheat  at  Allen 's  mill. 

Haskell  Amy 20  bushels  of  wheat  at  Allen's  mill. 

Alexander  French  20  bushels  of  wheat  at  Foudray  's  mill. 

Merit  Bellinger 10  bushels  of  wheat  at  Foudray 's  mill.     (The 

five  last  subscriptions  settled  by  note. ) 
James  Thornton 10  bushels  of  wheat,  delivered  at  Phoenix  mill. 

(Paid  by  note.) 

Woodford  Reames 20  bushels  of  wheat,  delivered  at  the  Phoenix 

mill.     (Paid  by  note.) 

E.  K.  Anderson 30  bushels  of  wheat  at  Phoenix. 

D.  P.  Anderson 10  bushels  of  wheat  at  Phoenix. 

Joshua  Patterson 5  bushels  of  wheat  at  Phoenix. 

D.  P.  Brittain 5  bushels  of  wheat  at  Phoenix  mill.    (The  last 

four  subscriptions  paid  by  note.) 
L.  V.  Amerman $15.00    (Paid — $10  in  coin  and  $5  in  gi'een- 

backs). 

Upon  consultation  with  the  above  subscribers  to  this  fund,  the  author  of  this 
book  was  appointed  agent  to  collect  and  disburse  the  money  subscribed  by  these 
men  in  subsisting  the  surveying  party  until  May,  1864,  and  to  procure  further 
subscriptions  along  the  proposed  line  to  continue  the  survey  north  to  the  city  of 
Portland,  and  to  organize  a  company  and  apply  to  congress  for  a  grant  of  land  in 
aid  of  the  construction  of  a  railroad  from  the  Columbia  river  to  San  Francisco, 
passing  through  the  Willamette,  Umpqua  and  Rogue  river  valleys.  And  in  pur- 
suance of  this  authoritj-,  this  original  subscription  of  monej'  in  aid  of  such  rail- 
road was  collected,  the  surveying  party  subsisted  in  Jacksonville  until  May, 
1864,  when  it  again  took  up  the  line  of  survey  where  Elliott  and  Belden  had 
abandoned  it  and  under  the  super\'ision  of  Col  A.  C.  Barry,  it  was  extended  to 
Portland,  which  point  was  reached  on  October  1.  1864.  To  carry  on  the  biisi- 
ness  part  of  the  undertaking  and  present  the  proposition  to  congress,  a  company 
was  organized  under  the  name  of  "The  California  and  Columbia  River  Railroad 
Company,"  and  of  which  J.  Gaston  was  made  secretary,  and  A.  C.  Barry,  chief 
engineer.  The  results  of  this  survey  were  then  (October,  1864,)  laid  before  the 
Oregon  legislature,  then  in  session,  and  a  bill,  prepared  by  the  secretary  of  the 
company,  was  introduced  in  the  senate  (S.  B.  No.  14),  which  provided  for  grant- 
ing to  a  railroad  to  be  constructed  through  the  Willamette,  Umpqua  and  Rogue 
river  valleys,  the  proceeds  of  the  half-million  acres  of  public  lands  gi-anted  to 
Oregon  for  internal  improvements.  This  bill  was  referred  to  the  senate  com- 
mittee on  corporations,  which  reported  the  proposition  back  by  recommending 
the  passage  of  an  act  to  levy  a  tax  of  one  mill  on  the  dollar  on  all  the  taxable 
property  in  the  state,  and  apply  the  proceeds  of  such  tax  to  the  payment  of  the 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  :A7 

interest  on  the  c-onstruetion  bouds  of  a  eoiiip;iiiy  to  hiiikl  the  proposed  road.    The 
hill  became  a  law,  but  was  never  utilized. 

Immediately  following  the  legislature,  Colonel  Barry  prepared  a  report  of  his 
survey,  with  maps  and  profiles  of  the  line,  whieh  together  with  a  report  on  the 
resources  of  Oregon  (the  first  ever  made)  prepared  by  the  secretary  of  the  eom- 
]>any,  was  laid  before  congress  at  the  opening  of  the  session  in  December.  1864. 
Prior  to  this,  in  the  winter  of  1863-4.  Hon.  C.  Cole,  M.  C,  from  California,  had 
introduced  in  the  house  a  bill  granting  lands  to  the  California  &  Oregon  Rail- 
road Company  to  aid  in  building  a  railroad  from  the  Central  Pacific  Railroad  in 
California,  through  the  Sacramento  and  Shasta  valleys,  to  the  northern  boun- 
dary of  the  state  of  California,  and  to  such  company  as  the  Oregon  legislature 
should  designate  from  Portland,  Oregon,  through  the  Willamette,  Umpqua  and 
Rogue  river  valleys,  to  a  connection  with  the  said  California  road  at  or  near  the 
state  line.  On  being  apprised  of  the  work  going  forward  in  Oregon  in  aid  of  this 
enterprise.  Mr.  Cole  addressed  the  following  letter  to  the  secretary  of  the 
Oregon  company. 

"Washington,  October  15.  1S64. 
"J.  Gasion,  Esq.: 

Sir — I  have  just  received  a  letter  from  you  of  June  30th.  I  think  I  sent  you 
a  copy  of  my  bill  before  the  adjournment.  If  your  Oregon  company  is  organ- 
ized it  had  better  be  named  in  the  bill  before  it  passes.  I  will  consult  with  Jlr. 
McBride.  Your  obedient  servant. 

"C.  Cole." 

]\Ir.  McBride  referred  to  was  the  Oregon  member  of  Congress ;  the  name  of 
the  then  Oregon  company  was  never  inserted  in  the  bill,  which  passed  congress 
and  became  a  law  on  July  25,  1866,  and  granted  twenty  alternate  sections  of 
public  land  per  mile  of  the  railroad  which  has  been  constructed  thereunder 
from  Portland  to  the  California  line. 

It  is  necessarj'  to  thus  particularly  trace  the  original  connected  and  succes- 
sive steps  in  projecting  and  carrying  out  a  great  public  work,  to  show  that  the 
Jackson  county  people  were  entitled  to  the  credit  of  giving  it  birth ;  and  to  show 
how  the  wisdom  of  the  original  location  of  the  line  was  vindicated  by  the  actvial 
construction  of  the  road.  In  seeking  the  best  line  for  a  railway  between  two 
distant  points,  all  other  inducements  being  equal,  the  line  of  location,  like  all 
other  forward  movements  of  human  eft'ort,  will  proceed  along  the  line  of  least 
resistance.  Two  facts  determined  the  location  of  this  Oregon  and  California 
railroad.  First,  the  line  of  least  resistance.  The  physical  features  of  the  region 
to  be  developed  offered  a  series  of  beautiful  valleys,  rich  in  all  the  resources 
to  support  a  railroad,  and  so  located  as  to  form  nearly  the  shortest  line  between 
the  termini  of  the  road,  and  through  which  it  could  be  constructed  centrally 
through  the  greatest  length  of  these  valleys,  and  at  the  lowest  cost,  and  serving 
the  majority  of  population  and  interests.  Second,  here  on  this  line  had  settled 
the  population  of  the  two  states,  and  made  the  then  existing  development  of 
their  resources,  and  upon  which  the  road  must  rely  for  its  support. 

It  was  not  the  only  available,  or  the  only  line  proposed,  as  many  persons 
might  now  think.  The  line  of  the  first  transcontinental  road  had  been  projected 
to  San  Francisco  when  the  first  steps  to  secure  this  Oregon  and  California  line 
were  taken,  and  connection  with  the  transcontinental  line  was  one  of  the  moving 


518  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

factors  to  induce  action  for  a  connection  with  Oregon.  But  tlie  Oregonians 
were  not  unanimous  as  to  the  best  route.  Mr.  B.  J.  Pengra,  the  surveyor 
general  of  Oregon  and  a  very  able  and  enterprising  man,  and  the  successful 
pilomotor  of  the  Oregon  central  military  wagon  road,  with  a  land  grant  run- 
ning from  Eugene  to  the  southeast  corner  of  the  state,  together  with  a  large 
following  of  wealthy  and  influential  men,  was  actively  advocating  a  line  for 
an  Oregon  railroad  connection  with  the  Central  Pacific  road,  on  what  was  called 
"The  Humboldt"  route,  which  should  run  from  the  city  of  Portland  to  Eu- 
gene City,  thence  southeast  by  the  middle  fork  of  the  Willamette  river  and 
over  the  Cascade  mountains  where  the  Natron  branch  of  the  Southei'n  Pacific 
is  now  (1912),  being  constructed  across  the  Cascade  mountains;  and  thence 
by  Klamath  Marsh  and  Lake  on  to  Winuemucca  on  the  Central  Pacific  Rail- 
road in  the  state  of  Nevada.  And  had  Pengra  been  supported  by  as  much 
political  influence  as  Southern  Oregon  was  able  to  command,  he  might  possi- 
bly have  defeated  the  location  through  the  Umpqua  and  Rogue  river  valleys 
and  secured  the  land  grant  to  the  line  of  his  wagon  road.- 

THE   LAND    GRANT 

We  pass  now  from  the  historj'  of  the  location  of  the  line  to  the  administra- 
tion of  the  land  grant.  The  Oregon  legislature  met  in  September,  1866,  six 
weeks  after  congress  granted  the  lands  in  aid  of  the  road.  It  was  decided  to 
abandon  the  original  organization  which  had  so  far  promoted  the  entei-prise, 
and  accordingly  the  author  of  this  book  prepared  articles  for  the  incorpora- 
tion of  "The  Oregon  Central  Railroad  Company,"  the  office  and  headquarters 
of  which  should  be  at  Poi-tlaud,  Oregon.  These  articles  were  signed  by  J.  S. 
Smith  (member  of  Congress  for  Oregon)  in  1870,  I.  R.  Moores,  John  H.  Mitchell 
(for  twenty-two  years  United  States  senator  for  Oregon),  E.  D.  Shattuck 
(for  thirty  years  justice  of  the  supreme  and  circuit  courts  of  Oregon), 
Col.  John  McCraken,  Jesse  Applegate,  S.  Ellsworth,  F.  A.  Chenoweth,  Joel 
Palmer,  E.  R.  Geary,  M.  M.  Melvin,  Thos.  H.  Cos,  B.  F.  Brown,  W.  S.  Ladd, 
(founder  of  Ladd  &  Tilton),  H.  W.  Corbett  (United  States  senator),  S.  G. 
Reed  (founder  of  the  Reed  College,  Portland),  J.  C.  Ainsworth  (founder  of 
the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company),  C.  H.  Lewis  (founder  of  Allen  & 
Lewis),  R.  R.  Thompson  and  Joseph  Gaston,  the  author  of  this  book.  These 
articles  were  filed  according  to  law,  and  the  association  of  these  persons  became 
a  private  corporation  to  administer  the  land  grant  on  October  6th,  1866.  These 
articles  were  laid  before  both  houses  of  the  Oregon  legislature,  then  in  session, 
and  on  October  10th,  upon  the  motion  of  Hon.  E.  D.  Foudray,  representative 
from  Jackson  county,  joint  resolution  No.  13,  designating  said  corporation  to 
receive  the  said  land  grant,  was  passed.  And  in  December,  following,  fourteen 
of  the  incorporators  of  said  company,  appointed  Joseph  Gaston  "Secretary  of 
the  Board  of  Incorporators, ' '  and  authorized  him  to  open  the  stock  books  of  the 
company  and  solicit  subscriptions  to  its  capital  stock.  In  pursuance  of  this  au- 
thority in  April,  1867,  he  opened  stock  books  and  took  subscriptions  to  the 
capital  stock;  the  subscribers  to  the  "Barry  survey"  to  have  their  subscriptions 
credited  on  stock  subscriptions.  A  copy  of  the  prospectus  of  the  company,  pub- 
lished in  the  Oregon  papei's  on  February  20,  1867,  is  herewith  printed  as  follows : 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  :.19 

PROSPECTUS  OP  THE  OREGON   CENTRAL  RAILROAD   COMPANY. 

"We,  the  undersigned  incorporators  of  the  'Oregon  Central  Railroad  Com- 
pany.' hereby  appoint  J.  Gaston,  of  Salem,  Oregon,  Secretary  of  the  Board  of 
incorporators,  and  authorize  and  designate  him,  as  one  of  the  incorporators  of 
said  company,  to  prepare  and  open  the  stock  books  of  said  company,  under  the 
following  rules  and  I'egulations : 

"1st.  The  shares  of  the  capital  stock  in  said  company  shall  be  subsci'ibeil 
for  at  their  par  value  in  gold  coin  or  its  equivalent  in  currency. 

"2nd.     The  Board  of  Directors  may  levy  assessments  as  often  as  once  in 
every  sixty  days,  but  not  more  than  ten  per  cent,  shall  be  levied  in  such  period. 
"3rd.     Shares  may  be  subscribed  and  paid  for  with  'claimed'  or  improved 
lands,  x'ating  them  at  a  fair  cash  value. 

"4th.  All  persons  who  paid  money  or  property  in  aid  of  'Barry's  Railroad 
Survey, '  made  in  1864,  shall  be  entitled  to  have  the  same  credited  to  the  amount 
of  ten  per  cent  upon  any  subscription  of  one  or  more  shares,  pi-ovided  they  fur- 
nish satisfactory  evidence  to  the  Board  of  Directors  of  payment  in  said  year. 
"5th.  The  board  of  directors  shall  have  the  right  to  reject  any  subscription 
or  subscriptions,  for  fraud,  or  any  other  matter  bearing  upon  the  interests  of 
the  company. 

"6th.  Neither  the  board  of  incorporators,  or  board  of  directors  shall  ever 
have  any  right  or  power  to  sell  or  dispose  of  the  corporate  franchises  of  this 
company  without  a  three-fourths  vote  of  all  the  stock  subscribed,  in  favor  of  such 
sale;  but  this  proviso  shall  not  be  construed  to  prevent  the  board  of  directors 
from  raising  money  to  construct  the  company's  road  by  mortgage  of  its  lands 
or  other  real  estate,  railroad  or  equipment ;  and  in  all  questions  upon  which  the 
board  of  directors  may  not  unanimously  agree,  any  stockholder  may  appeal  to 
the  decision  of  a  majority  of  the  stock,  which  decision  shall  be  final. 

"7th.  As  soon  as  the  capital  stock,  or  one-half  thereof,  of  said  sompany 
shall  have  been  subscribed,  the  said  secretary  is  hereby  directed  to  call  a  meet- 
ing of  the  stockholders,  in  pursuance  of  the  general  incorporation  law,  for  the 
election  of  a  board  of  directors. 

"Sth.  The  above  articles  are  hereby  made  a  part  of  the  contract  of  sub- 
scriptions between  the  stockholders  and  said  company. 

"The  said  secretary  shall  open  an  ofSce  for  the  transaction  of  the  company's 
business,  and  proceed  to  the  work  of  canvassing  for  subscriptions  of  stock  in  the 
counties  and  towns  along  the  route  of  said  road ;  the  Hon.  F.  A.  Chenoweth 
being  authorized  to  canvass  Linn  and  Benton  counties. 

R.  R.  Thompson,  J.  C.  Ainsv^orth  ;  S.  G. 
Reed,  M.  M.  jMelvin,  George  L. 
Woods  (by  his  proxy, AV.  S.  Ladd), 
F.  A.  Chenoweth,  Joel  Palmer, 
Ed.  R.  Geary,  S.  Ellsvforth,  J. 
H.  Mitchell,  H.  W.  Corbett,  B. 
P.  Brown,  T.  H.  Cox,  Incorpora- 
tors. ' ' 

All  those  mentioned  above  are  now  dead  except  Gaston. 
Persons  on  the  east  side  of  the  Willamette  river,  notably  I.  R.  iloores.  and 
others  at  Salem,  opposed  this  proposition  because  it  recognized  the  ''Rarry  Sur- 


520  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

vey;"  and  in  consequence  the  people  of  the  east  side  of  the  Willamette  valley 
made  no  subscriptions  to  the  stock  of  the  company,  while  the  people  on  the  west 
side  made  large  subscriptions  and  thereby  secured  the  location  of  the  road  on  the 
west  side  of  the  Willamette  river,  where  it  is  now  constructed  from  Portland  to 
Corvallis. 

The  Californians  who  had  secured  the  above  land  grant  as  far  as  it  was  lo- 
cated within  that  state  were  not  disinterested  spectators  of  what  ^vas  going  on 
in  Oregon.  In  fact,  the  record  shows  that  even  before  the  passage  of  the  act 
granting  the  lands,  a  party  of  California  capitalists  had  filed  articles  of  incor- 
poration in  this  state,  to  incorporate  a  company  to  take  the  land  granted  within 
the  boundaries  of  Oregon.  On  July  1,  1865,  articles  of  incorporation  to  incoi-- 
porate  "The  Oregon  and  California  Railroad  Company"  were  executed  in  San 
Francisco,  and  signed  by  Alpheus  Bull,  S.  CI.  Elliott,  C.  Temple  Emmett,  Thomas 
Bell,  Joseph  Barron,  David  M.  Richards,  S.  F.  Elliott,  T.  J.  Gallagher,  and 
Wm.  E.  Barron,  and  brought  up  to  Oregon  by  S.  G.  Elliott,  and  filed  in  the 
office  of  the  secretary  of  the  state  at  Salem  on  JulylS,  1865.  These  articles  pro- 
vided for  a  corporation  with  a  capital  stock  of  sixteen  million  dollars,  that  its 
principal  office  be  at  Jacksonville,  Oregon,  and  that  the  company  should  build 
a  railroad  from  some  point  on  the  state  line  between  California  and  Oregon  as 
should  thereafter  be  designated  "to  some  point  on  the  navigable  waters  of  the 
Columbia  river,"  and  should  receive  the  lands  that  might  be  granted  by  con- 
gress in  aid  of  such  a  road. 

Here  was  a  carefully  planned  scheme  gotten  up  in  California,  with  not  a 
single  Oregonian  connected  with  it,  one  year  before  the  passage  of  the  land 
grant  about  which  there  was  so  gi'eat  a  battle  forty  years  ago ;  and  about  which 
there  is  now  a  great  battle  in  the  United  States  courts  between  the  United  States 
and  the  companies  claiming  the  lands ;  and  which  was  a  secret,  stealthy  attack  on 
the  vital  interests  of  the  people  of  Oregon. 

ADVENT  OP  ELLIOTT 

As  soon  as  Gaston  commenced  canvassing  for  subscriptions  to  the  stock  of 
the  company,  Mr.  S.  G.  Elliott,  the  promoter  of  the  above  mentioned  California 
scheme,  appeared  on  the  scene  and  put  in  an  appearance  at  Salem,  where  it 
appeared  he  had  Oregon  confederates  in  his  San  Francisco  company. 

Mr.  Elliott  had  been  a  county  surveyor,  and  was  a  man  of  great  energy,  and 
ambition,  but  was  not  a  civil  engineer  or  constructor  of  railroads,  and  was  not 
troubled  with  any  scruples  about  plans  or  methods  of  business.  He  had  a  large 
scheme  for  the  construction  of  this  Oregon  railroad,  and  at  once  laid  it  before 
I.  R.  Moores  and  others  at  Salem.  His  scheme  was  to  get  control  of  the  company^ 
already  incorporated,  and,  in  default  of  that  to  organize  a  new  companj'  which 
should  execute  a  power  of  attorney  to  S.  G.  Elliott,  authorizing  him  to  let  a  con- 
tract to  build  a  railroad  to  the  California  line,  and  that  such  company  should 
issue  two  million  dollars  of  unassessable  stock  to  certain  Califoi-nians  for  their 
good  will  in  the  matter ;  and  then  these  Californians  would  transfer  back  to  the 
Oregonians  getting  up  this  company,  one  million  dollars  of  the  unassessable 
stock  for  their  service  in  organizing  the  company.  Gaston  was  invited  to  go 
into  this  scheme  and  offered  an  office  in  such  new  companj'  and  some  unassess- 
able stock  if  he  would  throw  away  the  jjapers  of  the  original  companj'.    This  he 


THE  CKNTEXNIAL  HISTORY  OK  ()KK(;ON  :.L>1 

tlecliued,  but  offered  to  submit  their  scheme  to  the  iueorporators  of  the  Oregon 
Central  Company  and  if  tliey  approved,  Air.  Elliott  could  use  their  organization 
lo  advance  his  scheme.  But  upon  submitting  the  Elliott  scheme  to  the  incorpo- 
rators supporting  Gaston,  every  one  of  them  opposed  it.  Accordingly,  Elliott 
and  his  Salem  friends,  on  April  22,  1867,  incoi'poi'ated  another  Oregon  Cen- 
ti'al  Railroad  Company,  the  incorporators  being  8.  A.  Clarke,  John  H.  Moores, 
( leorge  L,  Woods,  and  1.  R.  Moores.  The  articles  of  incorporation  of  this  com- 
[)any  provided  for  a  capital  stock  of  $7,250,000,  to  which  six  persons  subscribed 
each  $100,  and  thereupon  elected  George  L.  Woods,  chairman  of  the  incorpon'tois' 
meeting;  and  then  at  such  meeting  passed  a  resolution  authorizing  the  ehair- 
man  to  subscribe  $7,000,000  to  the  stock  of  the  company  as  follows:  "Oregon 
( 'entral  Railroad  Company  by  George  L.  Woods,  chairman,  70,000  shares — ■ 
$7,000,000."  Upon  this  fictitious  subscription  the  company  was  oi'ganized  by 
electing  a  board  of  directors  and  George  L.  Woods  (then  governor  of  Oregon) 
as  president  and  S.  A.  Clarke,  secretary.  And  upon  this  organization,  the 
Salem  company  located  its  road  upon  the  east  side  of  the  Willamette  river,  se- 
cured some  local  donations,  some  aid  from  James  B.  Stephens,  proprietor  of  the 
then  East  Portland  townsite,  and  induced  Bernard  Goldsmith,  of  Portland,  to 
advance  $20,000  on  the  bonds  of  the  company,  and  commenced  the  work  of  con- 
structing their  road.  I  am  thus  particular  in  setting  out  these  facts  to  show 
how  the  railroad  was  located  on  the  east  side  of  the  Willamette  valley. 

Up  to  this  point  the  Elliott  scheme,  concocted  in  San  Francisco  and  swal- 
lowed by  the  Salem  people,  baited  with  unassessable  stock,  was  an  attack  on 
the  interests  of  Poi-tland.  The  prejudice  in  the  Willamette  valley  against 
Portland  was  greater  then  than  it  is  now.  And  the  fact  that  the  Salem  com- 
pany had  been  promoted  from  San  Francisco,  while  the  company  Gaston  rep- 
resented was  a  Portland  corporation  with  Portland  incorporators,  having  its 
office  there,  and  making  Portland,  the  terminus  of  its  railroad,  created  all  the 
antagonism  between  the  I'ival  parties  and  engendered  the  long  and  bitter  con- 
test for  the  land  grant. 

The  Gaston,  or  Portland  company  "broke  ground"  and  commenced  the 
work  of  grading  their  line  on  the  15th  of  April,  1868,  in  the  presence  of  about 
two  thousand  people,  in  the  street  at  what  is  now  the  southwest  corner  of  the 
county  liospital  block  in  Caruthers'  addition  to  the  city  of  Portland.  And  be- 
sides an  address  from  the  president  of  the  company  showing  the  prospects  of 
the  enterpi'ise,  speeches  were  made  by  Gov.  Gibbs,  and  Col.  W.  W.  Chapman, 
Mrs.  Rebecca  Lewis,  wife  of  the  chief  engineer  of  the  company,  then  and  there 
cast  the  first  shovel  full  of  earth  in  grading  the  Oregon  railroad  system. 

The  east  side  or  Salem  company  "broke  ground"  the  next  day,  April  16, 
at  the  point  where  the  Southern  Pacific  Company's  car  shops  are  located, 
south  of  Stephen's  addition  to  tlie  city  of  Portland. 

The  following  is  the  original  list  of  stock  subscriptions  in  Portland  with 
which  the  Oregon  Central  Haili-oad  Company  commenced  construction  work; 
Ladd  &  Tilton,  five  shares;  C.  'SI.  Carter,  five  shares;  F.  Dekum,  five  shares; 
S.  Coffin,  five  shares;  Jacob  Kamm,  five  shares;  A.  H.  Johnson,  five  shares; 
T.  J.  Carter,  five  shares;  John  ]\I.  Breck,  five  shares;  Wm.  Cree,  five  shares; 
David  Monnastes,  five  shares;  J.  H.  Hayden,  five  shares;  Walter  Jloifett,  five 
shares:  E.  J.  Northrup,  five  sliares;  Hiram  Smith,  ten  shares;  Hannah  M. 
Smith,  ten  shares:  J.  A.  Fisher,  ten  sliares;  J.  jMyriek.  five  shares:  J.  B.  Plar- 


522  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

ker,  five  shares;  J.  C.  Aiusworth,  five  shares,  Joseph  Teal,  five  shares;  S.  G. 
Reed,  five  shares;  T.  R.  Cornelms,  five  shares;  R.  C.  Kinney,  five  shares;  R. 
Glisan,  five  shares;  D.  C.  Lewis,  five  shares;  Cincinnati  Bills,  five  shares;  A. 
B.  Hallock,  five  shares;  J.  S.  Smith,  five  shares;  Lansing  Stout,  five  shares;  G. 
W.  Vaughn,  five  shares;  John  McCraken,  five  shares,  J.  "W.  Cook,  five  shares; 
Sam.  Lowenstein,  five  shares;  D.  Simon,  ten  shares;  A.  Harker,  ten  shares; 
Joseph  Knott,  ten  shares;  Wiberg  &  Strowbridge,  five  shares;  C.  A.  Burchardt, 
five  shares;  John  Green,  five  shares;  R.  R.  Thompson,  five  shares;  Estes  & 
Stimson,  five  shares;  E.  Milwain,'  five  shares;  J.  W.  Ladd,  five  shares;  T.  M. 
Ritchey,  fifteen  shares;  A.  P.  Ankeny,  five  shares;  Labbe  Bros.,  five  shares. 

These  men  have  all  passed  on  except  John  ]\IcCraken,  J.  W.  Cook,  Blaise 
Labbe  and  Samuel  Lowenstein. 

Mr.  Elliott's  financiering,  however,  did  not  carry  the  enterprise  very  far. 
The  $2,000,000  of  seven  per  cent  unassessable  stock  in  the  company  was  issued 
to  A.  J.  Cook  &  Co.  (fictitious  name  for  Elliott),  under  an  agreement  that 
$1,000,000  of  it  should  be  given  to  the  directors  of  the  Salem  company,  and  this 
stock  for  the  directors  was  deposited  in  the  safe  of  E.  N.  Cooke  and  l^y  there 
for  two  years  and  until  the  company  ceased  to  exist.  But  that  stock  brought 
no  aid  or  comfort  to  the  company  or  its  directors.  Goldsmith's  money  was  all 
spent,  the  laborers  on  the  grade  were  elamoririg  for  back  pay,  and  Elliott's 
scheme  was  on  the  verge  of  collapse  when  in  very  desperation  the  whole  scheme, 
with  all  its  hopes,  assets,  and  great  expectations,  was  turned  over  to  Ben 
Holla  day. 

HOLLADAY  AND  THE  LAND  GRANT  CONTEST 

Holladay  appeared  in  Oregon  about  six  weeks  before  the  meeting  of  the  legis- 
lature in  September,  1868,  and  took  energetic  steps  to  attack  the  rights  of  the 
corporation  first  named  above  to  its  land  grant.  With  ready  cash  Holladay 
pushed  the  work  of  construction  on  the  east  side  grade,  subsidized  newspapers 
to  advocate  his  cause  and  sing  his  praises,  bovight  i;p  politicians  on  all  sides 
to  do  his  bidding  and  treated  with  imperious  contempt  the  rights  of  all  who  dared 
to  question  his  career.  At  the  ensuing  session  of  the  legislature  he  appeared  at 
Salem  as  the  host  of  a  large  establishment,  dispensing  free  "meat  and  drinks" 
to  all  comers,  and  otherwise  equipped  with  all  the  elements  of  vice  and  dissi- 
pation. Joined  with  a  part  of  this  force,  was  the  first  hired  and  organized  band 
of  lobbyists  in  the  history  of  the  Oregon  legislature.  And  so  energetic  and  suc- 
cessful was  the  battle  they  waged,  that  on  October  20,  1868,  the  legislature  passed 
a  joint  resolution  declaring  that  the  act  of  the  previous  legislature  was  made  in 
mistake,  that  the  designation  of  the  company  to  receive  the  land  grant  was  still  to 
be  made,  and  that  The  Oregon  Central  Railroad  Company  of  Salem,  be  desig- 
nated to  receive  such  grant.  This  was  done  in  the  face  of  all  the  facts  stated 
above,  fully  presented  to  the  legislature,  and  of  the  further  facts  that  the  first 
named  company  had  filed  its  acceptance  of  the  land  grant  in  the  department  of 
the  interior  at  Washington  city  according  to  the  law,  and  within  the  time  pro- 
vided, which  acceptance  had  been  accepted  by  the  secretary  of  the  Interior; 
and  that  the  time  had  passed  by  within  which  any  company  could  file  another 
acceptance  of  the  grant.  Such  a  high-handed  outrage  was  probably  never 
enacted  before  in  any  state,  and  was  accomplished  in  Oregon  only,  as  Holla- 


BKX    HOI.I.ADAV 


THE  CENTENNIAL  II [STORY  OK  ORKOON  r)23 

day  al'terwarils  adniittotl  to  tlio  author  of  this  book,  at  a  fost  to  him  of  $35,00(1. 
paid  to  members  of  the  legislature.  This,  however,  was  about  the  least 
of  Holladay's  offences  against  public  morals,  common  decency  and  justice  dur- 
ing his  career  in  Oregon.  Thus  securing  this  act  of  the  legislature  in  his  favor, 
Holladay  continued  to  push  the  work  of  construction  on  the  grade,  and  sent 
agents  to  "Washington  to  get  an  act  through  congress  enabling  his  Salem  com- 
pany to  tile  its  acceptance  of  the  land  grant  act.  Congi-ess  finally,  on  April  16, 
1869.  passed  an  act  extending  the  time  for  filing  acceptance  of  the  land  grant 
act  and  providing  that  whicliever  of  the  two  companies  should  first  complete  and 
put  in  operation  twenty  miles  of  railroad  from  Portland  southward  into  the  Wil- 
lamette valley  should  he  entitled  to  file  such  acceptance  of  grant. 

But  this  concession  was  not  secured  without  a  bitter  contest  before  congress ; 
Mr.  S.  G.  Reed  spent  the  winter  of  1868-9  in  Washington  city  in  labors  before 
congress  in  the  interest  of  the  real  Oregon  Central  Company,  while  the  fraudu- 
lent Oregon  Central  was  repi-esented  by  John  H.  Mitchell  and  S.  F.  Chadwiek, 
who  afterwards  became  secretary'  of  state  and  governor.  Senator  George  H. 
Williams  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Salem  fraudulent  company,  while  Senator 
H.  W.  Corbett  faithfully  supported  the  rights  of  the  honest  corporation.  On 
final  vote.  AVillianis  got  support  enough  to  pass  his  enabling  act  to  let  in  the 
Salem  company  to  compete  for  the  land  grant.  And  upon  this  hope,  Holladay 
continued  to  push  construction  work  with  all  his  available  means  until  in  De- 
cember. 1868,  he  had  in  a  very  cheap  and  imperfect  manner  completed  and  put 
in  operation  ,with  one  engine  and  a  car  or  two,  twenty  miles  of  railroad,  and  was 
thereby  recognized  as  entitled  to  the  land  grant. 

But  notwithstanding  tliis  hard-earned  success.  Holladay  was  now  face  to 
face  with  a  state  of  facts  that  would  have  paraylzed  a  less  reckless  and  unscrup- 
ulous operator.  It  had  become  everywhere  understood  and  admitted  that  the 
Salem  Oregon  Central  Railroad  Company  was  not  a  corporation  and  had  no 
legal  existence,  and  for  that  reason  could  not  appropriate  the  right  of  way  in  any 
ease  where  the  landholder  refused  it;  or  enforce  any  other  rights  of  a  corpo- 
ration. The  supreme  court  of  Oregon  afterwards  decided  that  the  Salem  com- 
pany w-as  not  a  corporation,  but  a  mere  nullity  and  fraud,  that  it  had  no  legal 
rights  and  could  not  take  the  land  grant,  and  that  the  act  of  the  legislature,  of 
1868  could  not  heal  its  defects.  (In  the  case  of  Elliott  v.  Holladay,  et  al.,  p  91, 
vol.  8  of  Oregon  reports.) 

The  court  says:  "On  the  22nd  day  of  April,  1867,  I.  R.  ]\Ioores,  George  L. 
Woods.  S.  A.  Clarke,  and  others  filed  articles  of  incorporation  to  incorporate  the 
Oregon  Centi-al  Railroad  Company.  The  capital  was  fixed  at  seven  million  two 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  divided  into  seventy-two  thousand  five  hun- 
dred shai-es  of  one  hundred  dollars  each.  On  the  same  day  stock  books  were  opened, 
when  six  shares  of  stock  were  subscribed  by  six  persons ;  then  follows  this  subscrip- 
tion : '  Oregon  Central  Railroad  Company,  by  George  L.  Woods,  chairman,  seventy 
thousand  shares;  seven  million  dollars.'    On  the  same  day  directors  and  other 

officers  were  elected The  attempt  to  subscribe  seventy  thousand 

shares  of  stock  of  the  0.  C.  R.  R.  Co.,  by  the  corporation  itself  through  a  per- 
son styling  himself  chairman,  was  done  simply  to  evade  the  liability  the  law 
imposes  on  all  persons  who  subscribe  to  the  capital  stock  of  corporations.  This 
w  as  a  mere  nullity,  and  added  nothing  to  the  amount  of  stock  subscribed  which 
was  then  only  six  shares  of  on<>  hundred  dollars  each.    Those  who  subscribed  the 


524  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

six  shares  proceeded  to  elect  the  directors  of  the  corporation.  Tlie  corporation 
was  not  organdzed  according  to  law,  but  in  direct  violation  of  the  statute  which 
provides  that  "it  shall  be  lawful  in  the  organization  of  any  corporation  to 
elect  a  board  of  directors  as  soon  as  one-half  the  capital  stock  has  been  sub- 
scribed." This  attempted  organization  of  the  Salem  0.  C.  R.  R.  Co.,  amounted 
to  nothing.  It  was  absolutely  void.  It  had  no  power  to  legally  transact  any 
business,  or  to  accept  or  hold  the  lands  granted  by  congress. 

And  besides  this  the  west  side  company  had  finally  forced  the  Salem  com- 
pany to  stand  trial  before  Justice  M.  P.  Deady,  of  the  United  St<ites  district 
court  as  to  its  right  to  its  corporate  name,  and  the  court  had  held  that  one 
corporation  could  not  take  and  use  the  name  of  a  prior  organized  company.  This 
■  of  itself  was  a  death  blow  to  the  Salem  eompanJ^  (See  Deadj^'s  Reports,  p. 
609).  In  this  crisis  of  his  Oregon  venture  Holladay  turned  the  whole  matter 
over  to  the  great  lawyer,  W.  M.  Evarts,  who  was  secretary  of  the  state  to 
Px-esident  Hayes.  After  many  months  of  study  Mr.  Evarts  decided  that  the 
franchise  to  exercise  corporate  rights  v^as  a  grant  from  the  state  and  could  be 
questioned  only  by  the  state,  and  not  having  been  so  questioned  the  Salem  com- 
pany was  at  liberty  to  transfer  any  and  all  rights  and  franchises  it  was  assum- 
ing to  own.  And  that  as  the  land  grant  was  a  concession  from  the  federal 
government  the  right  thereto  could  be  disputed  only  by  the  grantor,  and  not 
having  been  so  questioned  the  franchise  to  take  such  grant  could  be  also  assigned 
and  transferred  by  the  Salem  companj^;  and  that  the  next  step  for  Mr.  Holla- 
day  was  to  lawfully  organize  a  new  Oregon  corporation  to  take  over  all  the 
rights,  property,  and  franchises  of  the  Salem  company,  and  have  the  Salem 
company  make  such  transfer.  For  this  opinion  Holladaj^  paid  Evarts  $25,000; 
and  immediately  thereafter  (1870)  incorporated  and  organized  The  Oregon  and 
California  Railroad  Company,  to  which  all  the  assets  of  the  Salem  company 
were  conveyed.  After  thus  clearing  up  the  Avreckage  of  the  fictitious  corpora- 
tion, and  burying  as  best  he  could  the  scandals  which  disgraced  the  lives  and 
ruined  the  political  'fortunes  of  more  men  in  Oregon  than  all  other  events  in 
the  history  of  the  state,  Holladay  sold  in  Germany  ten  and  a  half  million  dol- 
lars of  bonds  upon  the  land  grant  and  the  road  to  be  constructed.  Applied  at 
the  rate  of  $30,000  per  mile  of  road,  these  bonds  were  estimated  to  biiild  three 
hundred  and  fifty  miles,  or  practically  to  the  California  line.  But  by  Holla- 
day's  recklessness  and  dishonest  management,  not  more  than  fifty-seven  cents 
on  the  dollar  of  the  bonds  ever  went  into  the  construction  of  the  road;  so  that 
by  the  time  the  track  had  reached  Roseburg  from  Portland  the  proceeds  of  the 
bonds  Avere  exhausted,  and  Roseburg  remained  the  terminus  of  the  road  for 
ten  years.  Then  a  reorganization  took  place,  the  holders  of  the  bonds  surrender- 
ing their  securities  for  preferred  stock  and  advancing  more  money  on  a  new 
mortgage  to  extend  the  road  to  Ashland  in  Jackson  county.  Here  the  track 
stood  still  for  seven  years,  and  another  reorganization  took  place;  the  old 
bondholders  refunding  their  second  issue  of  bonds  in  new  bonds  bearing  a  still 
lower  rate  of  interest,  and  the  Southern  Pacific  Company  advancing  the  capi- 
tal to  finally  connect  Oregon  and  California  with  the  present  existing  road, 
in  the  year  of  1887 ;  making  nineteen  years  from  the  time  construction  work  com- 
menced until  the  road  reached  the  California  line.  Holladay,  proving  wholly 
incapable  of  managing  the  property,  was  forced  out  of  its  control  by  the  liond- 
holders  in  1876,  and  Mr.  Plenry  Villard  put  in  control;  and  under  Villard.  as 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTOKV  OF  OREGON  5:i5 

immediate  aud  respousible  manager  of  tlie  property,  a  young'  man  I'roin  Ger- 
many  (Rieliard  Koelder)  oi'  whom  we  liave  more  to  say  I'urtlier  along. 

Of  the  contest  for  possession  of  the  laud  grant  and  the  character  of  the  men 
who  combined  to  rob  the  riglitful  owners  of  it,  H.  W.  Scott's  History  of  Port- 
laiid,  i>.  287,  says: 

"It  was  a  memorable  conllid  that  coudueted  by  the  lirst  rival  railroad 
companies  of  Oi'cgon ;  with  matter  in  it  for  a  novelist.  It  would  be  rash  to 
intimate  tliat  Elliott  with  all  his  mythical  capitalists  was  an  agent  of  Holla- 
day  all  the  time,  the  general  opinion  being  that  he  was  at  lirst  only  acting 
for  himself,  or  that  the  east  side  company  knew  the  extent  of  his  romances, 
which  they  used  so  well  to  their  advantage.  It  would  on  the  other  hand  be 
difdcult  to  believe  that  Holladay's  or  the  original  east  side  company  were  act- 
ually imposed  upon  by  repi'esentatious  as  to  a  firm  like  A.  J.  Cook  &  Co.,  of  im- 
mense wealth  and  standing  when  any  business  or  banking  gazetteer  would  in- 
form them  as  to  the  existence  or  non-existence  of  such  a  firm ;  particvilarly  as 
Mr.  Gaston  was  constantly  asserting  in  public  that  this  company  was  all  a 
pretense." 

Of  Ben  Holladay.  the  same  work  says,  p.  283:  "'He  was  a  man  whose  selfish- 
ness dominated  all  else,  and  his  practical  incentive  was  to  use  the  power  of 
wealth  to  control  a  state.  He  showed  no  love  for  Oregon,  or  for  the  people 
of  Oregon,  but  no  other  field  was  so  inviting,  or  so  well  within  his  means.  If 
his  aims  had  been  to  build  a  railroad,  he  might  have  done  it  with  less  trouble 
and  expense,  aud  for  far  greater  i-eturns.  If  his  idea  was  to  make  himself 
the  autocrat  of  the  state,  to  own  legislature  and  United  States  senators  and 
perhaps  extend  his  operations  over  adjoining  territories  and  control  trans- 
continental lines,  he  never  followed  it  with  consistency.  Upon  examination 
we  apprehend  he  would  be  found  a  man  of  great  intentions,  but  of  unstal)le 
will,  of  deep  schemes  but  feeble  convictions,  of  large  aims,  but  incapable  of 
sustained  effort  or  sacrifice,  and  subject  to  violent  passion  and  prejudice.  As 
a  working  scheme  of  morality  he  let  nothing  stand  in  the  way  of  his  aims,  i-ecog- 
niziug  no  rights  of  anybodj^,  but  the  shortest  way  to  his  object.  He  had  one, 
and  but  one.  means  of  attaining  his  end  and  that  was  the  use  of  his  money. 
To  buy  an  attorney,  judge,  a  city,  a  legislator,  a  senator  or  public  opinion,  was 
all  one  to  him.  He  made  no  appeals  to  the  people,  neither  addressing  them  on 
the  side  of  self-interest  or  generosity.  The  public  knew  nothing  of  him  except 
that  he  was  a  nabob  living  in  unapproachable  magnificence,  and  was  at  the  head 
of  all  that  was  going.  This  was  the  man  that  appeared  above  the  stormj-  rail- 
road horizon  in  Oregon  in  his  true  form  in  1868.  J.  H.  Mitchell,  one  of  the  first 
incorporators  of  the  original  Oregon  Central  Railroad  Company,  but  also  an 
incorporator  of  the  second  or  East  Side  Company,  and  their  attorney,  rendered 
very  efSeient  service  to  Mr.  Holladay." 

To  the  above  review  by  Mr.  Scott,  may  be  truthrully  .ulded  ;  that  Holladay  did 
buy  judges,  and  legislatures  and  attorneys  to  betray  their  clients.  Mr.  Mitcliell 
was  the  first  attorney  of  the  original  Oregon  Central  Railroad  Company,  and  be- 
trayed its  interests  to  the  Salem  or  East  Side  Company.  One  judge,  at  least,  up 
in  the  Willamette  valley  was  silenced,  so  that  he  would  not  follow  the  plain  dic- 
tates of  the  statue  law,  and  universal  decision  of  the  courts,  to  protect  the  legal 
and  just  rights  of  the  original  Oregon  Central  Company.  Another  judge  in  the 
Multnomah  district  (and  his  name  was  not  Erasmus  D.  Shattuek  or  ^latthew  P. 


526  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Deady  by  any  iiieaus)  offered  to  sell  his  decision  to  the  original  Oregon  Central 
Company,  and  when  his  goods  were  declined  he  went  over  to  the  other  side,  and 
like  the  judge  up  the  valley  declined  to  decide  anything  at  all. 

But  it  has  all  passed  into  history.  All  the  actors  in  the  drama  are  dead  but  one, 
All  the  members  of  all  the  old  companies  are  dead  but  this  one.  And  while  he 
was  robbed  of  his  rights  and  his  property  by  a  corrupted  legislature,  and  cor- 
rupt judges,  he  still  remains  to  enjoy  in  comfort  a  pleasant  home  that  looks  down 
on  the  city  he  has  helped  to  build,  with  all  the  necessary  comforts  of  life ;  and  what 
is  better  than  all  else,  the  respect  of  his  old  friends  and  neighbors — and  lives  to 
write  this  history  of  those  who  so  wantonly  robbed  him,  and  gained  nothing  in 
the  end  by  their  wrong-doing. 

Ben  Holladay  was  born  and  reared  near  Blue  Lick,  Kentucky.  Emigrating 
to  Missouri  in  1856,  he  became  a  hanger-on  to  the  army  at  Fort  Leavenworth, 
and  drifted  into  various  camp-follower  speculations  for  several  years  until  in 
1860  when  the  Civil  war  broke  out  he  was  operating  a  buckboard  mail  and  stage 
line  from  St.  Joseph,  Mo.,  to  Salt  Lake  City.  About  this  time  the  great  army 
transportation  firm  of  Russell,  Majors  &  Waddle,  fell  into  financial  trouble  and  in 
order  to  tide  over  their  affairs  and  force  a  cheap  settlement  with  their  creditors, 
as  related  to  the  author  of  this  book  by  Mi'.  Russell  himself,  the  firm  delivered 
to  Holladay,  as  their  friend,  $600,000  of  government  vouchers,  for  transportation 
the  firm  had  rendered ;  under  an  agreement  that  when  they  had  settled  with  their 
creditors  Holladay  should  return  to  them  the  $600,000.  Holladay  took  the  vouch- 
ers, collected  the  money,  and  when  requested  to  return  it  to  the  confiding  firm,  he 
repudiated  not  only  the  agreement  to  do  so,  but  all  knowledge  of  the  transaction. 
As  it  was  an  unlawful  act  for  the  failing  debtor  he  could  not  recover,  and  so, 
not  onlj^  Russell,  Majors  &  Waddle  lost  the  vast  sum  of  money,  but  their  creditors 
had  been  beaten  by  both  the  debtors  and  their  deceiver,  Ben  Holladay.  On  this 
plunder  Holladay  came  to  the  Pacific  coast,  bought  the  line  of  ships  to  Oregon  and 
got  into  the  Oregon  railroad.  He  was  a  man  of  splendid  physique,  fine  address, 
and  knew  well  how  to  manage  the  average  human  nature.  He  was  energetic,  un- 
tiring, unconscionable,  unscrupulous  and  wholly  destitute  of  fixed  principles  of 
honesty,  morality  or  common  decency. 

THE  WEST   SIDE  ROAD 

Returning  uow  to  the  Oregon  Central  Company,  we  find  it  in  1869  robbed  of 
the  land  grant  it  was  justly  entitled  to.  but  not  wholly  driven  out  of  the  field. 
The  citizens  of  Portland,  Washington,  Yamhill  and  Polk  coiinties  stood  loyally 
by  the  old  company,  and  not  only  gave  financial  aid  to  the  extent  of  grading 
and  bridging  the  first  twenty  miles  of  its  roadbed,  but  also  threw  into  the  scale 
the  weight  of  their  political  influence,  declaring  that  no  man  should  represent 
Oregon  in  congress  Avho  could  not  labor  to  secure  another  grant  of  land  in  aid 
of  their  road. 

A  GREAT  BLUNDER 

"And  now,"  says  Bancroft's  History  of  Oregon.  2nd  Vol.,  p.  701,  ■" hap- 
pened one  of  those  fortuitous  circumstances  which  defeat  occasionally  the 
shrewdest  men.    The  west  side  (original  Oregon  Central  Co.)  had  sent  in  May, 


HENRY  \aLLARD 


I  THE  ^EW 


THK  CENTIONNTAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  527 

1868,  half  a  inilliou  dollars  ol'  ils  first  mortgage  bonds  to  London  to  be  sold  by 
Edwin  Russt'll,  then  manager  oi  the  Portland  branch  oi'  the  Bank  of  Britisli 
('oluiiil)iii.  Just  at  the  moment  wiien  money  was  most  needed,  a  cablegi-am 
from  Russell  to  Gaston  informed  him  that  the  bonds  could  be  sold  so  as  to  fur- 
nish tlie  funds  and  iron  necessary  to  construct  the  tirst  twenty  uules  ol'  mad. 
by  selling  them  at  a  low  price.  Gaston  had  the  power  to  accept  the  oiler,  hut 
instead  of  doing  so  promptly,  and  placing  himself  on  an  e(iuality  with  Iloila- 
day  primarily,  he  referred  Die  nuitter  to  Capt.  J.  C.  Ainsworth,  a  director  of 
the  company,  to  whom  he  felt  under  obligations  for  past  favors,  and  whom 
he  regarded  as  a  more  experienced  financier  than  himself,  and  the  latter,  after 
deliberating  two  days  on  the  sul>.iect.  cal)led  to  Kussell  a  refusal  of  tli<'  jiroposi- 
tion." 

But  to  make  amends  for  this  blunder,  for  such  it  was,  Ainsworth  organized 
a  syndicate  under  the  name  of  S.  G.  Reed  &  Co.,  to  construct  one  hundred  miles 
of  the  Oregon  Central  Railroad  from  Portland  south  in  the  Willamette  valley 
for  the  sum  of  thirty  thousand  dollars  a  mile,  to  be  paid  for  wdth  the  company  "s 
first  mortgage  bonds  on  the  road  issued  at  the  rate  of  thirty  thousand  dollars  a 
mile. 

Under  this  contract  Reed  &  Co.  proceeded  with  construction  work  until 
they  had  expended  thirty-three  thousand  dollars,  and  then  stopped  work,  for 
the  alleged  reason  that  the  company  would  lose  the  land  grant  to  save  which 
the  contract  had  been  given  and  accepted.  But  on  intimations  from  Gaston 
that  Reed  &  Co.  would  be  held  for  damages,  they  furnished  Gaston  funds  to 
go  to  Washington  city  in  1869-70  and  solicit  a  new  grant  of  lands  to  the  com- 
pany. 

.Speaking  of  the  condition  of  the  railroad  enterprise  at  that  time.  Bancroft's 
History  above  quoted,  p.  702,  says:  "The  action  of  congress  in  practically  de- 
ciding in  favor  of  the  Holladay  interest,  caused  S.  G.  Reed  &  Co.  to  abandon  the 
construction  contract,  leaving  the  whole  hopeless  .undertaking  in  the  hands 
of  Gaston.  Without  resources,  and  in  debt,  he  resolved  to  persevere.  In  the 
treasury  of  Washington  county  were  several  thousand  dollars  paid  in  as  inter- 
est on  the  bonds  pledged.  He  applied  for  this  money,  which  the  county  officers 
allowed  him  to  use  in  grading  the  roadbed  during  the  sunnuer  of  1869,  as  far 
as  the  town  of  Hillsboro.  This  done,  he  resolved  to  go  to  Washington,  and 
before  leaving  Oregon  made  a  tour  of  the  west  side  counties,  reminding  the 
people  of  the  injustice  they  had  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  courts  and  legisla- 
ture, and  urging  them  to  unite  in  electing  men  who  would  give  them  redress. 
■"Gaston  reached  the  national  capital  in  1869.  Holladay  having  completed 
in  that  month  twenty  miles  of  the  Oregon  &  California  Railroad  and  become 
entitled  to  the  grant  of  land  which  Gaston  had  been  the  means  of  securing  to 
the  builder  of  the  iirst  railroad.  His  business  at  the  capital  was  to  obtain  a  new- 
grant  to  the  Oregon  Central ;  and  in  this  he  was  successful,  being  warmly  sup- 
ported by  Corbett  and  W'illiams;  the  latter,  however,  refusing  to  let  the  road 
extend  farther  than  jMc^NIinnville.  lest  it  should  interfere  with  the  designs  of 
Holladay." 

This  was  not  what  was  desired,  but  it.  was  the  best  that  could  be  secured  at 
that  time.  And  in  the  partition  of  Oregon,  local  interests  then  seeking  recogni- 
tion at  Washington  City,  it  was  agreed  by  the  Oregon  delegation  in  Congress, 


528  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

that  at  the  next  session  of  congress  this  grant  should  be  extended  from  Mc- 
Minnville  to  Eugene.  And  upon  this  basis  it  was  further  agreed  that  Mr.  B.  J. 
Pengra  of  Eugene,  then  also  at  AVashington,  and  representing  the  proposed  rail- 
road from  Winnemucca  to  Eugene  (incorporated  as  "Oregon  Branch  Pacific 
Railroad"),  should  also  have  a  grant  of  lands  for  his  company.  This  scheme. 
carried  out,  would  give  a  continuous  land  grant  from  the  Central  Pacific  Rail- 
road in  Nevada,  to  Eugene.  Portland  and  Astoria.  And  upon  this  foundation, 
C.  P.  Huntington,  then  in  the  zenith  of  his  power  as  a  railroad  financier  and 
constructor,  agreed  to  furnish  the  capital  and  build  the  railroad  from  Winne- 
mucca to  Eugene,  Portland  and  Astoria,  giving  Oregon  a  more  direct  connection 
to  the  east  than  by  the  California  route.  This  scheme  was  defeated  by  Ben  Hol- 
laday,  then  also  at  Washington,  who,  within  ten  days  after  congress  passed  the 
Oregon  Central  grant  to  McMinnville,  indiiced  Senator  Williams  to  amend  the 
Pengra  bill  by  providing  that  the  Winnemucca  road  should  connect  with  the  Hol- 
laday  line  at  a  point  in  the  Rogue  river  valleJ^  This  provision  would,  of 
course,  prevent  all  connection  Avith  the  McMinnville  line  and  give  Holladay 
control  of  all  roads  from  the  Rogue  river  valley  to  Portland.  Holladay  was 
quick  to  see  that  the  Pengra  bill  woixld  bring  to  Oregon  a  giant  in  energy  and 
ability  who  would  dwarf  his  own  pretensions  and  soon  drive  him  from  the  field ; 
and  with  a  selfishness  and  vanity  which  knew  no  limits,  he  demanded  the  sacri- 
fice of  the  interests  of  the  state  and  the  ruin  of  the  man  who  was  willing  to 
befriend  him.  Upon  this  change  being  made  in  the  Winnemucca  bill,  Mr.  Hunt- 
ington promptly  withdrew  from  his  offer  to  finance  the  road,  and  the  whole 
scheme  to  get  another  road  into  Oregon  through  the  Klamath  lake  region  failed. 
Had  not  the  Winnemucca  (Oregon  Branch  Pacific)  proposition  been  emascu- 
lated, southeastern  Oregon,  the  Nehalem  valley  and  Astoria,  would  have  had 
practically  a  transcontinental  railroad  more  than  thirty  years  ago ;  and  Eugene 
would  have  been  the  junction  of  two  great  lines.  But  for  this,  the  Midas  touch  of 
Huntington  would  have  made  the  southeastern  Oregon  plains  and  the  Nehalem 
wilderness  prosperous  and  populous  with  commerce  and  population  of  half  a  mil- 
lion, and  Astoria  would  have  had  a  population  of  50,000.  Driven  from  this 
opportunity  which  Huntington  himself  sought,  he  turned  his  attention  to  Arizona 
and  Mexico  and  gave  to  the  arid  deserts  of  the  south  the  wealth  which  should  have 
Deen  the  reward  of  Oregon  enterprise.  It  was  the  most  damaging  blow  to  the 
growth  of  the  state  which  Oregon  ever  suffered;  for  it  not  only  deprived 
the  state  of  a  great  railroad,  and  its  consequent  development,  but  it  wrecked 
the  political  career  of  a  great  man — the  man  who  had  most  influence  in  con- 
gress from  the  Pacific  coast — George  H.  AVilliams — and  deprived  the  state  of 
his  eminent  abilities.  Ben  Holladay  and  John  H.  Mitchell  by  this  act  ruined 
Judge  Williams  for  life  and  did  Portland  and  the  state  of  Oregon  an  incalcula- 
ble damage. 

As  an  excuse  for  the  action  of  Senator  Williams  in  this  matter,  it  has  been 
alleged  by  his  friends,  that  he  altered  the  terms  of  t^e  proposed  grant  of  lands 
for  a  railroad  from  AVinnemucca  to  Eugene  for  the  reason  that  the  California 
interests  represented  by  Huntington  would  abandon  the  line  to  Oregon  through 
the  Rogue  river  vallej'  and  come  into  Oregon  by  way  of  Pit  river  and  Goose 
lake,  if  the  Pengra  proposition  was  carried  out ;  and  by  so  doing,  the  people  of 
the  Umpqua  and  Rogue  river  valleys  would  be  deprived  of  a  direct  communica- 


WILLIAil  REID 


mm''"    ' 


THE  CENTENNIAL  TTISTORY  OF  OREGON  .-i>9 

li(ni  to  Calif()i'iii;i.  I;u1  lliis  cxfuso  is  not  irood,  lor  tlir  itmsoii  lluit  tln'  Oivfrmi 
,nid  California  ijraiit  specially  provided — 

"That  the  L'()in])aii.\  cniiiplcting:  its  respec'ti\c  pari  i<\'  the  said  raili'oad  and 
telegraph  from  either  lei'iiiini  herein  named  to  llie  line  lietween  California  and 
Oregon  before  the  Dtln-r  e(iinpan\-  shall  have  likewise  ari'ived  at  the  same  line, 
shall  have  the  right,  and  tin'  said  eompany  is  herehy  aiilliorized  to  coatimie  in 
ronstructing  the  same  lieyond  the  line  aforesaid,  npon  the  terms  mentioned  in 
this  act.  nntil  the  said  jiai-ts  shall  meet  and  eoinieet  anil  the  whole  line  of  said 
railroad   shall    he   eompleted."" 

Under  that  speeial  provision  the  C)regon  ])art  of  the  road  might  have  lieen 
eoiistnicted  clear  down  to  Marysville,  California,  it  the  California  Company 
had  not  bnilt  their  end  of  the  proposition.  There  was  no  possible  excuse  for  the 
course  of  Senator  Williams  in  that  transaction.  The  whole  program  had  been 
arranged  and  agreed  to  at  a  meeting  held  at  tlie  residence  of  Congressman 
'fliomas  Fiteh  of  Nevada  at  which  Senator  Williams  was  present,  and  Judge  Cyrus 
Olney  representing  Astoria  interests,  B.  J.  Pengra  representing  Eugene  and 
eastern  Oregon  interests.  Thomas  Fitch  representing  Nevada  interests,  Joseph 
Gaston  representing  Oregon  Central  Railroad,  Portland  and  Willamette  valley 
interests,  and  a  personal  letter  from  Hon.  C.  P.  Huntington  was  read  pledging 
the  Central  Pacitic  Company  to  build  the  Pengra  road  from  Winnemucca  to 
Eugene.  Senator  Williams  backed  down  and  deserted  Pengra  and  his  proposed 
road  because  Ben  Ilolladay  threatened  to  defeat  hinl  for  re-election  to  the 
Taited  States  senate.  That  was  the  real,  and  only  explanation  of  his  course; 
w  hich  proved  his  own  political  ruin,  and  an  incalculable  damage  to  his  state. 

Cjion  this  land  grant  to  the  Oregon  Central  Company,  and  vipon  one  mil- 
lion dollars  construction  bonds  thereon,  English  capitalists  advanced  a  mil- 
lion dollars  to  build  the  road  from  Portland  to  the  Yamhill  r-iver,  where  it 
stood  still  for  ten  years  at  the  HoUaday  town  of  St.  Joe.  The  same  capitalists 
;vere  induced  by  Mr.  Mllard  to  advance  further  capital  to  extend  the  road 
from  St.  Joe  (long  since  deserted)  to  ilcMinnville  and  Corvallis,  the  present 
terminus.  In  the  work  of  building  this  west  side  road,  the  citizens  of  Portland 
contributed  in  cash  and  lainis  ifsl.^O.OOO.  the  people  of  Washington  county  .$25,- 
000.  and  the  people  of  'S'amhill  county  about  !f(20.00(). 

THE  WORK  OF  VILLAUI) 

The  eonung  of  Heni-y  Villard  to  Oregon  in  1874  was  the  fact  of  largest 
importance  to  the  development  of  the  Northwest.  Mr.  Villard  had  been  by  his 
friends  in  Germany  placed  in  charge  of  their  interests  in  the  Kansas  Pacific 
Railroad,  and  had  proved  so  faithful  and  capable  in  managing  his  trust  that 
when  similar  investments  in  Oregon  had  been  jeopardized  by  Ben  HoUaday  he 
was  sent  here  to  make  a  report  and  right  all  wrongs.  On  his  first  visit  to  Ore- 
gon, the  author  of  this  book  accompanied  him  on  a  trip  Ihroughout  the  Willam- 
ette valley  and  discovered  that  he  had  thoughts,  if  not  plans,  for  a  field  of 
action  far  beyond  the  confines  of  the  state.  Quickly  getting  under  his  full  con- 
trol the  existing  Oregon  roads,  he  went  straight  at  the  work  of  his  vast  plan  of 
an  Oregon  railroad  system  having  a  transcontinental  power  aiul  influence.  And 
as  one  step  rapidly  followed  another  in  the  vxnfolding  of  his  scheme,  it  was  seen 


530  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  O^iEGON 

that  Henry  Villard  was  not  an  ordinary  railroad  promoter,  but  a  veritable  em- 
pire builder.  His  genius  for  grand  plans  of  developing  great  states  was  fully 
equalled  by  his  ability  to  raise  the  means  to  successfully  carry  them  into  effect. 

w.  w.  chapman's  work 

Upon  the  completion  of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  to  Salt  Lake,  that  inter- 
est had  sent  surveying  parties  to  look  out  a  route  for  the  extension  of  their 
road  to  Oregon.  That  exploration,  made  in  the  year  1868,  was  known  as  "the 
Hudnutt  survey. ' '  An  Oregon  man,  Col.  W.  "W.  Chapman,  one  of  the  founders 
of  the  city  of  Portland,  took  up  and  exploited  the  id^a  of  a  "Portland.  Dalles 
&  Salt  Lake  Raih-oad"  on  the  route  proposed  by  Hudnutt.  Colonel  Chapman 
worked  upon  this  scheme  from  1870  to  1876,  attending  the  sessions  of  congi-ess 
in  each  year  and  vainly  urging  congress  to  transfer  to  his  company  the  unused 
land  grant  of  the  Northern  Pacific  railroad  from  the  mouth  of  the  Snake  river 
to  Portland.  Chapman  did  a  vast  amount  of  work  on  this  proposition,  getting 
rights  of  way  and  accumulating  facts  showing  the  value,  resources  and  im- 
portance of  the  route,  and  may  be  justly  considered  the  pioneer  of  the  road 
subsequently  built  on  the  route. 

In  every  view  of  the  ease,  the  Portland.  Dalles  &  Salt  Lake  proposition  was 
the  most  important,  and  if  carried  out.  the  most  beneficial  railroad  which  Port- 
land and  Oregon  could  'have.  Because  it  would  not  only  develop  the  largest 
territory  of  the  state,  but  would  place  Oregon  on  an  equality  with  California  in 
getting  emigration  from  the  east  and  in  competing  for  the  Asiatic  commerce. 
And  that  Col.  Chapman  did  not  succeed  was  owing  wholly  to  the  opposition  of 
the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company.  This  great  monopoly  would  not  brook 
any  competition  for  the  eastern  Oregon  business,  and  could  not  see  that  a  rail- 
road on  that  line  would  be  self-sustaining,  and  that  it  was  their  true  policy  as 
a  business  proposition  as  well  as  a  duty  to  the  state  to  support  Chapman's 
efforts  and  become  the  leading  and  controlling  interest  in  the  great  work.  Col. 
Chapman's  long-continued  effort  has  been  a  thousand  times  vindicated  as  cor- 
rect by  the  wonderful  success  of  the  Oregon  Railway  &  Navigation  Company, 
one  of  the  most  profitable  railroads  in  the  United  States. 

The  want  of  financial  support  and  the  infirmities  of  age  compelled  Chapman 
to  abandon  the  enterprise,  but  not  until  the  time  was  aiispicious  for  Henrj^  Vil- 
lard to  take  it  up  in  1879.  Mr.  Villard  visited  Oregon  first  in  1874.  again  in 
1876,  and  again  in  1878.  He  was  greatly  impressed  and  pleased  with  the 
countrj'  from  the  first  visit,  and  had  made  arrangements  to  bring  his  family  and 
settle  permanently  in  Portland.  He  had  from  the  first  been  deeply  interested 
in  developing  the  country  and  had  made  careful  investigation  of  its  resources, 
and  of  the  tributary  regions ;  so  much  so*  that  on  his  visit  in  1878  he  inquired  of 
Capt.  J.  C.  Ainsworth,  president  of  the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company, 
whethei*  his  stockholders  would  be  willing  to  dispose  of  that  company's 
property,  as  has  been  stated.  To  this  proposal  Ainsworth  replied  by  handing 
Villard  an  inventory  and  appraisal  of  the  Company's  boats  and  portage 
railways  on  the  Columbia  river,  aggregating  .$-3,320,000,  with  an  offer  to 
sell  the  entire  property  at  $5,000,000.  The  property  probably  had  never 
cost  more  than  half  the  appraisal,  but  as  it  was  paying  twelve  per  cent  divi- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  .-,31 

(lend  on  $5,000,000,  Villard  tliought  he  made  a  good  bargain  when  he  induced 
thi'  Ainsworth  stoekholders  to  give  him  an  option  to  purchase  their  property 
at  $4,000,000,  one-half  cash  and  the  balance  in  bonds  and  stocks  in  a  new  com- 
pany to  be  organized.  For  this  option  for  six  months.  Villard  paid  Ainsworth 
$100,000,  is  cash,  and  then  innnediately  returned  to  New  York  to  finance  the 
deal  and  carry  out  the  first  move  in  his  great  scheme  of  concentrating  the  trade 
of  all  the  region  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains  and  north  of  California,  at  Port- 
land, Oregon.  He  presented  the  proposition  first  to  Jay  Gould,  and  other  large 
stockholders  in  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad,  with  a  view  to  constructing  a  branch 
of  the  Union  Pacific  from  Salt  Lake  to  Portland  on  the  Chapman  route.  After 
considering  this  for  months,  the  Gould  party  declined  to  go  into  the  scheme 
and  Villard  at  once  organized  the  Oregon  Railway  and  Navigation  Company, 
raised  the  money  to  take  up  the  Ainsworth  option,  and  immediately  commenced 
the  construction  of  the  road  eastwardly  from  Portland.  The  Oregon  Railway 
(&  Navigation  Company's  roads  in  Oregon,  Washington  and  Idaho  are  the  chil- 
dren, the  lineal  descendants  of  the  old  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company, 
owned  and  operated  by  Captain  J.  C.  Ainsworth,  and  associates.  After  getting 
possession  of  the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Company,  Villard  proceeded  to  in- 
corporate and  organize  the  successive  corporation — the  Oregon  Railroad  & 
Navigation  Company,  incorporated  June  13,  1879.  Its  first  board  of  directors 
consisted  of  Artemus  H.  Holmes,  William  H.  Starbuck,  James  B.  Pry  and  Henry 
Villard  of  New  York  City.  George  W.  Weidler,  J.  C.  Ainsworth,  S.  G.  Reed, 
Paul  Schulze,  H.  W.  Corbett  and  C.  H.  Lewis,  of  Portland,  Henry  Villard  being 
elected  president.  And  Villard  at  once  set  to  work  with  all  his  characteristic 
energy  to  construct  the  railroad  up  the  south  bank  of  the  Columbia  river  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Umatilla  river,  and  from  thence  via  Pendleton  over  the  Blue  moun- 
tains to  La  Grande,  Baker,  and  on  to  Huntington,  where  it  was  met  by  the 
Oregon  Short  line.  Subsequently  branch  lines  were  run  off  to  Spokane,  and 
various  other  points  in  Oregon  and  Washington  and  to  Lewiston,  Idaho. 

To  this  bold  movement  of  Villard,  wholly  unexpected  by  the  Union  Pacific 
people,  they  promptly  replied  by  organizing  the  Oregon  Short  Line  Company, 
to  build  a  road  from  the  Union  Pacific  line  to  the  Columbia  river,  and  at  once 
commenced  construction.  Villard  had  thrown  down  a  challenge  for  possession 
of  the  short  line  route,  it  had  been  promptly  accepted,  and  now  the  race  was 
on  as  to  see  which  of  these  parties  would  win  the  game.  It  was  the  first  great 
test  of  Henry  Villard 's  ability  as  a  financier.  He  was  opposed  by  Gould,  Mor- 
gan and  some  of  the  ablest  and  wealthiest  capitalists  in  the  world,  and  yet  his 
talents  and  energy  were  such  that  he  pushed  his  road  eastwardlj-  with  such 
force  and  rapidity  as  to  meet  his  rivals  at  Huntington,  near  the  eastern  boun- 
dary of  the  state,  and  effectually  hold  his  chosen  field  of  enterprise. 

But  brilliant  in  conception  and  rapid  in  construction  as  had  been  the  great 
road  to  control  the  Columbia  River  valley,  Mr.  Villard  had  in  his  fertile  brain 
a  still  greater  scheme  of  finance  and  development  to  astonish  the  railroad  world. 
The  Northern  Pacific  Railway,  with  the  largest  bounty  of  public  lands  ever 
granted  in  aid  of  the  constiiietion  of  any  road,  had  been  making  but  a  snail's 
pace  in  spanning  the  continent  with  money  raised  on  peacemeal  moi'tgages  at 
liigh  rates  of  interest.  The  line  from  Portland  to  Tacoma  had  been  built,  and 
Ihe  eastern  division  of  the  road  pushed  west  to  the  crossing  of  the  Mis!50uri.  and 


532  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

some  work  done  ou  a  section  from  the  Columbia  toward  Spokane.  Tlie  outlook 
was  ominous.  In  the  hands  of  a  more  energetic  management  Villard  could  fore- 
see that  his  grand  scheme  of  an  Oregon  system  might  be  crippled  and  so,  matur- 
ing his  plans,  he  made  the  great  venture  of  his  career.  Quietly  ascertaining  the 
amount  of  money  necessary  to  secure  a  controlling  interest  in  the  Northern  Pa- 
cific Company,  he  addressed  a  circular  (May  15,  1881)  to  his  financial  friends 
asking  for  the  temporary  loan  of  $8,000,000  for  a  purpose  not  named,  "and  no 
questions  to  be  asked,"  assuring  his  friends  that  in  due  time  he  would  account 
to  them  for  the  money  intrusted  to  him  with  such  profits  as  would  lie  satisfac- 
tory. Such  a  proposition  was  unheard  of  in  the  world  of  finance.  It  was  auda- 
cious, appalling.  But,  nevertheless,  the  money  was  promptly  given  him.  And 
this  was  the  formation  of  the  historic  ' '  blind  pool ' '  to  control  the  Northern  Pa- 
cific Railroad,  never  attempted  before  and  never  repeated  since. 

With  this  $8,000,000  Villard  purchased  a  controlling  interest  in  the  Northern 
Pacific,  got  control  in  June,  1881,  and  was  elected  president  in  September.  He 
immediately  started  an  army  of  men  to  complete  the  great  work.  J.  L.  Hallett, 
of  Washington  county,  Oregon,  was  superintendent  of  construction  on  the  west 
end,  Hans  Thielsen,  of  Portland,  chief  engineer,  and  the  work  was  pushed  with 
such  force  and  vigor  that  an  observer  might  have  supposed  that  the  entire  army 
of  the  United  States  was  pushing  construction  of  a  military  work  in  time  of  a 
great  war.  It  was  the  supreme  test  of  Villard 's  mental  and  physical  strength. 
He  was  at  that  time  president  of  the  Northern  Pacific,  the  Oregon  Railway  & 
Navigation  Co.,  the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation  Co.,  and  the  Oregon  and  Califor- 
nia Co.,  and  was  raising  the  money  for  and  pushing  construction  work  on  all 
tliese  lines.  But  he  proved  his  matchless  ability  by  successfully  carrying  out 
these  great  enterprises,  and  on  September  8,  1883,  completing  the  Northern  Pa- 
cific across  the  continent  and  connecting  its  steel  bands  with  those  of  the  Oregon 
Railway  &  Navigation  Company  at  the  long  since  abandoned  town  of  Ainsworth 
on  the  north  side  of  the  Snake  river,  just  above  its  confluence  with  the  Colum- 
bia, and  thus  planned  and  formed  what  I  have  named  "The  Oregon  Railroad 
Sj'stem. "  How  long  Villard  was  considering  this  idea,  no  one  knows.  He 
doubtless  mentioned  it  to  others,  but  the  first  time  the  author  of  this  book  heard 
of  it  was  at  the  dinner  table  of  Senator  Nesmith,  at  his  farm  on  the  Rickreall, 
in  Polk  count.y,  in  1874,  while  accompanying  Villard  on  a  trip-  of  observation 
through  the  Willauiette  valley.  The  grand  conception  was  his  in  origin  and  exe- 
cution; and  although  hampered  by  doubters  and  opposed  by  powerful  enemies, 
he  triumphed  over  all  obstacles  and  made  its  success  the  most  enduring  monu- 
ment of  his  fame  as  one  of  the  most  forceful  characters  and  honorable  men  of 
his  day  and  generation.  The  people  of  Oregon  have  but  slightly  comprehended 
and  do  yet  but  little  appreciate  the  great  work  he  wrought  for  the  state.  He 
planned  his  work  upon  ' '  the  lines  of  the  least  resistance  " ;  he  worked  in  harmony 
with  the  laws  of  nature  and  upon  plans  laid  down  by  the  great  architect  of  our 
planet;  and  his  record  and  his  work  is  invincible.  And  now,  after  spending 
years  of  effort  and  millions  of  money  to  reverse  the  plans  of  Villard  and  carry 
the  trade  of  the  "Inland  Empire"  over  the  Cascades  to  Puget  Sound,  the  great 
capitalists  of  the  Northern  Pacific  and  Great  Northern  roads  are  forced  to.  ad- 
mit the  correctness  of  Villard 's  plans,  and  expend  forty-eight  million  dollars  to 
rectify  the  blunder  of  opposing  them.     It  was  the  keen  foi'esight  of  Henry  Villard 


THE  NEW  YORK 


TllIC  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  r,:58 

Iliat  .s;i\v  in  llie  dislaiRM-  all  llic  local  wcallli  and  prdducl  ion,  li-ailc  and  popula- 
tion of  the  cuipire  lyiii^'  wi'sl  of  llic  iiocky  iiiouiilains  ri'oiii  llic  California  line 
to  British  Cohnnliia.  and  all  llir  1  ransconi  iuciilal  coniiiiti'cc  Ix'twei'U  the  same 
lines  pouring-  its  li'ilmlr  loi-  all  time  1<i  conic  down  easy  ]nradcs  through  the  Co- 
liinibia  gateway  to  a  yrcat  city  to  lie  built  at  the  junetion  of  the  Willamette  and 
Columbia;  aud  now  not  one  road  but  four  are  vieiug  with  each  other  to  utilize 
this  water-level  i)ass  In  the  great  Pacific  and  the  still  greater  Orient. 

Henry  Villard  was  born  iu  1835  of  an  honorable  and  influential  family  in. 
Speyer,  kingdom  of  Bavaria,  Germany.  In  the  revolution  of  1849,  his  father  was 
a  loyalist  aud  the  presiding  judge  of  an  important  court.  Young  Villard  was  at 
school,  at  the  gymnasium  wore  a  red  feather  in  his  cap  and  refused  to  pray  for 
the  king.  For  this  offense  he  was  suspended  and  managed  to  get  out  of  his 
youthful  disloyalty  by  going  to  a  school  over  in  France.  Subsequently  par- 
doned, he  returned  and  completed  his  studies  at  the  University  of  Munich.  He 
came  to  the  United  States  in  1853,  tarried  with  relatives  near  Bellville,  111.,  for 
a  year,  and  then  drifted  into  journalism,  became  a  war  correspondent  in  the  Civil 
war,  made  friends  with  influential  people,  attracted  attention  by  his  ability  and 
genial  manners,  made  some  money  in  speculations,  went  back  to  Germany  on  a 
visit,  and  made  the  financial  friends  at  Frankfort  who  afterward  employed  him 
to  look  after  their  interests  in  investments  iu  America  and  put  him  on  the  high- 
way to  his  great  success.  He  was  a  man  of  most  engaging  and  genial  luanners, 
with  nothing  of  the  hard  selfishuess  or  avaricious  grasp  of  the  typical  rich  man. 
No  man  was  more  considerate  or  generous  in  praise  and  assistance  to  those  who 
worked  with  or  under  him,  or  whose  work  he  had  made  use  of.  In  the  days  of 
his  prosperity  his  purse  was  open  wide  to  all  works  of  charity  aud  benevolence, 
chief  of  which  in  Oregon  was  $50,000  to  tlie  state  university  for  an  irreducible 
fund,  at  least  $-100  of  the  interest  from  which  to  be  used  annually  in  the  pur- 
chase of  books  for  the  university  library.  He  gave  a  like  sum  to  house  the  or- 
phan children  of  Portland.  No  act  of  littleness,  meanness,  oppression,  injustice 
or  dishonor  ever  stained  the  escutcheon  of  his  noble  career,  aud  he  sleeps  well  on 
the  banks  of  the  Hudson. 

BRANCH   ROADS 

This  chapter  might  properly  end  here  were  it  not  that  others  have  done  good 
work  in  building  liranch  lines  to  complete  the  grand  scheme  planned  by  Villard ; 
and  which  it  seems  the  facts  of  history  require  to  be  recorded  iu  this  connection. 
The  principal  of  these  was  the  narrow  guage  system  projected  by  the  author 
of  this  liook  in  1878  to  more  completely  develop  the  Willamette  valley.  In  that 
year  he  built  the  first  forty  miles  of  three-foot  gauge  railroad  in  the  state  from 
Dayton  to  Sheridan  in  the  Yandiill  valley  with  a  branch  to  Dallas  in  Polk 
county.  In  this  work  the  fanners  of  tlie  South  Yandiill  valley  i-aised  and  paid 
in  on  stock  aud  otliei'  fni'ms  of  substantia!  aid  the  sum  of  forty-five  thou.sand 
dollars.  And  while  the  work  of  eonsti'iiction  was  going  mi.  the  town  of  Inde- 
pendence, iu  Polk  county,  laiuu-hed  a  scheme  to  remove  the  county  .seat  from 
Dallas  to  Independence.  Aud  as  Dallas  was  off  the  general  lines  of  travel  and 
destitute  of  ready  access  to  the  outside  world,  it  looked  as  if  the  Independence 
people  would  succeed.    To  checkmate  the  move,  the  Dallas  people  sought  out  the 


534  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTOEY  OF  OREGON 

assistance  of  Mr.  Gaston,  who  was  building  the  narrow  gauge  railroad,  and  of- 
fered to  raise,  and  did  raise,  seventeen  thousand  dollars  to  have  the  little  rail- 
road extended  to  their  town.  The  road  was  accordingly  extended  to  Dallas,  and 
that  is  the  way  the  town  of  Dallas  secured  its  first  railroad  and  saved  the  county 
seat  of  Polk  countv. 


RAILROAD   LANDS 

List  of  lands  and  sales  of  lands  under  the  United  States  grants  to  aid  con- 
struction of  the  Oregon  and  California  Railroad. 

Total  Total  Total  pur- 
Sales  Acres  chase  price 
Sales  in  quantities  not  exceeding  160  acres. . .  4,930  295,727.52  $1,234,538.51 
Sales  in   quantities   exceeding  160   acres  but 

less  than  640  acres   280  91,434.67  402,725.29 

Sales  in   quantities  exceeding  640   acres  but 

less  than  2,000  acres 56  60,366.29  410,759.12 

Sales  in  quantities  exceeding  2,000  acres. ...        40  372,399.46  2,922,250.67 


Total     5,306    819,927.94    $4,970,273.59 

In  the  above  computations  are  included  830  pending  contracts  aggregating 
174,109.08  acres,  as  to  which  the  exact  purchase  price  in  not  known,  but  is  com- 
puted on  the  basis  of  $10.00  per  acre.  It  is  probable  that  this  amount  is  a  little 
in  excess  of  the  exact  amount;  $7.00  per  acre  would  probably  be  more  accurate. 

Acres. 

Lands  patented  under  Bast  Side  Grant 2,765,597.13 

Lands  patented  under  West  Side  Grant 128,618.13 

Total  lands  patented  both  grants   2,894.215.26 

Lands  claimed  but  not  yet  patented,  approximately 293,000.00 

Total      3,187,215.26 

Total  lands  sold    819,927.94 

Balance  remaining  unsold  and  involved  in  land  grant  suit 2,367,287.32 

The  United  States  is  now  seeking  to  recover  these  2,367,287  acres  by  a  suit 
in  equity  for  violation  of  the  provisions  of  the  law  granting  the  lands ;  and  esti- 
mates these  lands  to  be  of  the  value  of  fifty  million  dollars.  The  lands  already 
sold  probably  produced  fifteen  million  dollars  to  the  purchasers  from  the  rail- 
road companies.  All  of  these  lands  were  secured  for  railroad  purposes  by  the 
direct  efforts  of  Joseph  Gaston,  and  their  value  to  the  companies  is  some  evi- 
dence of  the  value  of  Gaston's  service  in  the  railroad  development  of  the  state. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  5;35 

THE  WORK  OF  WILLIAM  KElLi 

In  1880  the  narrow  gauge  road  built  bj-  Mr.  Gastou  in  Yamhill  and  Polk 
<_ouiities  was  sold  to  capitalists  in  Dundee,  Scotland,  who,  through  their  agent 
ill  Oregon,  William  Reid,  of  Portland,  extended  the  lines  on  the  west  side  of  the 
Willamette  river  to  Airlie  in  Polk  county,  and  to  Dundee,  Yamhill  county,  with 
an  east  side  of  the  river  branch  from  Dundee  crossing  the  river  at  Ray's  Land- 
ing, thence  to  Woodburn,  Silverton,  Scio  and  on  to  Coburg  in  Lane  county.  Mr. 
Villard  leased  this  system  (about  200  miles)  in  1880;  and  Mr.  Reid,  on  his  own 
capital,  subsequently  extended  the  line  from  Dundee  to  Portland  via  Newberg; 
and  the  whole  road  thus  built  was  soon  incorporated  in  the  standard  gauge  sys- 
tem up  the  Willamette  valley. 

It  was  during  Mr.  Reid's  administration  of  this  enterprise  that  the  great 
fight  about  the  "public  levee"  in  Portland  took  place.  As  it  was  "public" 
ground,  it  seemed  to  Reid's  attorneys  that  the  railroad  had  as  much  right  to 
land  on  top  of  the  levee  as  the  steamboats  had  to  tie  up  at  the  front  of  the  same 
ground.  And  so  the  superintendent  of  Reid's  road  commenced  improving  the 
levee  for  a  railroad  track.  Whereupon  Mayor  D.  P.  Thompson  ordered  the 
chief  of  police  to  arrest  the  railroad  laborers  and  put  them  in  the  city  jail,  which 
was  done.  But  as  fast  as  one  man  was  carried  away,  another  man  was  put  in  his 
place  and  he  in  turn  arrested  until  the  chief  of  police  had  got  eighty-five  big, 
husky  fellows  in  the  city  jail  for  grading  and  cleaning  up  the  levee.  It  had  be- 
come a  farce,  and  the  chief  of  police  threw  open  the  doors  of  his  prison  and  told 
tiie  men  to  go — which  they  did. 

From  the  levee  the  matter  was  transferred  to  the  legislature  at  Salem.  The 
mayor,  the  Oregonian,  and  a  lot  of  rich  men  of  Portland.  Oregon,  were  against 
Reid,  but  the  farmei-s  were  all  in  his  favor.  The  legislature  promptly  passed  an 
act  to  give  Reid's  road  terminal  privileges  on  the  levee.  Governor  Thayer  vetoed 
the  bill,  and  then  the  legislature  passed  it  over  the  governor's  veto — and  two 
railroads  are  now  using  that  public  levee  for  terminal  grounds.  Mr.  Reid  sub- 
sequently took  up  the  proposition  of  building  a  railroad  from  Astoria  to  Port- 
laud.  On  this  work  he  expended  many  thousands  of  dollars  in  surveys  and  in 
grading  the  line  from  Seaside  eastwardly  into  the  heavily  timbered  region  of 
Saddle  mountain.  But  the  financial  depression  of  1893  coming  on  put  a  stop 
to  railroad  building  all  over  the  United  States,  and  Mr.  Reid's  enterprise  and 
fortune  went  down  in  the  general  wreck. 

But  the  work  and  money  Reid  put  into  the  Astoria-Hillsboro  line  was  not 
wholly  lost.  Taking  the  matter  up  again  in  1903-4,  he  was  so  far  able  to  go  ahead 
with  the  work  of  construction  as  to  put  engineers  and  a  force  of  graders  on  the 
first  section  of  the  line  west  of  Hillsboro,  and  make  it  ready  for  the  rails  and  ties. 
And  at  this  juncture  the  Harriman  interests  seeing  Reid  was  likely  to  succeed, 
inspired  Mr.  E.  E.  Lytic,  who  had  eonstnicted  the  Biggs-Shaniko  line  in  eastern 
Oregon,  to  purchase  out  the  interests  of  Reid  and  his  stockholders,  and  go  on 
with  the  road  as  a  part  of  the  Harriman  system  imder  the  name  of  the  Pacific 
Railway  &  Navigation  Company.  So  that  whatever  credit  is  to  be  attached  to 
the  construction  of  this  road  into  the  Nehalem  and  Tillamook  valleys,  belongs  to 
William  Reid. 

Of  independent  roads,  which  are  also  in  effect  feeder  lines  to  this  Oregon  sys- 


536  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

tern  may  be  mentioned  the  Sumpter  valley  road,  built  by  Messrs.  Eceles  and  Nib- 
ley  of  Utah,  from  Baker  City  to  the  town  of  Prairie  City  and  southwest  towards 
Burns,  now  aggregating  uearlj''  ninety  miles  of  track.  This  road  was  organized 
in  1890.  The  same  parties  have  within  the  past  year  built  eighteen  miles  of  new 
road  running  up  the  Hood  river  valley  from  the  town  of  Hood  River,  and  called 
it  the  Mt.  Hood  Railroad.  Another  important  independent  line  is  the  Rogue 
River  Valley  road  running  from  Jacksonville  to  Medford,  and  from  there  it  is 
being  extended  to  Crater  lake  and  on  to  Klamath  Falls  by  J.  J.  Hill ;  and  on  this 
line  will  be  developed  the  largest  tract  of  sugar  pine  timber  in  the  United  States. 
This  enterprise  was  started  in  1891  by  Mr.  E.  J.  DeHart,  of  Medford.  Another 
important  independent  line  is  what  has  been  called  successively  The  Willamette 
Valley  &  Coast,  "The  Oregon  Pacific,"  and  The  Corvallis  &  Eastern  Railroad, 
running  from  Yaquina  on  the  bay  of  that  name,  eastwardly  via  Corvallis  and 
Albany  to  Idanha  in  the  Cascade  mountains.  This  road  has  had  a  checkered 
career.  Commenced  in  1880  by  public-spirited  citizens  of  Corvallis  and  Benton 
county,  who  first  and  last  put  about  $100,000  of  hard  cash  and  labor  into  its  con- 
struction. It  was  turned  over  to  one  T.  Egerton  Plogg,  a  promoter  of  great 
promise  and  little  performance,  who  reorganized  the  scheme  into  its  second  name 
and  issued  $15,000,000  in  bonds  and  $18,000,000  in  stock  on  one  htmdred  and 
forty  miles  of  road  and  then  failed  and  died,  leaving  his  bankrupt  road  to  be 
sold  for  $100,000  to  A.  B.  Hammond.  It  has  from  the  first  been  such  a  "misfit" 
that  neither  the  genius  of  Villard,  the  energy  of  Huntington,  nor  the  comprehen- 
sive mind  of  Harriman,  have  been  able  to  assign  it  a  practical  and  profitable 
place  in  the  Oregon  sj'stem.  It  is  now  doing  a  large  business  in  hauling  lumber, 
and  must  sooner  or  later  find  a  usefiil  and  necessary  purpose  in  the  development 
of  the  country. 

WORK  OF  GEO.  W.   HUNT 

George  W.  Hunt's  work  in  the  railroad  development  of  Oregon  makes  an 
important  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  state.  He  also  was  one  of  the  independ- 
ent builders  of  railroads,  never  working  under  the  patronage  of  anj-  of  the 
great  systems.  His  work  in  Umatilla  and  Walla  Walla  counties  made  him  a 
serious  rival  of  the  Northern  Pacific  in  its  progress  to  the  seacoast ;  and  so  much 
of  a  competing  element  that  the  Northern  Pacific  and  Oregon  Railway  & 
Navigation  Company  combined  to  force  Hunt  out  of  the  railroad  field. 

He  built  the  Corvallis  &  Eastern  Railroad.  He  also  built  the  Hunt  sys- 
tem, which  opened  a  great  wheat  country  in  eastern  Washington  and  Oregon. 
This  system  extended  from  Wallula  to  Pendleton  and  from  AVallula  to  Walla 
Walla,  Dayton  and  Waitsburg.  and  is  now  a  part  of  the  Northern  Pacific  sys- 
tem. He  also  planned  to  build  a  road  from  Centralia  to  Gray 's  Harbor,  and  it 
was  in  this  venture  that  the  large  fortune  he  had  amassed,  was  broken.  By  this 
project  he  drew  upon  him  the  fire  of  his  more  powerful  railroad  rivals,  who 
brought  so  much  pressure  to  bear  against  the  sale  of  his  bonds  and  other  steps 
he  took  in  the  effort  to  carry  out  the  plan,  tliat  he  was  forced  to  retire  from  rail- 
road activities. 

He  also  planned  to  build  the  road  down  the  Columbia  river,  and  it  is 
over  part  of  the  line  of  survey  made  by  him  that  the  Spokane,  Portland  & 
Seattle  Railway  Company  (commonly  known  as  the  "North  Bank  Road")  now 


?^ifes^:^.  •^^I^ 


The  beginning  of  the  lumbering  industry  in  tlio  (ireat  Northwest,  on  Portland  townsite, 
more  than  fifty  years  ago.  and  now  developed  into  a  l)usine9s  aggregating  in  the  same  terri- 
torv  cine  hundred  million  dullars  annually 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTOKV  OF  OREGON  .-,;j7 

opi'i-iiifs.  Alter  retiring  from  railroiiil  work,  lie  devoled  his  time  to  J'ariiiiiig. 
Ill  a  ineasui'e  lie  recouped  liis  lost  rmlune  and  ae((uii-ed  large  tracts  of  land 
near  Umatilla,  where  he  i'eeenll.\-  held  :i,;i(l()  aeres.  which  was  sold  In  tin-  Swift 
Packing  House  Company  for  a  inillioii  duHars.  .Mr.  limit  passed  away  hist 
year. 

.1-\MES   J.    hill's   WOKK 

Mr.  James  J.  Hill  did  not  come  into  the  Oregon  railroad  lield  until  its  rail- 
road development  had  been  planned  and  fixed  by  those  already  here,  or  by  the 
laws  of  nature.  If  Hill's  roads  over  in  the  state  of  Washington  could  have 
hauled  lumber  to  the  eastern  states  for  as  low  a  freight  rate  as  Harriman  was  haul- 
ing the  same  class  of  freight  through  the  Columbia  gateway,  and  paid  as  good 
dividends  on  his  railroad  shares,  it  is  not  probable  that  he  would  have  crossed 
the  Columbia  with  his  magnificent  bridge  at  Vancouver,  or  ventured  into  the 
I'ugged  fastness  of  the  Des  Chutes  canyon.  But  James  J.  Hill  is  a  great  man, 
one  of  the  greatest  in  the  nation,  and  he  did  not  need  a  telescope  to  discover 
the  great  field  for  his  energy,  and  the  profitable  employment  of  the  great  capi- 
tal of  which  he  is  trustee,  which  lay  beyond  the  Des  Chutes,  and  beyond  the 
Xehalem  mountains. 

The  "North  Bank  Road"  is  a  monument  to  the  railroad  genius  and  grim 
perseverance  of  iMr.  Hill.  It  is  literally  a  rock  road  for  a  hundred  miles,  either 
carved  out  of  the  basaltic  clifts  or  built  upon  the  rock  foundations  filled  in  from 
waste  rock  blasted  out  of  the  roadbed. 

ELECTKIC    RAILW.WS 

Railroads  operated  by  electric  power,  other  thau  the  street  railways  of  towns 
and  cities,  were  introduced  in  Oregon  in  1906,  by  the  construction  of  the  Ore- 
gon Electric  from  Portland  to  Salem,  with  a  branch  to  Forest  Grove.  The  own- 
ers of  that  line  have  since  extended  the  road  to  Eugene ;  and  also  constructed 
another  line  from  Portland  to  Banks  in  Washington  county,  with  the  intention 
of  extending  the  line  to  Tillamook  Ray.  Several  other  electric  projKJsitions 
have  been  incorporated. 

OTHER  RAILRO.VDS 

Other  railroads,  ami  railroads  now  in  process  of  constnietion  in  Oregon,  are 
as  follows,  for  an  account  of  which  this  work  is  in<lelited  to  the  Report  of  the 
Oregon  Railroad  Commissioners  for  the  year  1911.  And  it  is  no  more  than  a 
truthful  record  of  contemporaneous  history  to  say,  that  the  present  Board  of 
Railroad  Commissioners — Clyde  B.  Aitchison,  Thos.  K.  Campbell  and  Frank 
J.  Miller,  and  their  efficient  secretary,  H.  H.  Corey,  have,  as  such  officials,  ren- 
dered services  to  the  State  of  incalculable  value,  and  fully  vindicated  the  confi- 
dence placed  in  them  by  the  people  of  Oregon. 

Astoria  &  Columbia  River  railroad,  Portland  to  Astoria.  92  miles.  lieaviT- 
ton  &  Willsburgh.  from  Heaverton  to  Washington  eoimty  to  Willslnirgh  in 
Multnomah  county,  10  miles. 


538  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

California  &  Nortii  Eastern  from  Weed  in  the  state  of  California  to  Kla- 
math Palls  in  Oregon,  86  miles. 

Central  Railroad  of  Oregon  from  Union  Junction  to  Union,  3  miles;  and 
from  Valley  Junction  to  Cove,  11  miles ;  all  in  Union  county. 

Columbia  River  &  Oregon  Central  from  Arlington  to  Condon,  45  miles. 

Columbia  Southern,  from  Biggs  to  Shaniko,  70  miles. 

Coos  Bay.  Roseburgh  &  Eastern,  Marshfield  to  Myrtle  Point,  26  miles. 

Corvallis  &  Alsea  from  Corvallis  to  Monroe  and  Glenbrooke,  24  miles. 

Oregon  Trunk,  from  Fallbridge  to  Bend,   120  miles. 

Corvallis  &  Eastern,  from  Yaquina  to  Hoover,  154  miles. 

DesChutes,  from  DesChutes  Junction  to  Bend,  120  miles. 

Great  Southern,  from  Dalles  to  Dufur,  30  miles. 

Independence  &  Monmouth,  from  Independence  to  Monmouth  and  Airlie, 
16  miles. 

Malheur  Valley,  from  Malheur  Junction  to  Vale,  24  miles. 

Mount  Hood,  Hood  River  to  Dee,  16  miles. 

Northwestern,  from  Blake  Junction  to  Homestead,  58  miles. 

Oregon  &  South  Eastern,  from  Cottage  Grove  to  Disston,  22  miles. 

Oregon  &  Washington  from  Portland  to  Huntington,  and  Branches,  827 
miles,  mth  a  total  capitalization  of  113  million  dollars. 

Oregon  Short  Line  in  Oregon,  Huntington  to  Nj^ssa,  25  miles. 

Pacific  &  Eastern,  from  Medford  to  Butte  Falls,  34  miles. 

Pacific  Railway,  from  Hillsboro  to  Tillamook  Bay,  68  miles. 

Rogue  River  Valley,  from  Medford  to  Jacksonville,  6  miles. 

Oregon  &  California,  from  Portland  to  the  state  line;  and  from  Portland 
to  Corvallis,  412  miles. 

Spokane,  Portland  &  Seattle,  from  Portland  to  Vancouver,  5  miles. 

Sumpter  Valley,  from  Baker  to  Prairie  City  81  miles. 

Umatilla  Central,  from  Pilot  Rock  Junction  to  Pilot  Rock,  14  miles. 

Portland  to  Cazadero,  Electric,  41  miles. 

United  Railways,  Portland  to  Banks,  28  miles. 

Sheridan  —  Willamina,  6  miles. 

Oregon  Electric,  Portland  to  Eugene,  125  miles. 

Garden  Home  to  Forest  Grove,  20  miles. 

This  list  does  not  contain  the  mileage  of  the  logging  railroads  in  the  state 
which  are  regarded  as  temporary  structures,  and  not  used  by  the  general  public. 


CHAPTER  XX 

1810—1911 

AGRICULTURE  —  HORTICULTURE  —  ANIMAL    INDUSTRIES  —  FARMS,    FARM    LANDS    AND 

VALUES — COMMERCE — MANUFACTURES THE  STATE  FAIR THE  LEWIS  AND  CLARK 

EXPOSITION. 

Cultivation  of  the  soil  for  food  in  Oregon  was  commenced  at  Oak  Point  on  the 
south  side  of  the  Columbia  river  in  the  year  1810  by  Capt.  Nathan  Winship  of 
Boston,  Mass.  Captain  Winship  and  his  brother  Jonathan  had  decided  to 
establish  a  trading  post  on  the  Columbia  river,  and  this  point  was  selected  for 
the  enterprise.  Here  thej'  cleared  some  land  in  Ma}%  1810,  commenced  build- 
ing a  house  and  planted  a  garden,  but  on  account  of  the  annual  Columbia  river 
freshet  they  were  foi-ced  to  abandon  the  site  and  move  to  higher  ground. 

In  1811  the  Astor  men  building  the  Fort  at  Astoria  in  May  of  that  year 
planted  twelve  potatoes  that  had  been  brought  from  New  York  around  Cape 
Hoi'n,  which  started  the  cultivation  of  potatoes  in  Oregon,  and  from  the  twelve 
first  planted  a  crop  of  fifty  bushels  was  produced  in  1813.  The  first  bushel  of 
wheat  was  brought  overland  from  Canada  bj^  order  of  Dr.  John  JIcLoughlin  in 
1825,  and  was  planted  that  year.  In  1837  Lieut.  Slacum  reported  to  the  U.  S. 
War  Department  that  the  H.  B.  Co.  had  produced  on  their  farm  near  Vancouver 
that  year  8,000  bushels  of  wheat,  5,500  bushels  of  barley,  6,000  bushels  of  oats, 
9,000  bushels  of  peas,  and  14,000  bushels  of  potatoes,  besides  turnips,  pumpkins 
and  other  vegetables.  At  that  time  the  Company  had  1,000  head  of  beef  cattle, 
700  hogs,  200  sheep,  500  horses  and  fortj'  yoke  of  working  oxen,  a  threshing 
machine,  a  flouring  mill  and  a  distillerj-.  Outside  of  the  Hudson's  Baj'  Company 
the  tirst  farms  were  opened  in  Marion  county,  Louis  Bichette  settling  near 
Champoeg  in  1825,  Joseph  Gervais  near  where  the  town  of  Gervais  is  located,  in 
1828,  and  Etienne  Lucier  in  1830.  A  number  of  the  remnants  of  the  Wilson 
Price  Hunt  party  also  settled  on  the  prairie  near  Gervais  and  Lucier ;  and  all  of 
them  being  Canadian  Frenchmen  they  gave  the  name  to  the  neighborhood — 
"French  Prairie,"  which  identifies  that  region  to  this  day.  When  Jason  Lee 
came  in  183-4  he  found  here  these  Frenchmen  and  although  they  were  all  Cath- 
olics, and  he  was  a  Methodist,  he  deemed  it  a  good  place  to  found  a  mission  and 
start  the  first  school  in  the  Willamette  valley.  These  first  farmers  and  Ameri- 
cans who  came  in  1843  and  4  prospered  in  raising  wheat,  as  the  H.  B.  Company 
took  all  they  raised  at  a  fair  price.  Gervais  had  the  first  orchard  in  the  present 
state  of  Oregon,  his  trees  having  been  procured  from  Dr.  McLoughlin  at  Fort 
Vancouver ;  but  they  were  all  seedling  apples,  and  not  to  be  compared  with  the 
grafted  fruit  introduced  by  Luelling  in  the  fall  of  1847. 

The  first  market  the  pioneer  Oregon  farmers  had  for  their  wheat  was  the 

539 


540  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Hudson  s  Bay  Company  which  took  all  they  produced  and  sold  it  to  the  Russitius 
of  Alaska  in  payment  of  the  annual  royalty  the  Company  paid  for  the  monopoly 
of  catching  furs  in  that  region. 

From  that  beginning  of  wheat  production  in  Oregon  eighty-seven  years  ago 
the  wheat  crop  has  so  grown  that  now  the  City  of  Portland,  as  the  principal  ex- 
port wheat  market  of  the  Northwest,  ships  to  foreign  countries  one-third  of  all 
the  wheat  exported  from  the  United  States  and  more  than  any  other  port  in  the 
United  States.  The  wheat  crop  of  this  Northwest  for  the  year  1912  being  about 
seventy  million  bushels,  of  which  Washington  produced  35  million,  Idaho  5  mil- 
lion, and  Oregon  30  million  bushels.  The  cultivation  of  other  grains — oats, 
barley,  and  rye  kept  along  with  wheat  in  production  in  proportion  to  the  amount 
consumed.  The  manufacture  of  oatmeal  commenced  in  Oregon  in  1875,  by  a 
Scotchman  named  John  JMilne  who  bought  an  old  over-shot  water  wheel  mill  that 
was  abandoned  near  the  town  of  Beaverton  in  Washington  County.  Milne  re- 
paired the  old  mill  and  soon  proved  that  good  oatmeal  could  be  made  out  of  Ore- 
gon oats ;  and  made  money  enough  to  build  a  larger  oat  mill  at  Hillsboro  where  he 
made  a  fortune  at  the  business.  Ten  years  later  Albers  Bros,  of  Portland  took 
up  the  same  business,  and  has  now  at  Portland  the  largest  and  most  prosperous 
milling  business  making  oat  meal  west  of  the  Mississippi  river. 

Flax  culture  as  a  business  commenced  at  Salem,  Oregon  in  1S65,  where  a  mill 
was  erected  to  manufacture  linseed  oil,  the  proprietors  of  the  mill  distributing  tiax 
seed  to  the  farmers  to  induce  them  to  raise  the  tlax  for  the  seed  which  could  be  sold 
to  the  oil  mill.  The  flax  grown  for  seed  alone  produced  as  tme  a  fibre  as  the  Irish 
or  Belgian  flax ;  and  the  only  thing  needed  to  prodiice  fine  linen  in  Oregon  was 
the  flax  and  linen  mills  with  the  men  \\'ho  knew  how  to  handle  the  raw  material. 


HORTICULTURE 

The  cultivation  of  fruit  started  in  Oregon  before  its  settlement  by  the  Amer- 
icans. The  romantic  story  of  the  young  ladies  at  a  London  dinner  party  drop- 
ping the  seeds  of  the  apples  eaten  at  the  dinner  into  the  pockets  of  the  young  men 
about  to  sail  away  to  the  wilds  of  Oregon,  and  the  planting  of  tliose  seeds  at  Old 
Vancouver,  and  the  trees  therefrom  bearing  fruit,  and  at  least  one  oi  these  trees 
now  85  years  old  and  still  bearing  fruit,  is  not  only  a  romantic  but  also  a  literally 
true  story.  And  from  these  seedling  trees  were  started  the  first  orchards  on 
French  Prairie  and  in  Yamhill  County.  Captain  Nathaniel  Wyeth  in' his  diary 
of  1835  speaks  of  having  grafted  fruit  trees  at  his  place  of  Fort  William  on  Sau- 
vie  's  Island.  In  this  he  must  have  been  mistaken.  He  may  have  got  some  young  ■ 
trees  from  Vancouver.  There  was  no  other  place  to  get  fruit  trees.  But  if  he 
ever  planted  a  tree  at  Fort  William  it  did  not  survive  his  enterprise.  The  first 
grafted  fruit  trees  were  brought  to  Oregon  by  Henderson  Luelling,  an  account 
of  which  will  be  found  in  Chapter  XII. 

About  the  year  1858,  Seth  Lewelling,  a  brother  of  Henderson  Luelling  set  out 
the  first  Italian  prune  orchard  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  His  success  with 
this  fruit  was  so  marked  that  other  fruit  growers  were  induced  to  take  up  the  idea 
of  commercial  prune  orchards. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTOUY  OV  Ol.'EOON  541 

Till'  first  iiuiii  Id  rii<i';i^v  in  liiis  Iu'miu'Ii  hI'  llic  I'l-iiil  inilnstry  ;is  a  commercial 
lii'oposition  was  Dr.  .1.  li.  Cardwdl  nL'  l'(iitlaii<l.  ()i'ci;(iii,  wlio  was  for  twenty 
years  President  ot  the  ()ref,'on  IIortieuHural  Society,  i'.iil  to  l)e  sure  of  his  fruit 
Dr.  Cardwell  ordered  trees  from  France  aud  GeriuanN.  jivtting  fourteen  different 
varieties  to  test  them.  .M'Ici'  iiiakin^'  tliese  practical  tests  Dr.  Cardwell  coiri- 
meneed  jilantinu  prune  Irci's  in  ISTl.  aiul  continued  his  plantings  down  to  ISSl. 
at  wliich  lime  he  had  Sll  aci'cs  |ihinle(l  and  in  a  high  state  of  cultivation,  at  the 
phice  now  known  as  Capitol  Hill  on  the  SahMU  Electric  Kailroad  three  miles 
southeast  of  Portland.  Here  he  had  6,0t)ti  prune  trees;  1,000  Royal  Ann  and 
Ulaek  Republican  cherry  trees;  1,500  Bartlett  pear  trees,  and  500  Winter  iNellis 
peai'  irees;  making  the  first  commercial  orchard  in  the  State  of  Oregon.  The 
iirst  crop  of  dried  prunes  sold  for  VJ  cents  a  pound,  and  for  several  years  never 
sold  below  9  cents  a  pound.  Pi-unes  ai'e  now  a  great  sotu-ce  of  wealth  in  both 
(h-egon  and  Washington.  Jn  Oregon  at  Dallas,  Newberg,  Salem  and  some  other 
points,  are  large  commercial  drying  and  packing  houses,  and  the  prune  orehai'ds 
ai-e  kept  up  to  the  top-notch  of  excellence. 

(ireat  rivalry  exists  between  different  localities  in  the  production  of  cherries 
in  Oregon.  The  fact  is  almost  any  good  clay  soil  will  produce  fine  cherries  in 
Oregon.  The  competing  points  for  excellence  are  The  Dalles,  Salem,  Eugene  and 
Greshani.  Twci  hundred  and  thirty  tons  of  Royal  Ann  cherries,  were  shipped 
from  Lane  I'ounly  in  Dll,  making  one  of  the  largest  cherry  shipping  centers  of 
the  Pacific  Nortliwest.  The  croji  of  230  tons,  or  more,  harvested  this  year  repre- 
sents the  fruit  frouL  old  orchards.  There  are  three  times  this  number  of  old 
cherry  trees  in  new  orchards  that  will  bear  for  the  first  time  within  the  next  two 
years,  which  should  triple  or  even  quadruple  the  crop  of  this  year. 

According  to  figures  prepared  by  several  large  orchardists,  the  average 
profit  on  cherries  will  exceed  $365,000  an  acre.  Taking  the  average  of  the  vari- 
ous orchards  about  Eugene  it  was  found  that  between  six  and  seven  tons  are 
harvested  from  an  acre.  The  cost  of  picking  the  cherries  ranges  from  60  cents 
to  $1.00  a  hundred  pounds,  but  taking  a  maximum  $120.00  an  acre  should  be  al- 
lowed for  picking.  For  cultivation,  spraying  and  pruning,  $15  an  acre  is  re- 
quired.   This  makes  a  total  expense  of  $135  an  acre. 

This  year  the  price  received  by  the  grower  for  the  cherries  was  $80.00  a  ton, 
and  assuming  an  average  of  six  or  seven  tons  to  the  acre,  each  acre  would  produce 
no  less  than  $500  worth  of  fruit.  This  would  leave  a  minimum  of  $365  as  a 
revenue  from  one  acre  of  land. 

A  cherry  tree  near  Monroe,  Benton  County  measures  12  feet  in  circumference 
and  from  the  tips  of  the  limbs  across  the  tree  measures  75  feet.  It  was  set  out 
hy  Pioneer  ilartin  about  I860  and  has  been  loaded  with  luscious  fruit  each  year. 

Sheridan  Sun  says;  Newberg  lays  claim  to  the  oldest  cherry  tree  in  Oregon. 
It  is  a  Royal  Anne  52  years  old.  and  measures  9  feet  in  circumference,  31/2  feet 
from  the  ground  and  has  produced  a  ton  of  cherries  in  one  season. 

Gi-eat  crops  of  fine  pears  are  raised  in  almost  e\'ery  part  of  the  State;  lim 
Rogue  River  valley  has  paid  more  attention  to  this  fruit  than  an>-  other  district 
of  Oregon,  and  has  made  great  profits  in  the  business.     The  soil  of  that  valley 


542  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

seems  to  be  specially  adapted  to  that  fruit.  The  crop  is  shipped  in  refrigerator 
cars  to  all  eastern  and  Canadian  cities,  and  being  a  perishable  fruit  must  be 
handled  expeditiously  with  scientific  care. 

The  culture  of  the  English  walnut  (so-called)  has  not  yet  liad  sufficient  time 
to  prove  its  absolute  success.  The  trees  already  planted  are  thrifty  and  bear  well 
for  young  trees,  and  large  plantings  have  been  made  in  Yamhill  and  "Washing- 
ton Coiinties,  especially  on  the  highlands  west  of  Sheridan,  and  on  the  Chehalem 
range  of  hills  east  of  Wapato   Lake. 

There  are  about  200  acres  of  bearing  walnut  orchards  in  the  state  of  which 
Yamhill  county  has  over  half.  Dundee  and  Sheridan  are  the  principal  centers 
of  the  walnut  industry  in  Yamhill  county,  with  Dundee  as  the  principal  pro- 
ducing point  at  the  present  time. 

Oregon  is  the  pioneer  in  shipping  apples  from  the  Pacific  coast  to  the  great 
markets  of  the  eastern  cities  and  of  Europe.  And  Hood  River  valley  is  the  first 
apple  growing  region  to  ship  the  fruit.  W.  P.  Watson  who  owned  a  beaver  dam 
farm  out  at  Beaverton  in  Washington  county,  and  made  money  on  it  raising 
onions  was  the  first  man  to  exploit  the  advantages  of  Hood  River  as  a  fruit  grow- 
ing country.  Watson  traded  off  his  onion  farm  and  went  to  Hood  River  in  1870, 
because  he  could  raise  better  peaches  and  apples  at  that  point  than  at  Beaverton, 
and  he  liked  peaches  better  than  he  did  onions.  But  Watson  was  a  philosopher, 
enthusiast  and  dreamer  and  not  a  business  man.  He  could  tell  how  and  show  the 
M-ay  to  success  but  did  not  trouble  himself  to  walk  therein.  After  he  went  up 
to  Hood  River  and  was  enjoying  life  and  his  luscious  peaches  and  apples,  a 
colony  of  eastern  people  settled  in  Hood  River  valley  because  the  land  was  cheap, 
five  and  six  dollars  an  acre.  But  it  was  not  profitable  land  for  ordinary  crops, 
and  the  colonists  were  not  much  of  a  farming  lot  anyway.  And  to  Watson,  the 
old  Oregonian,  and  alwaj's  the  enthusiast,  these  colonists  went  with  their 
troubles.  Watson  was  equal  to  the  occasion.  He  advised  them  all  to  go  to  rais- 
ing fruit,  and  sell  fruit  although  he  never  sold  any  himself.  The  colonists 
took  his  advice,  and  after  four  or  five  years  battle  with  hard  times  to  keep  the 
wolf  from  the  door  they  had  fruit  to  sell — beautiful  yellow  Newtons,  Spitzen- 
bergs  and  Bellefleurs.  But  the  Portland  market  would  not  pay  any  more  for 
Hood  River  apples  than  Yamhill  apples,  and  that  was  fifty  or  sixty  cents  a  box. 
But  these  Iowa  colonists  could  not  sell  their  fine  apples  at  that  price  and  make  a 
living.  So  they  combined  their  brains  and  their  apples  and  thought  out  a  brand 
new  idea.  They  would  pack  a  carload  of  apples  in  neat  boxes,  in  neat  layers 
in  the  box,  and  wrap  them  in  paper,  and  be  absolutely  and  devoutly  honest  in 
the  transaction  and  put  just  as  good  apples  in  the  bottom  of  the  box  as  in  the 
first  layer  on  top.  They  packed  their  car  and  sent  it  out  on  a  venture^a  reck- 
less venture,  to  a  commission  merchant  in  New  York  City.  And  what  was  the 
result!  The  hard  pressed  colonists  had  wrought  a  miracle.  Their  apples  and 
their  "honest  pack"  was  the  wonder  of  the  great  city,  and  were  snapped  up  at 
three  dollars  a  box.  The  Hood  River  people  had  set  the  pace  for  the  State — good 
apples  and  an  honest  pack.  From  that  start  Oregon  has  gone  on  in  the  fruit 
business  conquering,  and  to  conquer;  so  that  when  the  city  of  Buffalo  held  its 
great  World's  Pair  Exposition,  the  Oregonians  could  put  up  the  following: 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  543 

CHALLENGE 

Come  Down  Arkansas!     Come  Down  British  Columbia!  Come 

Down  Virginia!     Come  DoM-n  New  York 
Come  Down  World ! 

The  Oregon  Booster  is  up  to  Stay !    AVe  show 
The  biggest  Apples  and  the  biggest  and  best 

Fruit  of  All  Kinds.    There  are  no  Flies  on 
Oregon  Fruit." 

Oregon  has  gained  more  honors,  medals  and  awards  for  her  horticultural 
jtroductions  at  various  Expositions  than  any  other  state.  In  detail,  these  were: 
At  Chicago,  I'd  gold  medals  (highest  aw^ards) ;  70  silver  medals,  10  bronze 
medals.  xVt  Omaha,  five  gold  medals  (highest  awards)  ;  10  silver  medals,  five 
bronze  medals.  At  Buffalo,  18  gold  medals,  (highest  awards)  ;  18  silver  medals, 
51  bi-onze  medals.  At  Charleston,  34  gold  medals,  (highest  award)  ;  14  silver 
medals,  one  bronze  medal.  At  St.  Louis,  three  grand  prizes,  (highest  awards)  ; 
37  gold  medals.  152  silver  medals,  72  bronze  medals.  At  Portland  (Lewis  & 
Clark  Exposition,)  114  gold  medals  (highest  awards);  151  silver  medals,  346 
bronze  medals.  At  Seattle  (A.  Y.  P.  Exposition),  seven  grand  prizes,  highest 
award)  :  10  gold  medals,  21  silver  medals,  82  bronze  medals.  Recapitulation — 
10  grand  prizes,  237  gold  medals,  436  silver  iiiedals,  567  bronze  medals — total 
1,250.  The  grandest  prize  ever  won  v,-as  the  "Wilder  ]\Iedal,"  at  Buffalo,  in 
c-ompetition  against  the  world,  and  all  participated  even  Tasmania,  Australia, 
Prance,  England,  Germany,  Canada,  and  all  the  states  of  the  Union.  This 
prize  is  given  every  two  years  by  the  Pomological  Society  of  the  World.  At 
the  Pan-American  Exposition  (Buffalo),  New  York  entered  3,000  plates,  Wis- 
consin 2,000  plates,  while  Col.  Henry  E.  Dosch  entered  for  Oregon  only  140 
plates  of  the  choicest  apples,  pears,  peaches,  apricots,  plums,  cherries  and 
prunes.     It  was  quality,  not  quantity  that  carried  the  day. 

H.  il.  Williamson,  Secretaiy  of  the  State  Board  of  Horticulture,  has  col- 
lected the  statistics  and  estimates  the  value  of  the  Oregon  fruit  crop  of  1911  as 
follows : 

Amount  Value 

Apples,  bushels   1,200,000  $1,300,000 

Dried  Prunes,  pounds   20,000,000  2,550,000 

Fresh  Prunes,  Plums,   crates     220,000  154,000 

Pears,  bushels 180,000  225,000 

Peaches,  boxes 480,000  250,000 

Cherries,  pounds    4.000,000  240,000 

Grapes,  pounds   3,750,000  125,000 

Strawberries,  pounds     7,000,000  400,000 

Blackberries,    pounds    2.000,000  90,000 

Raspberries,  pounds 1,400,000  85,000 

Loganberries,   pounds    3,000.000  135,000 

Other  fruits  and  nuts     100,000 


544  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

In  consequeuee  of  this  prosperity  iu  fruit  growing  tlie  price  of  land  adapted 
to  fruit  culture  has  greatly  appreciated  in  value,  rising  from  ten  dollars  an 
acre  in  Hood  River  and  Rogue  River  Valley  twenty-five  years  ago  to  $500  an 
acre  in  1010.  and  when  in  bearing  trees,  commanding  two  or  three  times  that 
price. 

HOPS   AND   BEER 

From  a  few  vines  planted  near  Silverton  in  Marion  county  forty-five  years 
ago  Oregon  has  become  the  leading  producer  of  hops  in  the  United  States.  This 
year  the  production  of  the  United  States  stands  as  follows : 

Bales. 

Oregon 115,000 

Washington      15,000 

California     80,000 

New  York    40,000 

Total  United  States   '. 250,000 

Allowing  a  pound  of  hops  to  the  barrel  of  beer,  Oi'egon  is  now  producing  hops 
enough  to  produce  yearly  thirty  million  barrels  of  beer ;  or  30  barrels  for 
each  man,  woman  and  child  in  the  State.  But  only  a  small  amount  of  the  hop 
crop  is  converted  into  beer  in  Oregon,  and  not  one  fourth  of  what  is  produced  here 
is  consumed  bj'  the  people  of  the  State.  Nearly  all  the  Oregon  hop  crop  is  shipped 
to  the  eastern  states  or  to  foreign  countries;  while  the  Oregon  breweries  ship 
probably  half  their  brew  to  the  Phillipines,  Hawaii,  Alaska  and  British  Colum- 
bia. Taking  one  year  with  another  the  price  of  hops  will  average  15  cents  a 
pound,  which  will  give  the  Oregon  farmers  more  than  three  million  dollars 
annually  for  hops,  more  than  half  of  which  goes  to  the  actual  labor  of 
producing,  curing  and  baling  the  crop.  But  the  price,  as  well  as  the  annual 
production  varies  greatly  from  year  to  year.  Dry  weather  and  insect  pests  cut 
down  the  crop ;  and  large  crops  in  England  and  Germany  cut  down  the  price. 
Some  years  have  given  the  Oregon  farmers  five  million  dollars  for  their  hops, 
and  other  years  not  enough  to  pay  the  cost  of  production. 

The  crops  of  Oregon  from  1900  to  1911,  inclusive,  have  been  as  follows: 

Bales  Bales 

1911  70,000  1905  117,000 

1910  93,000  1904 88,000 

1909  88,500  1903  88,000 

1908  92,000  1902 86,000 

1907  136,000  1901  71,000 

1906  160,000  1900 80,000 

THE  ANIMAL  INDUSTRIES 

In  any  historical  consideration  of  the  animal  industries  of  Oregon  the  faith- 
ful Bos  must  lead  the  procession.     It  Avas  the  ox-team  and  its  helper,  the  cow, 


TiiK  i''isiiiX(;  iXTKKKSTs  IX  rdHMiiiA  i;i\i';i; 

No.   1 — A  sturgi'on  catcli  Nos.  2  and  3— Siiliiinii  linuls 


MTor,',  Liiiij:. 
~ii.DE!:  Fo.j,:[,  . 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  545 

that  delivered  the  pioneer  si'tth'i-s  in  safety  from  the  Missouri  to  the  Colum- 
bia.   All  honor  to  the  Ox. 

The  louix  distance  trail  across  the  western  two-thirds  of  the  American  Con- 
tinent well  nigh  exhausted  the  vitality  of  all  the  cattle  the  immigrants  of  1842, 
;;,  4  and  5  brought  to  the  country.  The  stock  of  cattle  the  pioneers  found  here 
were  very  little  better  than  wild  cattle.  One  of  the  most  notable  acts  of  Jason 
Lee  after  reaching  Oregon  was  his  enterprise  in  1837,  in  connection  with  Ewing 
Young,  of  driving  overland  from  California  750  head  of  Spanish  cattle.  These 
long  homed  cattle  were  worthless  as  dairy  stock,  but  good  for  beef.  Ten  years 
later  improved  breeds  of  cattle,  both  for  milk  and  beef,  were  driven  overland 
from  the  States,  and  in  a  few  years  greatly  improved  the  Spanish  Stock.  John 
Wilson  of  Illinois  brought  thoroughbred  Durham  cattle  in  1847 ;  and  J.  C.  Gear 
and  Capt.  Bonser,  also  brought  in  fine  milk  cows  in  that  year.  One  of  the 
largest  importers  of  fine  cattle  to  Oregon  was  S.  G.  Reed,  the  founder  of  the 
Reed  College.  About  the  year  1880  he  established  a  large  breeding  farm  at 
Reedville,  in  Washington  County,  with  which  he  stocked  with  pure  bred  Jer- 
seys, Ayrshires  and  Short  Horn  cattle.  Thos.  H.  Tongue  of  the  same  County 
also  imported  fine  Ayrshire  milk  cattle;  and  Washington  County  soon  became 
one  of  the  most  important  centers  of  the  dairy  business  in  the  State.  Tillamook 
county  is  now  the  leader  in  the  dairy  industries;  although  it  was  not  the  leader  in 
the  importation  of  dairy  cattle  from  outside  the  State.  Prof.  Kent  of  the  Oregon 
State  Agricultural  College  has  recently  made  an  extensive  and  very  careful  in- 
vestigation of  the  dairy  business  in  Oregon,  and  from  his  report  is  taken  the 
following  extracts : 

It  has  been  estimated  that  about  175,000  dairy  cows  are  owned  in  the  state 
of  Oregon.  The  average  annual  milk  production  of  these  cows  will  not  exceed 
4,000  pounds,  or  approximately  2,000  quarts.  The  total  amount  of  milk  pro- 
duced in  the  state  during  the  year  1911,  therefore,  probably  did  not  exceed  350,- 
000,000  quarts.  There  were  approximately  800,000  people  in  the  state  luring 
1911  and  if  we  assume  that  there  was  an  average  of  five  to  each  family,  and 
that  each  family  used  one  quart  of  milk  daily,  the  total  consumption  of  milk 
alone  for  the  year  would  amount  to  58,400,000  quarts  or  about  17  per  cent  of 
the  total  production.  If  we  allow  an  average  market  value  of  71/2  cents  a  quart 
to  this  milk,  we  have  a  total  valuation  of  $4,380,000  for  the  product  of  the  cow 
sold  and  consumed  in  the  form  of  milk. 

Retail  milk  men  report  that  about  10  per  cent  of  their  sales  are  in  the  form 
of  sweet  cream.  Probably  an  equal  or  larger  amount  of  sweet  cream  is  sold  by 
sweet  cream  shippers.  The  value  of  the  sweet  cream  therefore  may  be  placed  at 
approximately  .$1,000,000  and  would  represent  about  8,000,000  quarts  of  milk 
or  about  two  and  one-half  per  cent  of  the  total.  Condensed  milk  would  probably 
represent  about  an  equal  amount  of  utilization  of  the  total  milk  produced,  and 
a  market  value  of  about  $2,000,000. 

The  1911  production  of  cheese  is  probably  in  the  neighborhood  of  5,000,000 
pounds.  Tillamook  County  is  credited  with  the  production  of  3,500,000  pounds, 
and  the  other  cheese-producing  sections  should  bring  the  total  to  about  5,000,000 
pounds.  This  would  require  about  25.000,000  quarts  of  milk,  or  about  7  per 
cent  of  the  total.  This  cheese  has  cost  the  consumer  an  average  of  not  less  than 
20  cents  a  pound,  or  $1,000,000. 


546  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTOEY  OF  OREGON 

According-  to  the  foregoing  computation  about  72  per  cent  of  the  milk  pro- 
duced in  the  state  may  be  considered  as  having  been  used  for  butter  making 
purposes.  If  we  assume  that  this  milk  contained  an  average  of  40  per  cent  of 
butter  fat,  there  could  have  been  made  from  this  fat  about  24,000,000  pounds  of 
butter,  which  cost  the  consumer  an  average  of  about  35  cents  a  pound  or  an 
aggregate  of  $8,400,000.  The  aggregate  value  of  Oregon's  dairy  products  as 
represented  by  the  consumer's  standard,  may  thus  be  summarized  as  follows: 

Amount 

Market    Milk    $4,380,000 

Sweet   Cream    1,000,000 

Condensed  Milk  2,000,000 

Cheese     1,000,000 

Butter 8,400,000 


Total    $16,780,000 

But  from  the  standpoint  of  the  milk  producer  the  summary  would  be  ap- 
proximately as  follows : 

Amount. 

Market  Milk   $2,195,000 

Sweet  Cream 500,000 

Condensed  Milk   750,000 

Cheese 600,000 

Butter  Fat    5,500,000 

Total   $9,545,000 

Upon  the  subject  of  increasing  the  productive  value  of  dairy  cows,  Mrs. 
Annie  I.  Hughes  of  Clackamas  County  reported  her  experience  to  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  State  Dairy  Association  for  1911  as  follows:  By  applying  prac- 
tical methods  Mrs.  Hughes  had  increased  the  annual  sale  of  cream  from  $42  to 
$102  a  cow.  Prom  a  herd  of  eight  cows  in  1905,  Mrs.  Hughes  sold  an  average 
of  176  pounds  of  butter  fat  a  cow,  netting  $42.40  a  cow.  For  the  year  ending 
October,  this  year,  11  cows  produced  an  average  of  219.3  pounds  of  butter  fat, 
which  sold  for  $99.54  a  cow.  The  net  revenue  from  the  herd  for  the  year  was 
$1,218.23.  L.  E.  Warner  of  Toncalla,  Douglas  County,  related  a  similar  experi- 
ence, increasing  the  production  of  butter  fat  in  his  herd  from  119  to  333  pounds 
a  cow  in  six  years. 

There  are  now  in  operation  in  Oregon  55  butter  factories,  45  cheese  factories, 
and  seven  milk  condensers,  located  at  Forest  Grove,  Hillsboro,  McMinnville, 
Amity,  Scio,  Newberg  and  North  Bend.  Their  product  goes  to  every  corner  of 
the  globe,  and  their  important  markets,  outside  the  United  States  proper,  are 
Alaska  and  the  Orient. 

Tillamook  is  the  banner  cheese  coimty  of  the  Pacific  Coast;  having  thirty 
cheese  factories  producing  annually  over  three  and  a  half  million  pounds  of 
cream  cheese,  selling  for  five  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  547 

The  census  for  1910  reports  271,000  horses  for  Oregon,  worth  twenty-five 
million  dollars;  ten  thousand  nuiles  worth  one  million  dollars;  and  540  burros 
worth  $150,000.  And  notwithstanding  the  increasing  use  of  gasoline  trucks 
and  automobiles,  horses  are  increasing  in  value  in  the  State. 

The  production  of  sheep  and  wool  is  one  of  the  great  industries  of  the  State. 
The  Census  reports  2,700,000  head  of  sheep  in  the  State  valued  at  twelve  million 
dollars.  The  annual  wool  clip  is  placed  at  twenty  million  pounds  bringing  into 
the  State  about  three  million  dollars — not  quite  so  much  as  the  hops. 

The  first  swine  were  brought  to  Oregon  by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company.  But 
since  that  early  day  many  other  breeders  have  bought  in  small  lots  of  the  differ- 
ent breeds.  Now  at  this  day  the  price  of  all  meats  is  very  high,  and  fat  hogs 
selling  on  foot  at  ten  cents  a  pound.  The  Banks  at  Burns  and  other  points  in 
Eastern  Oregon  are  making  importations  of  breeding  stock  and  selling  to  farmers 
without  profit,  in  order  to  increase  the  production  of  pork. 


GOATS   AND   MOHAIE 

Oregon  is  one  of  the  few  states  of  the  Union  that  has  made  success  in  breed- 
ing goats  for  their  fleeces.  Their  introduction  in  Oregon  is  related  in  Chapter 
XII ;  but  the  commercial  part  of  the  equation  is  yet  to  be  told,  and  in  some  re- 
spects yet  to  be  proved.  The  mohair  fleeces  of  the  goats  have  not  always  brought 
the  farmer  their  full  value.  The  buyers  of  mohair  combine  to  hold  down  the 
prices  of  this  product,  and  it  having  only  a  limited  mai-ket  they  have  too  often 
succeeded.  The  "fashion"  controls  the  demand  for  clothing,  and  determines 
the  demand  for  mohair.  But  the  utility  value  of  mohair  will  eventually  give 
it  a  large  market  and  make  its  production  one  of  the  great  agricultural  interests 
of  Oregon.  The  goats  have  fully  proven  their  great  values  to  the  pioneer  settler 
in  the  timbered  regions.  They  clear  his  land,  they  furnish  him  excellent  food 
and  their  fleeces  command  money  and  pay  for  food  and  clothing.  The  Census 
for  1910  reports  the  number  of  goats  in  Oregon  at  185,411,  valued  at  $370,637. 


The  increase  in  the  number  of  fowls  on  Oregon  farms  during  the  last  de- 
cade according  to  the  Census  amounts  to  32.8  per  cent,  while  the  value  shows 
iin  increase  from  $583,000  to  $1,068,000  or  83.3  per  cent.  The  increase  in 
number  is  confined  to  chickens,  there  being  a  decrease  in  the  number  of  every 
other  kind  of  fowl  reported.  The  number  of  farms  reporting  poultry  increased 
I'loin  29,997  to  37,126,  or  23.8  per  cent;  thus  the  average  number  of  fowls  [ler 
farm  reporting  increased  from  46  to  49.  The  value  of  poultry  and  number  of 
farms  reporting  were  obtained  in  1900  for  the  total  of  all  fowls  only,  and  not 
for  each  kind  as  in  1910. 

The  following  table  gives  the  numbers  of  the  various  kinds  of  poultry  re- 
ported in  1910.  together  with  their  value  and  the  number  of  farms  reporting 
each  kind  in  1910 : 


548  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

1910 

April  15th 

Kind  Farms  Reporting 

Per  cent  Number 

Number    of  all  farms     of  fowls  Value 

Chickens    37,071         8.15         1,753,224        $    972,606 

Turkeys      4,433           9.7  26,684  61,772 

Ducks     1,976          4.3  10,757  8,371 

Geese      2,599          5.7  14,106  16,191 

Guinea  Fowls       842          1.9  2,608  1,769 

Pigeons     588          1.3  15,764  5,156 

All  others      19  537  1,878 

Total       37,126         81.6         1,823,680        $1,067,743 

Nine  farms  report  508  pheasants  valued  at  $1,606 ;  8  farms  report  21  peafowls, 
valued  at  $167 ;  1  farm  reports  3  wild  geese,  valued  at  $5 ;  1  farm  reports  5  wild 
turkeys,  valued  at  $100. 


1910  and  1900. — The  number  of  farms  reporting  bees  has  decreased  from 
8,895,  in  1900  to  8,861  in  1910  or  0.4  per  cent.  The  number  of  colonies  of  bees 
decreased  from  55,585  to  47,285,  or  14.9  per  cent  and  their  value  decreased  from 
$160,382  to  $150,164,  or  6.4  per  cent.  The  average  value  of  bees  per  farm  report- 
ing was  $18.03  in  1900  and  $16.95  in  1910.  Only  one  farm  in  every  iive  reports 
bees. 

VALUES   OF   FARM    CROPS 

The  U.  S.  Census  for  1910  gives  the  values  of  farm  crops  in  Oregon  in  the 
order  of  their  importance  at,  for  hay  and  forage,  $15,226,000;  wheat,  $10,849,- 
000;  oats,  $5,037,000;  hops,  $2,839,000;  potatoes,  $2,  099.000,  and  barley,  $1,513,- 
000 ;  total,  $37,963,000. 

THE   NUMBER   AND    VALUE   OF    FARMS 

According  to  the  census  the  number  of  farms  in  Oregon  is  45,502,  an  in- 
crease of  27  per  cent  over  the  number  in  1900,  as  compared  with  an  increase 
of  62.7  per  cent  in  the  population  of  the  state,  according  to  the  census  report 
just  finished.  The  acreage  of  farm  land  is  11,685,110  and  that  of  improved 
land  4,274,803,  representing  increases  of  16  per  cent  and  28.4  per  cent,  respect- 
ively, over  the  corresponding  figures  for  1900.  In  this  connection,  however, 
it  should  be  noted  that  the  statistics  relative  to  the  total  acreage  and 
value  of  farm  lands  in  1900  are  not  strictly  comparable  with  those  for 
1910,  as  an  Indian  reservation  of  over  484,000  acres  was  reported  as  a  farm 
in  Crook  county  at  the  earliest  census  but  was  not  included  in  the  reports  for 
1910.  The  apparent  decrease  during  the  decade  of  24.2  acres,  or  8.6  per  cent 
in  the  average  size  of  the  farm  is  due  largely  to  this  fact.     The  exclusion  of 


DANIEL   .McAI.LKN 
Father   of  Lewis   and   ('laik    Kxpdsiti 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  549 

I  lie  figures  for  the  reservation  rclVrred  to  IVoiu  tlie  statistics  for  1900  would 
reduce  the  decrease  to  10.7  acres.  In  fii'iicral,  the  slate  has  experienced  a  period 
of  exceptional  afiricullural  developmenl  during  the  i)nst  decade. 


1  M  .\I  KN.'^E  VAM'KS  INVOLVICl) 

The  total  value  of  farm  pr'operty,  which  includes  hmd,  huihlings,  implements 
and  machinery,  and  livestock  (domestic  animals,  poultry,  and  bees),  is 
$528,244,000,  representing  an  increase  of  205.8  per  cent  since  1900.  Land 
alone  increased  in  value  263.9  per  cent,  compared  with  an  increase  of  128.5  per 
cent  in  the  value  of  buildings,  103  per  cent  in  that  of  implements  and  machinery, 
and  75.3  per  cent  in  that  of  livestock.  In  considering  the  increase  of  values  in 
agriculture  the  general  increase  in  the  prices  of  commodities  in  the  last  10  years 
shoxdd  be  borne  in  mind. 

The  average  value  of  a  farm,  including  its  e(|uipment,  in  1910  was  $11,609, 
compared  with  $4,821  in  1900.  The  average  value  per  acre  of  farm  land  alone 
rose  from  $11.23  in  1900  to  $35.23  in  1910,  an  increase  of  213.7  per  cent. 


INCRE.\SE  NOTED  EVERYWHERE 

In  the  60  years  since  1850  a  continuous  and  rapid  increase  has  occurred  in  the 
population  of  the  state,  in  the  number  of  farms,  and  in  the  total  farm  acreage. 
The  acreage  of  improved  land  also  shows  a  continuous  increase,  except  for  the  de- 
cade from  1890  to  1900,  when  a  slight  decrease  occurred.  The  increase  in  the 
number  of  farms  has,  however,  not  kept  pace  with  that  in  population;  in  1910 
there  was  one  farm  to  every  15  inhabitants,  as  compared  with  approximately  one 
farm  to  every  11  inhabitants  in  1850.  During  the  last  decade  the  number  of 
farms  increased  at  the  rate  of  966  per  .year,  as  compared  with  an  increase  of 
1.031  per  year  between  1890  and  1900,  and  of  897  per  year  between  1870  and  1890. 
The  census  figures  for  1850  show  the  total  value  of  farm  property  as  $4,908,782. 


SIZE  OF  FARM  DECREASING 

The  average  size  of  the  Oregon  farm  is  256.8  acres.  From  371.8  acres  in 
1850  it  decreased  to  270.0  acres  in  1890,  since  which  time  it  has  again 
decreased.  The  inclusion  of  a  large  Indian  reservation  as  a  farm  in  1900,  caused 
the  average  acreage  per  farm  reported  to  be  considerably  greater  than  would 
otherwise  have  been  the  case,  and  making  allowance  for  this  fact,  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  avei-age  size  in  reality  varied  but  little  between  1890  and  1900.  The 
state  has  in  its  eastern  portion  a  great  amount  of  semi-arid  land  upon  which 
are  many  stock  ranches  much  greater  in  size  than  the  farms  utilized  for  general 
agricultural  purposes.  During  the  past  few  decades,  however,  these  live-stock 
ranches  have  formed  a  constantly  decreasing  proportion  of  all  the  farms  in  the 
state,  and  since  the  more  recently  developed  farms  are  mainly  of  the  general 
farming  or  fruit-growing  type,  the  average  size  of  all  farms  has  decreased. 


550  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

AVERAGE  FARM  WORTH  $11,609 

The  average  value  of  an  Oregon  farm,  including  its  equipment  is  $11,609, 
of  which  $10,012  repi-esents  the  average  value  of  land  and  buildings,  $1,307 
that  of  livestock,  and  $290  that  of  implements  and  machinery. 

In  1910  the  total  number  of  farms  owned  in  the  whole  or  in  part  by  the 
operators  was  37,796.  Of  this  number  24,855  were  reported  as  free  from  mort- 
gage; 12,632  were  reported  as  mortgaged;  and  for  309  no  report  relative  to  mort- 
gage indebtedness  was  obtained.  The  number  of  motgaged  farms  constituted 
33.7  per  cent  of  the  total  number  of  owned  farms  exclusive  of  those  for  which 
no  mortgage  report  was  obtained.  The  percentage  is  higher  than  in  1890  or 
in  1900. 

INDEBTEDNESS  SHOWS  INCREASE 

The  average  debt  of  mortgaged  farms  increased  during  the  20  year  period 
from  $1,301  to  $2,060,  or  58.3  per  cent,  while  the  average  value  of  such  farms 
rose  from  $4,359  to  $9,103,  or  108.8  per  cent.  Thus  the  owners  equity  increased 
from  $3,058  to  $7,043,  or  130.3  per  cent.  As  a  result  of  the  greater  relative 
increase  in  farm  values  than  in  farm  debt,  the  mortgage  indebtedness,  which 
was  29.9  per  cent  of  the  value  of  the  mortgaged  farm  in  1890,  had  decreased  to 
22.6  per  cent  of  this  value  in  1910. 

Of  the  farms  in  Oregon,  26.4  per  cent  are  from  100  to  174  acres  in  size. 
15.1  per  cent  from  20  to  49  acres,  and  14.9  per  cent  from  50  to  99  acres.  Nearly 
three-fifths  of  all  the  farms  in  the  state  are  therefore,  from  20  to  174  acres  in 
size.  About  one-third  of  all  farms  comprise  175  acres  or  over,  nearly  half  of 
this  group  being  between  260  and  499  acres.  A  study  of  the  distribution  of 
farms  by  size  groups  disclose  the  fact  that  between  1900  and  1910  the  greatest 
actual  increase — 2,805 — occurred  in  those  of  20  to  49  acres,  while  the  greatest 
relative  increase — 157  per  cent — took  place  in  those  from  3  to  9  acres  in  size. 

NEW   FOREIGNERS   ON   FARMS 

Nearly  four-fifths  of  the  Oregon  farmers  are  native  white  and  one  fifth  for- 
eign born  white.  Only  627,  or  1.4  per  cent  of  the  total  are  non-white,  452  being 
Indians,  82  Japanese,  65  Chinese  and  27  negroes.  Among  the  native  white 
farmers,  16.4  per  cent  are  tenants,  as  compared  with  9.2  per  cent  among  the 
foreign  bom  white  farmers. 

COMMERCE 

Commercial  transactions  with  Oregon  commenced  with  the  fur  traders,  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company,  Capt.  Wyeth's  effort  to  cure  and  ship  cargoes  of  salmon, 
and  Captain  Couch's  first  cargoes  of  merchandise,  one  of  which  he  carried  in 
his  ship  up  to  Oregon  City  on  the  June  freshet  from  Rockj^  mountain  snow  water. 
John  H.  Couch  was  the  first  man  to  seriously  undertake  to  build  up  commerce 
in  Oregon;  and  as  he  succeeded,  and  as  he  fixed  the  site  of  the  chief  commer- 
cial city  of  Oregon  and  the  Columbia  river  valley  he  is  entitled  to  be  con- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  S'dI 

sidered  the  fonudei-  of  commerce  in  Oregon,  and  in  fact  of  the  whole  Pacific 
coast. 

According  to  the  operation  of  the  United  States  Custom  House  at 
Portland,  the  total  value  of  exports  to  foreign  countries  from  the  custom  house 
district  of  the  Willamette,  fo-  the  fiscal  year  ending  June,  1911,  was  $10,375,9()3. 
The  value  of  the  imports  from  foreign  countries  to  Portland  for  the  same  time 
were  .$2,637,977. 

According  to  the  records  of  Major  J.  F.  Mclndoe,  chief  engineer  of  rivers 
and  harbors  in  the  second  (Portland,  Oregon)  district,  the  commerce  of  the 
Willamette  and  Columbia  rivers  for  1910  is  fairly  shown  by  the  following  sta- 
tistics: 

The  head  of  deep-water  navigation  is  at  Portland,  Oregon,  on  the  Willamette 
river,  110  miles  above  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia.  Light-draft  boats  ascend 
the  Willamette  for  150  miles  and  by  using  the  state  portage  road  between 
Celilo  and  Big  Eddy  cargoes  of  light-draft  boats,  during  high  stages,  reach 
Pittsburg  Landing,  a  point  on  the  Snake  river,  537  miles  above  the  mouth  of 
the  Columbia.  The  Columbia  and  Willamette  rivers,  over  this  stretch  prob- 
ably form  the  greatest  waterway  for  logging  and  rafting  purposes  in  the 
United  States.  Lumber  and  shingle  mills  are  located  along  the  banks,  and  logs 
are  floated  down  all  the  tributaries  from  points  20  to  90  miles  inland,  and  towed 
to  the  different  mills  to  be  manufactured.  During  the  calendar  year  1910  eight 
rafts  of  logs  and  piling  timbers,  aggregating,  approximately  48,000,000  feet 
b.  m.  were  made  up  in  the  Columbia  river,  and  towed  to  San  Francisco  and 
southern  California  ports. 

The  export  commerce  consists  principally  of  grain  and  lumber,  while 
the  imports  are  composed  principally  of  Oriental  products,  cement,  coal,  lime, 
sulphur,  etc.  The  light-draft  tomiage  is  chiefly  dairy,  farm  and  lumber  prod- 
ucts and  miscellaneous  machinery  and  mercantile  supplies. 

The  total  commerce  handled  during  the  calendar  year  1910  amounted  to 
7,834,273  short  tons,  valued  at  approximately  $64,882,006. 

COMPARATIVE    STATEMENT    OF    TRAFFIC    HANDLED    ON    COLUMBIA    AND    LOW"ER 
WILLAMETTE   RIVERS,    BELOW    PORTLAND,    OREGON 

Handled  by  sea-going  vessels     Handled  by  river  vessels  Total 

Calendar  Short  Estimated  Short  Estimated  Short  Estimated 

years  Tons  Value  Tons  Value  Tons  Value 

1900..  552,290  1,287,582  2,204,064  

1901 .  .  669,284  1,534,780  2,204,064  

1902..  1,131,426  1,567,336  2,698,762  

1903..  832,184  1,596,220  2,428,404  

1904..  778,328  $27,281,302  1,905,451  $30,775,609  2,683,779  $58,056,911 

1905..  946,805  31,786,607  1,313,153  26,712,339  3,259,9.58  58,498,946 

1906.,  1,200,973  34,407,991  2,331,121  26,377.640  3,532,094  60,785,631 

1907..  1,664,717  45,000,000  2,-586,964  31,583,804  4,2.51,681  76,583,804 

1908..  1,688,331  43,000,000  2,927,041  27,509,475  4,615,372  70,509,475 

1909..  1,597,787  40,200,874  2,865,221  33,261,731  4,46.3.008  73.462.605 

1910..  2,440,956  39,765,404  5.393.317  25,116,602  7,834.273  64.882,006 


552 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

COMMERCIAL    STATISTICS 


Season  of  navigation — Tear  1910;  opened,  January  1,  1910;  closed,  Decem- 
ber 31, 1910. 


VESSEL    CLASSIFICATION 

American  licensed  river  steamers 26 

Net  registered  tonnage 4,490 

Passengers    26,714 


FREIGHT   TRAFFIC 


Amount  Amt.  In  Rate  per 

Articles                                  (customary  units)  short  tons  Valuation  ton-mile 

Coal 43  tons 43  $         301  $0,046 

Fish 15  tons 15  1,800  .06 

Flour 13,306  barrels 1,304  65,200  .02 

Fruit 600  tons    600  36,000  .045 

Grain 268,750  bushels   7,210  163,200  .023 

Hay  and  Feed 1,724  tons  1,724  25,860  .025 

Hops 2,654  tons 2,654  530,800  .043 

Live  stock 1,453  head    511  7,050  .085 

Logs  (towed)  17,453,723  feet 34,907  104,721  .0085 

Lumber 1,012,060  feet  b.  m 1,315  13,150  .025 

Mfgd.  Iron  &  Steel 40  tons    40  1,400  .036 

Merchandise 39,551  tons  39,551  3,955,100  .06 

Miscellaneous 48,179  tons  48,179  2,890,740  .06 

Oil  (barged)    340,765  barrels 57,249  171,747  .04 

Piles   (towed)    388,500  linear  feet 7,770  31,080  .0085 

Potatoes    .3,808,000  pounds 1,904  38,080  .026 

Sand  and  gravel 378,915  cubic  yards 569,794  189,457  .005 

Shingles    5,300  bundles  93  2,790  .05 

Stone  (barged)    769  cubic  yards 1,153  1,153  .05 

Wood    (barged) .7,642  cords 11,463  28,658  .01 

Wool   18  tons    18  3,960  .05 

1,332,247    


Total    787,497 


Average   haul   over  portion   of  river  under  improvement,   70   miles. 
average  haul  on  rivers,  70  miles. 


Total 


COMMERCIAL    STATISTICS COLUMBIA    RIVER 

Season  of  Navigation — Year  1910,  opened  January  1,  1910;  closed  Decem- 
ber 31,  1910. 


THE  FOUR  MEN   Wild  MADK    IIIH  LEWIS  AND  CLARK  EXPOSITION  A  POSSIBILITY 


No.  1— Henry  W.  Corbett. 
No.  3— Henry  E.  Dosch 


No.  2 — Lewis  B.  Cox 
No.  4 — Henrv   L.   Pittock 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 


553 


VESSEL    CLASSIFICATION 


Dekp  BEA  Craft 

Classes 

Amciicau 

Foreign 

Total 

Net  Regis- 
tered long. 

Passengers 

Registered : 

Steamers 

125 

125 

388,584 
177,939 

None 

Sailing 

5 

90 

95 

None 

Unregistered,  (licensed  and 

enrolled)  : 

2,050     . 

2,050 
145 

3,179,751 
119,206 

No  record 

Sailing 

145     . 

No  record 

Gasoline 

197     . 

197 

17,131 

No  record 

Rafts 

8     . 

...215 

8 

Total 

2,405     . 

2,620 

3,882,611 

RlVEI! 

Craft 

Chsses 

American 

Foreign 

1     Total 

Net  Regis- 
tered tong. 

Passengers 

Licensed  river  strs. . 

87     . 

87 

15,288 

299,831 

Barges  and  Scows  . . 

16     . 

16 

5,027 

Total. 


103     

Freiciit  Traffic 
Amount 
(customarj'  units) 


103 


20,315 


299,831 


Amount  in 
short  tons 


Articles 
Exports  and  Imports: 

Bags  and  Burlap 5.230   tons    5,230 

Cement    80,852  barrels 19,202 

Coal   18.733  tons   18,733 

Coke    4,021  tons    4,021 

Fibers 1,703  tons    1,703 

Flour 283,679   barrels    27,800 

Fire  brick  and  clay 7,149  tons   7,149 

Iron,  pig  and  bar 8,774  tons   8,774 

Lumber    122,711,000  feet  b.  m 159,524 

Machinery    50   tons    50 

Rice   2,082  tons   2,082 

Sulphur 7,630  tons   7,630 

Wlieat   5,120,826  bushels  153,624 


Valuation 

488,934 
119,061 

47,313 

14,187 
190,313 
,186,654 

33,848 

137,454 

,505,497 

1,445 

90,662 
124,643 
,511,403 


Total    415,522 

Domestic : 

Lumber    317.932,977   ft.   b.  m.    .  .   413,313 

Logs 48,000,000  ft.  b.  m 96,000 

Oil    6,900,000    barrels 1,159,200 

Miscellaneous   356,921   tons   356,921 


8,451,414 

4,133,130 

288,000 

5,477,600 

21,415,260 


Rate  pe 
ton  mil 


0.694 
.122 
.694 
.308 
.793 
.638 
.191 
.184 
.620 
.694 
.851 
.638 
.421 


3.331 
1.051 
2.050 
5.00 


Total   2,025,434   31,313,990 


554 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 


Amount 
Local  (customary  units) 

Coal   3,424   tons    

Fish   13,223    tons    

Flour  107,397   barrels    

Fruit   3,478    tons    

Grain 728,413  bushels   

Hay  and  feed 11,483  tons   

Hops 135  tons   

Live  stock 22,001  head 

Logs  (towed)   1,035,295,704  ft.  b.  m.  2, 

Lumber   13,930,960  ft.  b.  m.  . . 

Mfgd.  iron  and  steel 7,369  tons   

Merchandise  55,146  tons  

Miscellaneous  70,247  tons   

Oil   (barged)    1,872,582  barrels   .... 

Piles  (towed)   14,017,887  lin.  ft 

Potatoes 30,610,000  pounds  . . . 

Sand  and  gravel  (barged) .  1,059,133  cu.  yds.. . .  .1 

Shingles 2,193,733   bundles    . . . 

Stone  (barged) 562,364  cu.  yds 

Wood  (barged)   14,603  cords   

Wool 105  tons   


Total    5,393,317 


Amount  ii 

ti 

Rate  pe 

short  tons 

Valuation 

ton-mile 

3,424 

$      23,968 

20.00 

13,223 

1,586,760 

20.00 

10,525 

526,250 

20.00 

3,478 

208,680 

40.00 

18,116 

391,525 

25.00 

11,483 

172,245 

20.00 

135 

27,000 

50.00 

4,592 

918,400 

35.00 

,070,591 

6,211,773 

5.00 

18,110 

181,100 

20.00 

7,369 

257,915 

25.00 

55,146 

5,514,600 

50.00 

70,247 

4,214,820 

50.00 

314,594 

1,343,782 

30.00 

280,358 

1,121,432 

12.50 

15,305 

306,100 

30.00 

,592,671 

796,335 

8.00 

38,390 

1,151,700 

28.00 

843,550 

84,355 

10.00 

21,905 

54,762 

15.00 

105 

23,100 

50.00 

,393,317 

25,116,602 

RECAPITULATION 


Exports  and  imports 415,522 

Domestic 2,025,434 

Local  5,393,317 


Value 

$  8,451,414 
31,313,990 
25,116,602 


Grand  total   7,834,273         $64,882,006 


Average  haul  over  portion  of  rivers  under  improvement,  100  miles ;  total  aver- 
age haul,  rivers  and  oceans,  exports  and  imports,  8,000  miles ;  domestic,  800  miles, 
local,  100  miles. 

ANNUAL   COMMERCIAL    REPORT    OF    MARINE    TRANSPORTATION    OP    COOS    BAY    FOR   THE 

YEAR   1911 


COMPILED  BY   F.   E.   LEEFE,   U.    S.   ENGINEER 


Coal       

Dairy  Produce 
Gasoline  .... 
Fruit       


Tons 
Inbound 

Tons 
Outbound 

4,746 

700 

791 
2 

5 
176 

THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  55u 

Tons  Tons 

Inbound  Outbound 

Fish     112                       578 

Grain      652                          17 

Hay        168 

Lumber  (1,009,500  ft.  b.  m.)    2,104 

Lumber  (1-10,410,367  ft.  b.  in 290,439 

Laths      7,137 

Livestock    12 

Machinery      224                          12 

Matchwood      65 

Miscellaneous     25,202                   14,903 

Shingles     505 

Box  Shooks       1,312 

Vegetables     7                         65 

Woolen  goods       1                            8 

Other  articles      413                    1,031 

Total       29,680  321,707 

Grand  total       351,387 

Number  of  passengers  inbound 6,074 

Number  of  passengers  outbound 5,801 

Total  number  of  passengers    11,875 

MANUFACTURERS 

The  establishment  of  manufacturers  in  Oregon  has  been  accomplished  with 
great  difficulty.  For  long  years  of  tutelage  to  older  and  richer  communities, 
Oregon  was  compelled  to  suffer  the  inconveniences  and  pay  the  penalty  of 
being  a  sparsely  settled  region.  Manufactures  could  live  and  prosper  only 
where  there  was  a  large  population  to  purchase  the  manufactured  articles. 
And  capitalists  would  not  risk  their  monej^  in  enterprises  where  there  were 
few  customers  and  those  possibly  to  be  taken  by  rival  concerns.  A  complete 
history  of  the  state  would  show  that  many  public  spirited  Oregonians  lost 
all  they  invested  in  pioneering  first  efforts  to  establish  manufactories  in  this 
state.  The  want  of  the  prosperity  that  such  industries  would  bring  was  felt 
by  all  citizens.  In  a  burst  of  enthusiasm  the  Daily  Oregonian  of  October  19, 
1861,  says: 

"Manufacturers  in  Oregon — We  are  for  these  all  the  time.  Every  article 
manufactured  in  Oregon  saves  money  to  Oregon.  Every  broom  made  here ; 
every  boot  and  shoe  made  here ;  every  plow  made  here ;  every  yard  of  woolen 
or  other  cloth  made  here,  and  so  we  might  go  on  almost  al  infinitum — all  these 
manufacturers  save  nione.y  to  Oregon.  This  morning  a  box  of  soap  was  placed 
on  our  table  with  these  marks:  'A.  Merchant  &  Co.,  chemical  olive  soap,  Port- 
land, Oregon.'  The  article  appears  to  be  a  good  one.  We  like  the  present  but 
we  are  more  pleased  with  the  profits  which  will  accrue  to  Oregon  and  the  owaiers 
of  this  establishment.     Shame  that  Oregon  people  should  be  tributai\v  to  San 


556  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

Francisco,  for  an  article  which  can  be  made  here  and  of  such  absolute  necessity 
as  common  soap.    The  manufactory  at  present  is  in  the  north  part  of  the  city." 

Of  a  dififerent  tone,  but  expressing  the  same  universal  desire  for  home 
manufacturers,  was  an  expression  in  the  Message  of  the  Governor  of  the  State 
at  that  time  in  urging  the  Legislature  to  encourage  manufacturing  enterprises; 
and  to  give  point  to  his  appeal,  pointed  out  the  fact  that  the  people  of  Oregon 
were  in  1861  importing  from  other  states  such  prime  necessities  as  "soap,  socks 
and  pickles ; "  a  homely  phrase,  to  be  sure,  and  one  that  his  political  enemies 
applied  to  the  good  governor  for  many  years,  as  "Old  Soap,  Socks  and  Pickles." 

Prom  1850  to  1900  the  population  of  the  United  States  increased  a  little 
more  than  three-fold,  while  consumption  of  manufactured  articles  increased 
thirteen  fold.  This  conclusion  is  based  on  the  census  reports  of  American 
manufactures,  the  imports  and  exports.  Industries  employing  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  hands,  which  were  unheard  of  not  many  years  ago,  will  readily 
come  to  mind — for  example,  those  growing  out  of  electrical  inventions.  Proba- 
bly the  consumption  of  manufactured  articles  mil  increase  four  times  as  fast 
as   population   in   the   next   fifty   years   also. 

Consumption  of  manufactured  goods  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  fixed  quan- 
tity according  to  population.  The  doctrine  that  every  dollar's  worth  of  com- 
petitive imports  entering  the  ports  of  the  United  States  displaces  that  amount 
of  products  manufactured  in  American  factories  by  American  workmen  is 
plausible,  but  not  true.  The  fact  is  people  will  buy  what  they  desire  accord- 
ing to  their  ability  to  pay,  no  matter  whether  they  need  the  articles  or  not. 
The  vast  consumption  of  such  useless,  and  much  of  it  pernicious  and  promiscuous 
trash  as  wines,  liquors,  tobacco,  candies,  ostrich  plumes,  automobiles,  etc.,  proves 
the  truth  of  this  statement,  and  the  foolishness  of  a  majority  of  the  American 
people. 

The  first  frame  house,  the  old  Crosby  house,  erected  in  the  City  of  Port- 
land was  manufactured  in  the  state  of  Maine,  and  brought  in  a  ship,  in  pieces, 
around  Cape  Horn,  and  set  up  in  Portland  in  1847.  Soon  after  this  (1850) 
Portland  got  the  first  steam  saw  mill  in  the  state,  erected  by  W.  P.  Abrams  and 
Cyrus  A.  Reed.  The  first  flouring  mill  in  Old  Oregon  was  at  Vancouver, 
in  1834,  and  was  worked  by  horses  or  oxen.  The  first  saw  mill  in  Old  Oregon 
was  a  water-wheel  mill  on  a  little  stream  above  Vancouver,  which  in  the  course 
of  the  year  cut  lumber  enough  for  the  fort  but  also  in  1833  to  load  two  small 
vessels  going  to  the  Sandwich  Islands.  This  was  the  beginning  of  manufac- 
tures in  Oregon.  The  first  flouring  mill  in  Oregon  was  started  on  Prench 
Prairie,  in  Marion  county,  by  the  Methodist  missionaries  in  1840  with  mill 
stones  and  machinery  brought  around  Cape  Horn;  but  being  roughly  set 
up  the  mill  stones  running  the  wrong  way,  threw  the  wheat  out  of  the  stones 
instead  of  grinding  it.  At  that  time  many  of  the  pioneers  ground  their  wheat 
in  coffee  mills.  It  was  a  long,  hard  pull  for  thirty  years  to  get  manufactures 
started  in  Oregon  and  any  account  of  it  would  fill  a  book.  Many  of  the  people 
tanned  their  own  leather  and  made  their  own  shoes.  The  first  commercial 
tannery  in  Oregon  was  started  at  Portland  on  the  spot  now  occupied  as 
athletic  grounds,  called  "Multnomah  Pield. " 

The  first  step  toward  manufacturing  wool  in  Oregon  was  taken  in  1854, 
vrhen  a  carding  machine  was  erected  at  Albany,  by  E.  L.  Perham  &  Co.     Early 


H 


^si^^S:^Bssr 


[^. 


THE  CENTENNfAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  557 

in  tlic  Spring  of  1855,  Barber  &  Thorpe  ol'  Polk  county,  erected  machinery 
at  Thorpe's  Mills  on  the  La  Creole  for  carding,  spinning  and  weaving  flannel 
cloths.  In  1856  a  company  was  organized  at  Salem  for  the  purpose  of  erect- 
ing a  woolen  mill.  Joseph  Watt  was  the  prime  mover  in  the  enterprise.  Wil- 
liam H.  Rector  was  superintendent  of  construction,  and  went  east  and  bought 
the  machinery  on  credit.  This  was  the  first  woolen  mill  west  of  the  rocky 
Mountains.  In  1862  the  second  woolen  mill  in  Oregon  was  projected  at  Oregon 
City,  and  erected  in  1864-5.  In  1864  the  third  woolen  mill  was  started  at 
Ellendale  in  Polk  county,  and  got  to  work  in  1866.  In  1875  the  fourth  woolen 
mill  was  erected  at  BrowTisville  in  Linn  county.  Iron  manfacturers  were 
started  in  Portland  in  1858  by  Davis  &  Jlonnastes;  and  at  Oregon  City  in  1859 
by  the  Willamette  Iron  Works;  and  the  manufacture  of  pig  iron  from  Ore- 
gon ore  was  started  at  Oswego  in  1867,  and  the  net  cost  of  producing  a  ton 
of  pig  iron  was  found  to  be  $28.97. 

In  1909  the  state  had  2.246  manufactories  of  all  kinds,  which  gave  em- 
ployment to  an  average  of  35,000  persons  during  the  year,  and  paid  out  in 
salaries  and  wages  twenty-four  million  dollars.  These  establishments  turned 
out  products  of  the  value  of  ninety-three  million  dollars,  to  produce  which 
the  raw  material  used  cost  fifty  million  dollars. 

The  manufacture  and  export  of  lumber  as  a  distinct  connnereial  proposi- 
tion commenced  as  a  regular  business  with  Estes  &  Stinison  in  1866,  who 
owned  and  operated  a  steam  saw  mill  on  the  bank  of  the  river  in  North  Port- 
land. They  sold  out  to  Ben  HoUaday,  and  Ben  turned  the  property  over  to 
his  brother,  Joe,  who  in  partnership  with  George  W.  Weidler  operated  the  mill 
successfully  for  twent.v  years,  when  the  mill  was  destroyed  by  fire.  From 
that  beginning  the  business  has  grown  up  by  both  sea  and  rail  until  now  Ore- 
gon makes  and  sells  outside  of  the  state  more  lumber  than  any  other  state  in 
the  Union ;  and  Portland  exports  to  foreign  countries  more  lumber  than  any 
other  seaport   in  the   world. 

I;UMBER  AND  TIMBER  PRODUCTS 

This  industry,  which  includes  the  operation  of  lumber  camps,  sawmills, 
shingle  mills,  planing  mills,  and  establishments  engaged  in  the  manufacture 
of  wooden  packing  boxes,  is  by  far  the  most  important  branch  of  manufacture 
in  the  state.  Oregon  ranked  ninth  in  the  total  cut  of  rough  lumber  in  1900. 
The  industry  gave  employment  to  an  average  of  15,066  wage  earners,  of  52.4 
per  cent  of  the  total  for  the  state,  and  the  value  of  its  products  amounted  to 
$30,200,000,  or  32.5  per  cent  of  the  total  value  of  all  manufactured  products. 
Portland  shipped  to  foreign  countries  in  1911  one  hundred  and  four  million 
feet  of  board  measure  of  lumber,  valued  at  one  and  a  quarter  million  dollars: 
and  shipped  coastwise  one  hundred  and  eight  million  feet. 

(•TA)UR-MILL    AND    GRIST-MILL    PRODUCTS 

This  industry,  which  is  second  in  importance  among  the  industries  of  the 
state  when  measured  by  value  of  products,  is  largely  dependent  upon  the  ex- 
tensive grain  areas  of  the  state  for  its  raw  material.     Because  of  the  compara- 


558  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

tively  simple  process  involved  in  the  industry  and  the  extent  to  which  these 
processes  are  carried  on  by  machinery,  the  number  of  wage  earners  employed 
and  the  value  added  by  manufacture  are  not  commensurate  with  the  gross  value 
of  products. 

CANNING    AND    PRESERVING 

The  development  of  fruit  growing  and  truck  gardening  in  Oregon  has  greatly 
increased  the  activity  of  the  canning  and  preserving  industry  since  1904.  "While 
there  has  been  a  considerable  decrease  since  1904  in  the  fish  products,  which 
represented  about  two-thirds  of  the  total  value  of  the  output  of  the  canneries 
in  1909,  the  rapid  increase  in  the  drying  of  fruits,  especially  prunes,  so  in- 
creased the  total  value  of  product  that  the  industry  as  a  whole  showed  a  gain 
of  10.2  per  cent  during  the  five  years. 

In  addition  to  the  industries  presented  separatelj%  there  are  16  industries 
which  had  a  value  of  products  in  1909  in  excess  of  $200,000.  They  are  included 
under  the  head  of  "All  Other  Industries"  in  the  table,  because  in  some  cases 
the  operations  of  individual  establishments  would  be  disclosed  if  they  were 
shown  separately ;  in  others,  because  the  returns  do  not  properly  present  the 
true  condition  of  the  industry,  as  it  is  interwoven  with  one  or  more  industries. 
These  industries  are  as  follows :  Awnings,  tents  and  sails ;  babbitt  metal  and 
solder;  bags,  other  than  paper;  boxes,  fancy  and  paper;  cars  and  general  shop 
construction  and  repairs  by  street-railroad  companies,  coffee  and  spice,  roast- 
ing and  grinding,  cordage  and  twine,  and  jute  and  linen  goods;  food  prepara- 
tions; gas  illuminating  and  heating;  iron  and  steel,  steel  works  and  rolling 
mills ;  mineral  and  soda  waters ;  oil,  linseed ;  paint  and  varnish ;  paper  and 
wood  pulp ;  soap,  and  wood  preserving. 

PAPER    MILLS 

At  Oregon  City  there  are  three  paper  mills — one  the  third  largest  in  the 
world — employing  1,000  men.  They  have  an  annual  payroll  of  $750,000,  and 
produce  yearly  72,850  tons  of  paper,  and  consume  75,000,000  feet  of  logs  per 
annum.  Total  amount  of  raw  material  and  finished  products  handled  by  these 
mills  equals  40,000  tons  per  year. 

Wage  Earners 
No.  of  estab-    Average  Value  of 

Industry  lishments  No.  Products 

All  Industries 2,246  28,750  $93,005,000 

Lumber  and  timber  products 713  15,066  30,200,000 

Flour  mill  and  grist  mill  products 114  394  8,891,000 

Slaughtering  and  meat  packing  14  366  5,880,000 

Printing  and '  publishing    324  1,459  5,041,000 

Butter,  cheese  and  condensed  milk 95  420  4,920,000 

Canning  and  preserving 71  661  3,207,000 

Foundry  and  machine  shop  products 82  1,055  3,135,000 

Bread  and  other  bakery  products 151  613  2,829,000 

Liquors,  malt   18  204  1,857,000 


AviTilfrC 

Value  of 

Xo. 

I'roducts 

;!5.'5 

], 629.000 

43 1 

1.611,000 

283 

1,215,000 

777 

1,163.000 

544 

1,1 05,000 

552 

1,094,000 

469 

92f),n00 

385 

675,000 

212 

477,000 

187 

474,000 

86 

351,000 

83 

350,000 

76 

297,000 

69 

257,000 

49 

244,000 

3,956 

15,174,000 

THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  559 

.  No.  of  fstab- 
li.sliiiicnts 

Leather  gootis   4g 

Copper,  tin  and  sheel-iroii  produds   39 

Confeelioiiery      19 

Cars  aud  general  shop  eon.slnu-tion  and  repairs  by 

steam  railroad  companies 8 

Clothing,  men's,  including  shii'ts 5 

Furniture       19 

Woolen,  woi'sted  and  felt  goods  and  wool  hats.  .  8 

Brick  and  tile 61 

Shipbuilding,  inc.  boat  bidg 24 

Tobacco  manufactures    56 

Stoves  and  furnaces,  inc.  gas  aud  oil  stoves  ....  11 

IMattresses  and  spring  beds   7 

Marble  and  stoue  work 23 

Ice   manufactured    25 

Leather  tanned,  curried  and  finished 8 

All  other  industries 303 

BANKS  AND   MONEY 

Banks,  bankers,  lenders  and  money  changers  were  in  ancient  times,  and  times 
not  so  ancient,  considered  devices  and  servants  of  the  Prince  of  Evil.  But  if  a 
farmer  was  now  in  this  day  compelled  to  translate  the  produce  of  his  farm  into 
the  payment  of  his  expenses  to  the  city  of  Portland  to  see  the  Rose  Show  for  one 
day,  his  account  would  read  something  like  the  following: 

Cab  to  hotel Six  bushels  of  oats. 

Tip  to  driver    Fifteen   cabbages. 

Tip  to  elevator  boy   Dozen  eggs. 

Tip  to  bellboy Half-bushel  of  barley. 

Breakfast      One-fourth  ton  of  hay. 

Tip  to  waiter   Bushel  of  potatoes. 

Luncheon   One  sheep. 

Dinner    Bushel    of    rye. 

Room Half  a  car  of  turnips. 

And  yet  that  is  just  about  what  the  farmers  of  Oregon  had  to  do  in  purchas- 
ing the  necessaries  of  life  in  1843.  There  was  no  money,  no  banks  and  no  credit. 
The  sudden  accession  of  population  from  the  unexpected  immigration  of  1843 
raised  the  price  of  the  necessaries  of  life  to  a  price  no  one  could  pay.  Flour  was 
four  cents  a  pound  and  pork  ten  cents,  and  game  was  scarce  and  poor.  Clothing 
was  worn  out,  and  none  obtainable.  The  women  made  dresses  out  of  wagon 
covers,  and  some  wore  buckskin  like  the  men.  The  circulating  medium  for  the 
country  was  either  furs  or  wheat.  If  the  poor  man  had  neither  of  these  arti- 
cles, he  must  depend  on  the  charity  of  his  neighbors,  or  the  generosity  of  John 
McLoughliu.     Happily  for  many  a  family  the  last  resource  never  halted  or 


560  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

failed  to  the  honest  man.  In  this  way,  and  by  a  thousand  shifts  and  devices, 
the  people  got  along  until  the  gold  dust  began  to  come  back  from  California, 
and  then  the  Oregon  Mint  was  started  at  Oregon  City,  issued  coined  gold — and 
people  forgot  all  their  former  troubles. 

The  Oregon  mint  coining  money  without  authority  of  any  law  was  the  first 
semblance  of  money  of  the  realm.  On  August  19,  1845,  the  Legislature  of 
the  Provisional  Government  passed  the  following  Act,  entitled,  "An  Act  to 
Regulate  the  Currency. ' ' 

"Be  it  enacted  by  the  House  of  Representatives  of  Oregon  Territory  as 
follows : 

"That  cash,  or  the  following  articles,  at  their  current  value,  shall  be  a  lawful 
tender  in  the  payment  of  all  demands  in  this  territory,  where  no  special  con- 
tract had  been  made  between  the  parties,  viz :  Available  orders,  wheat,  hides, 
tallow,  beef,  pork,  butter,  lard,  peas,  lumber  of  other  articles  of  export  of  this 
territory;  Provided  the  same  be  delivered  at  such  points  on  the  navigable 
streams,  or  such  other  places  as  may  be  established  as  depots  of  such  articles." 

This  act  was  never  approved  by  Governor  Abernethy,  but  the  produce  passed 
current  as  good  legal  tender  all  the  same  as  if  he  had  approved  it.  After  this 
came  the  "Beaver  Money"  mint,  described  in  Chapter  XII. 

The  first  Bank  in  Oregon  was  started  in  the  year  1859  by  Charles  E.  Tilton 
and  Stephen  Mead  of  New  York  and  W.  S.  Ladd  of  Portland,  they  being  kinsmen. 
Ladd  had  started  as  a  clerk  in  a  grocery  and  whiskey  store,  and  finally  bought  it 
out  and  made  his  start  in  that  business.  Seeing  the  opening  for  the  Bank  the  three 
men  raised  $25,000  and  started  the  First  Bank  and  made  money  rapidly  from  the 
start.  The  First  National  Bank  on  the  Pacific  Coast  was  started  in  Portland 
in  May,  1866,  by  the  two  brothers  A.  M.  &  L.  M.  Starr,  and  James  Steel,  cashier. 
In  1869  the  Starrs  sold  out  all  their  stock  to  Henry  Failing  and  H.  W.  Corbett ; 
and  they  having  the  entire  confidence  of  the  people  soon  placed  the  First  National 
at  the  head  of  all  the  financial  institutions  of  the  State,  which  position  it  still 
holds.  There  are  now  sound  and  substantial  banks  in  every  county  and  town  of 
any  size  in  the  State.  And  under  the  able,  careful  and  successful  management  of 
the  State  Banking  Department  by  State  Bank  Commissioner,  Hon.  Will  Wright, 
the  interests  of  patrons  and  depositors  have  been  safeguarded  and  the  commercial 
prosperity  of  the  state  greatly  promoted.  In  his  last  annual  Report  the  Com- 
missioner saj's : 

' '  The  failures  which  have  occurred  the  past  year  wei'e  banks  organized  prior 
to  the  enactment  of  any  state  banking  laws.  In  each  case,  investigation  develops 
the  fact  that  organization  was  originally  effected  by  parties  seeking  to  promote 
personal  interests,  without  regard  to  the  protection  of  funds  entrusted  to  their 
care. 

"Conditions  of  banks  at  close  of  business  December  5,  1911  (date  of  last  pub- 
lished statements),  compared  with  the  last  published  statements  for  1910,  Novem- 
ber 10,  show  marked  increases  in  total  capital,  surplus,  deposits  and  resources  of 
State  banks.  Stronger  reserves  are  maintained  and  investments  are  being  more 
generally  confined  to  securities  with  fixed  market  values,  assuring  ready  liquida- 
tion. The  large  increase  in  amount  of  bonds  held  by  State  banks  indicates  in  a 
degree  the  tendency  toward  investment  in  high  class  securities. ' ' 


u ^ 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  r^Gl 

The  following  comprise  the  list  of  State  and  private  Banks  in  Oregon,  and 
their  condition  at  the  close  of  business  December  5,  1911 : 

Surplus  und  Total 

City  or  Town                              Name  of  Bank  Capital  und.  profits  deposits 

Baker Baker  Loan  &  Trust  Co.  .$  50,000.00  $37,987.82  $.538,563.39 

Haines    Bank  of  Haines 10,000.00  4,957.09  125,940.64 

Halfway   American  State  Bank. .. .  15,000.00  2,214.78  51,200.64 

Huntington    Bank  of  Huntington 25,000.00  2,546.49  69,144.89 

Richland Eagle  Valley  State  Bank.  15,000.00  351.26  36,922.55 

Monroe    Monroe  State  Bank 10,000.00  692.62  54,581.55 

Canby   Canby  Bank  &  Trust  Co . .  25,000.00  6,144.10  273,608.01 

Estacada Estacada  State  Bank 25,000.00  2,101.85  74,589.80 

Milwaukie First  State  Bank  of  Mil- 

waukie    25,000.00  2,613.22  68,693.38 

Oregon  City The  Bank  of  Oregon  City  50,000.00  68,907.12  843,149.53 

Sandy    Clackamas  County  Bank.  .  10,000  396.35  22,633.00 

Wilsonville The  Farmers  Bank 15,000.00  3,271.96  66,996.98 

Astoria    Astoria  Savings  Bank 130,000.00  141,471.73  798,007.87 

Astoria    Scandinavian-Amer.   S  a  v. 

Bank    50,000.00  18,361.71  341,597.70 

Clatskanie Clatskanie  State  Bank 25,000.00  3,000.00  199,376.89 

Rainier    State  Bank  of  Rainier 15,000.00  3,079.32  77,571.92 

Scappoose   Farmers' State  Bank 12,500.00  617.64  27,525.27 

St.  Helens   Columbia  County   Bank..  25,000.00  6,789.05  130,258.02 

Bandon  Bank  of   Bandon 50,000.00  21,984.89  193,512.51 

Coquille    Farmers  &  ilerehants' 

Bank  of  Coquille 25,000.00  3,731.34  53,655.25 

Marshfield Flanagan  &  Bennett  Bank  50,000.00  58,531.57  548,267.53 

Myrtle  Point Bank  of  Myrtle  Point 10,000.00  5,119.93  55,470.92 

Myrtle  Point   ....  Flanagan  &  Bennett  Bank 

of  Myrtle  Point 25,000.00  499.60  84,811.23 

North  Bend  Bank  of  Oregon 50,000.00  6,028.93  161,884.77 

Bend The  Deschutes  Banking  & 

Trust  Company 15,000.00  4,374.32  18,289.06 

Laidlaw Laidlaw  Bkg.  &  Trust  Co . .  10,000.00  266.69  8,820.93 

Madras JIadras  State  Bank 15,000.00  3,021.24  53,993.94 

Metolins  Citizens   State   Bank   of 

Metolius    10,000.00  820.34  11,561.12 

Metolius Metolius  State  Bank 10,000.00  1,589.49  8,881.53 

Prineville    Crook  County  Bank 36,000.00  17,211.70  130,886.54 

Redmond Redmond  Bank  of  Com- 
merce    25,000.00  3,162.07  61,915.50 

Redmond State  Bank  of  Redmond.  .  10,000.00  1,328.80  55,115.12 

G^ld  Beach Curry   County  Bank 10,000.00  1,485.27  51,692.79 

Port  Orford Bank  of  Port  Orford 10,000.00  598.29  2L710.33 

Drain Drain  State  Bank 15,000.00  1,310.53  45,536.78 

Glendale   Glendale  State  Bank 10,000.00  2,011.78  33,571.80 

Myrtle  Creek Citizens' State  Bank 10,000.00  2.865.15  57272.11 


562  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Surplus  and  Total 

City  or  Town                        Name  of  Bank                              Capital  und.  profits          Deposits 

Oakland The  Commercial  Bank  ....     15,000.00  1,570.24      58,953.69 

Oakland ..E.  G.  Young  &  Co.,  Bankers     25,000.00  33,440.70     336,573.61 

Riddle  Riddle  State  Bank 10,000.00  2,281.14      61,294.75 

Roseburg First    Trust    and    Savings 

Bank  of  Roseburg.  ...     15,000.00  251.34      13,763.29 

Sutherlin First  State  Bank  of  Suth- 

erlin 30,000.00  38,972.65 

Yoncalla   Yoncalla    State   Bank 10,000.00  1,539.77       74,562.42 

John   Day    Grant  County  Bank 40,000.00  17,860.42     199,333.08 

Hood  River   Butler  Banking  Co 100,000.00  17,563.19     533,089.36 

Hood  River   Hood  River  Bkg.  &  Tr.  Co.     25,000.00  348.05       65,417.10 

Ashland    Citizens' Bkg.  &  Trust  Co.     50,000.00  5,176.68     142,789.82 

Ashland    Granite  City  Sav.  Bank. .     25,000.00  2,875.33       70,395.87 

Butte  Falls    Pine  Belt  Banking  Co 10,000.00  575.30      10,183.53 

Central  Point   . . .  Central  Point  State  Bank    25,000.00  3,915.36     145,364.60 

Eagle  Point First  State  Bank  of  Eagle 

Point,  Oregon    9,850.00  1,137.60       36,167.93 

Gold  Hill The  Gold  Hill  Bank 10,000.00  93.43       47,288.78 

Jacksonville   Bank  of  Jacksonville 10,000.00  3,671.48       62,336.46 

Jacksonville   Beekman's  Banking  House     50,000.00  23,559.33       90,817.20 

Medford    Farmers  &  Fruit  Growers 

Bank    50,000.00  4,618.26     148,013.40 

Medford    Jackson  County  Bank. . . .   100,000.00  81,091.02     576,153.33 

Talent  The  State  Bank  of  Talent     11,500.00  442.30      24,197.39 

Woodville  First  State  Bank  of  Wood- 

ville       10,000.00  1,180.69       27,020.47 

Grants  Pass Grants  Pass  Bkg.  &  Trust 

Company    50,000.00  11,241.52     211,762.26 

Grants  Pass Josephine  County  Bank.  .     50,000.00  82,603.11 

Bonanza    Bank  of  Bonanza 20,000.00  2,099.73       46,567.78 

Klamath  Falls The  American  Bk.  &  Trust 

Company    100,000.00  15,145.00     256,003.13 

Klamath  Falls  . . .  The  First  Trust  &  Sav.  Bk.     50,000.00  6,217.45     169,196.31 

Klamath  Falls  ...  Klamath    County    Bank..   110,000.00  9,634.96     161,616.91 

Lake  View  Bank  of  Lakeview 100,000.00  168,883.92     570,756.84 

Lake  View  Lake  County  Loan  &  Sav. 

Bank    20,000.00  15,125.55       74,652.77 

Coburg State  Bank  of  Coburg.  . .  .$    10,000.00  $      695.13  $  34,033.00 

Cottage  Grove  . .  .Bank  of  Cottage  Grove. . .     25,000.00  2,737.39       44,520.30 

Creswell Creswell  Fruitgrowers  Bk.     10,000.00 

Eugene    Bank  of  Commerce 50,000.00 

Eugene    Eugene  Loan  &  Sav.  Bank  100,000.00 

Eugene    Merchants  Bank   100,000.00 

Florence   Lane  County  State  &  Sav. 

Bank    10,000.00 

Junction  City   ...  The  Farmers  &  Mer.  Bank    25,000.00 


609.12 

64,948.30 

11,958.17 

70,792.18 

75,913.64 

756,217.76 

11,459.67 

435,999.40 

492.48 

72,535.39 

8,653.44 

162,578.23 

THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  563 

SurpliiH  1111(1  Total 

City  or  Towii                          Naiiii'  of   Hunk  Cajiitiil  unci,  profits          Deposits 

Si)ringfield Com  "I  Sl;i1c  \',k.  of  Spriug- 

ficld    ;J0,()()().()()                          21,983.74 

Ne\vi)ort    Leese  &  Seartli,  Baukors.  .  10,000.00  2,700.61       78,738.07 

Toledo  Lincoln  County  Bank 10,000.00  2,026.10  137,779.11 

Albany    Albany  State  Bank 30,000.00  1,713.06  132,330.20 

Albany    J.W.Cusiek  &  Co.,  Bauker.s  50,000.00  47,187.-40  309,152.36 

Albany    Pir.st  Savings  Bank 50,000.00  3,883.50  360,440.27 

Brownsville   The  Bank  of  Brownsville.  .  30,000.00  8,726.30  178,311.97 

Halsey Halsey   State   Bank 10,000.00  4,593.00       67,195.11 

Harrisburg Farmers  &  Mer.  Bank  of 

Harrisburg,  Oregon...  30,000.00  994.30       33,279.38 

Lebanon    Lebanon  State  Bank 25,000.00  5,711.18  178,290.38 

Scio Seio  State  Bank   10,000.00  4,361.84       88,493.33 

Brogan    .  First  Trust  &  Savings  Bk. 

of  Brogan 25,000.00                           50,315.31 

Jordan  Valley  . .  .Bank  of  Jordan  Valley. . .  30,000.00  18,744.72  109,394.24 

Nyssa The  Bank  of  Nyssa 25,000.00  109.75       24,040.76 

Nyssa Alalheur  County  Bank 25.000.00  3,356.58       63,722.61 

Westfall    Jones  &  Co.  Bankers 10,000.00  3,511.21      41,381.41 

Aurora    Aurora  State  Bank 25,000.00  1,170.22  180,597.94 

Gervais   The  Gervais  State  Bank.  .  10,000.00  3,657.16       90,884.10 

Hubbard State  Bank  of  Hubbard .  . .  10,000.00  2,193.65       82,797.71 

Jefferson  Oregon  State  Bank 15,000.00  1,217.83       76,625.82 

Mt.  Angel Bank  of  Mt.  Angel 12,-500.00  5,768.91  226,593.15 

Salem    Ladd  &  Bush 1,500,000.00  68,239.04  2,278,236.25 

Salem    Salem  Bank  &  Trust  Co. .  50,000.00  2,168.17-  117,612.25 

Silverton    Coolidge  &  McClain 25,000.00  98,267.62  491,319.56 

Silverton    Peoples  Bank 25,000.00  6,032.33  149,974.46 

Stayton Farmers  &  Merchants'  Bk. 

of  Stayton 25,000.00  941.75       37,074.57 

Stayton Stayton  State  Bank 25,000.00  1,340.63  102,897.08 

St.  Paul   State  Bank  of  St.  Paul ....  15,000.00                          19,786.36 

Turner    Turner  State  Bank 10,000.00  126.87       47,217.89 

Woodburn    Bank  of  Woodburn 40,000.00  25,.310.05  340,229.80 

Woodburn    Security  State  Bank 25,000.00  1,750.18       66,870.10 

lone  Bank  of  lone 15,000.00  1,619.39       36,969.53 

Gre.sham    Bank  of  Gresham 15,000.00                           37,976.83 

Gresham   First  State  Bank 30,000.00  6,149.41  146,616.65 

Lents  Multnomah   State   Bank..  7,500.00  643.83       29,455.87 

Linnton Linnton   Savings   Bank...  15,000.00  3,466.47       45,129.39 

Portland   American  Bank  &  Tr.  Co. .  150,000.00  29,479.39  184,564.43 

Portland   Ashley  &  Rumeliu  Bankers  50,000.00  7,072.78  347,573.43 

Portland   Bank  of  Kenton 50,000.00  6,352.18  113.369.65 

Portland   Bank  of  Sellwood 50,000.00  4,199.34  158,617.99 

Portland   Geo.  W.  Bates  &  Co..  Bank- 
ers (West  Side  Bank) .  50,000.00  4,794.56  587,382.62 


564  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Surplus  and  Total 

City  or  Town                        Name  of  Bank  Capital  und.  profits  Deposits 

Portland  Geo.  W.  Bates  &  Co.,  Bank- 
ers (Russell  St.  Branch)  50,000.00  7,714.50  357,638.69 
Portland  Geo.  W.  Bates  &  Co.,  Bank- 
ers    (Williams    Ave 

Branch) 50,000.00  9,192.76  418,281.60 

Portland  Canadian   Bank   of    Com- 
merce    300,000.00  109,497.16  3,903,648.46 

Portland  The  Citizens  Bank 100,000.00  15,604.42  612,039.98 

Portland  East  Side  Bank 50,000.00  10,708.25  446,345.23 

Portland  Hartman     &     Thompson 

Bankers    100,000.00  24,850.04  415,350.96 

Portland  Hibernian  Sav.  Bank 200,000.00  87,181.68  2,158,134.27 

Portland Ladd  &  Tilton  Bank. ..  .1,000,000.00  848,236.7314708578.99 

Portland  Mer.  Sav.  &  Trust  Co 150,000.00  22,014.28  644,605.80 

Portland  Portland  Trust  Co.  of  Ore.  300,000.00  88,522.59  2,455,566.13 

Portland  Scandinavian  American 

Bank    100,000.00  19,809.19  867,942.75 

Portland  Security  Sav.  &  Trust  Co.1,000,000.00  597,174.59  7,723,360.13 

Troutdale   Bank  of  Troutdale 10,000.00  1,726.06  18,460.13 

Dallas    Dallas  City  Bank 30,000.00  11,126.62  299,543.70 

Falls  City The  Bank  of  Palls  City. . .  10,000.00  2,070.97  57,850.43 

Grass  Valley The  Citizens'  Bank 20,000.00  8,795.17  66,491.10 

Morrow Wasco  Warehouse  Mlg.  Co., 

Bankers    25,000.00  8,432.83  89,216.50 

Wasco    W.  M.  Bannett,  Banker. . .  10,000.00  6,045.53  48,631.18 

Wasco  Warehouse  Mlg.  Co., 

Bankers 25,000.00  8,258.56  65,823.39 

Bay  City First  Bank  &  Trust  Co. . .  25,000.00  3,311.82  33,117.18 

Nehalem    Nehalem  Valley  Bank. .. .  10,000.00  430.22  36,621.64 

Tillamook  Tillamook  County  Bank. .  30,000.00  16,523.07  342,763.99 

Echo    The  Bank  of  Echo 25,000.00  12,859.73  101,836.75 

Helix Bank  of  Helix 50,000.00  5,419.82  76,425.05 

Hermdston    Hermiston  Bank  &  Trust 

Company 25,000.00  253.93  42,309.70 

Milton  Farmers  Security  Bank. .  25,000.00  579.96  31,816.48 

Pilot  Rock  The   First   Bank  of  Pilot 

Rock    15,000.00  1,081.86  34,162.27 

Stanfield The  Bank  of  Stanfield. . .  25,000.00  1,325.63  22,020.29 

Weston    The     Farmers     Bank     of 

Weston 30,000.00  19,293.16  149,951.66 

Cove    Cove  State  Bank 15,000.00  2,061.18  35,834.63 

North  Powder  . . .  Powder  Valley  State  Bank  20,000.00  307.67  63,013.06 

Enterprise    The  Enterprise  State  Bank  25,000.00  974.85  58,699.11 

Joseph First  Bank  of  Joseph 50,000.00  26,309.11  106,781.91 

Dufur Johnston  Bros.,  Bankei-s.,  25,000.00  5,640.82  95,692.88 

Mosier  Mosier  Valley  Bank 10,000.00  1,089.53  38,523.96 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  565 

Surplus  and  Total 

City  or  Town                         Name  of  Bank                                Capital      und.  profits  Deposits 

Shaniko Eastern  Ore.  Banking  Co.     50,000.00     13,799.83  131,628.84 

The  Dalles French  &  Co.  Bankers. . . .   200,000.00  136,303.96  800,401.25 

Banks  The  Washington  Co.  Bank     10,000.00         637.04  56,492.25 

Beaverton Bank  of  Beaverton 10,000.00           45.31  46,709.04 

Cornelius  Cornelius  State  Bank 15,000.00      8,700.13  103,651.06 

Gaston Gaston   State   Bank 10,000.00       1,534.43  44,094.91 

Hillsboro    Hillsboro  Commercial  Bank     25,000.00     26,389.65  339,350.76 

Hillsbo'ro   Shute  Savings  Bank 30,000.00      4,487.10  266,203.84 

North  Plains   North  Plains  Com'l  Bank     15,000.00            48.13  11,152.77 

Sherwood    Bank  of  Sherwood 14,000.00          155.00  74,546  83 

Fossil   Steiwer  &  Carpenter  Bank    25,000.00     18,662.10  133,049.06 

Amity   Bank  of  Amity 11,500.00      2,514.72  54,653.83 

Carlton   Carlton  State  &  Sav.  Bank     10,000.00      2,628.96  67,079.64 

Dayton    Bank  of  Dayton 12,000.00       3,458.93  78,878.33 

Lafayette    Lafayette  State  Bank 10,000.00         494.04  18,577.61 

MeMinnville The  First  Trust  and  Sav- 
ings Bank  of  MeMinn- 
ville        30,000.00  71,705.61 

Sheridan Sheridan  State  Bank 25,000.00       1,702.89  89,834.35 

Willamina  "Willamina  State  Bank 20,000.00       1,404.19  55,016.00 

Yamhill Bank  of  North  Yamhill . . .     20,000.00      9,289.55  123,182.28 

Number  of  incorporated  banks 156 

Number  of  private  banks   10 

Number  of  Foreign  banks 1 

Number  of  Branch  Banks   2 

Total  number  of  banks  under  state  supervision 169 

CLASSIFICATIONS    OP    LOANS    AND    DISCOUNTS    DECEMBER    5,    1911. 

Loans  without  security $22,813,999.81 

Loans  secured  by  collateral  or  personal  property 7,425,596.66 

Loans  secured  by  real  estate  mortgages  or  other  liens  on  realty.  .  .  .     7.215.557.33 


Total  Loans  and  discounts $37,455,153.1 


CLASSIFICATION    OF    BONDS    AND    WARRANTS    DECEMBER   5,    1911. 

Government  Bonds $  249  827.16 

State  Bonds    85,000.00 

Municipal  Bonds 2  095  611.92 

Railway  and  other  public  service  corporation  bonds 2,028,875.16 

Industrial  Bonds   j57  ggg  jg 

Irrigation  Bonds  and  Warrants U  709  15 


566  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

Other  Bonds   130,681.62 

County,Municipal  and  other  Warrants 1,678,329.48 


6,438,020.67 
Discounts   58,845.63 

Total  Bonds  and  Warrants $6,379,175.04 

Strong  reserve  and  heavy  marked  increases  in  capital  stock  surplus  and 
profits,  and  total  deposits,  are  features  of  summary  of  last  general  report  from 
Banks  of  Oregon.  Total  deposits  in  the  state  amounted  to  $117,166,315.95,  in- 
crease of  $3,256,434.41  over  September,  1910.  In  surplus  and  profits  increase  of 
$1,120,215.21  was  noted.  Loans  and  discounts  have  increased  approximately 
$5,000,000.  Reserved  for  month  just  closed  was  36.7  per  cent.  Legal  require- 
ment is  but  25  per  cent,  in  city  Banks  and  15  per  cent,  in  country  banks.  Reports 
from  Postal  Savings  Banks  were  incomplete,  because  of  forms  sent  out  but 
$537,714.37  was  reported  from  these. 

U.  S.  NATIONAL  BANKS  IN  OKEGON 

Last  report  January,  1912 

Name                                                                                                              Capital  Deposits 

First  National,  Albany $  100,000  $    845,000 

Arlington  National,  Arlington 25,000  138,000 

First   National,   Ashland 50,000  376,000 

United  States  National,  Ashland 50,000  390,000 

Astoria  National,  Astoria 50,000  766,000 

First  National,  Astoria 100,000  820,000 

First  National,  Athena , 50,000  290,000 

First   National,   Baker 75,000  976,000 

First  National,  Bandon 25,000  75,000 

First  National,   Bend 25,000  200,000 

First  National,  Burns 25,000  365,000 

Harney  County,  Burns 26,000  344,000 

First  National,  Canyon  City 40,000  174,000 

Condon  National,    Condon 50,000  117,000 

First   National,    Condon 50,000        '      109,000 

First  National,  Coquille 25,000  214,000 

Benton  County  National,  Corvallis 60,000  376,000 

Pirst  National,  Corvallis 50,000  674,000 

First  National,  Cottage  Grove 25,000  220,000 

Dallas  National,  Dallas 25,000  238,000 

First  National,  Elgin 50,000  202,000 

Wallowa  National,  Enterprise 50,000  178,000 

First  National,  Eugene 100,000  1,586,000 

First  National,  Forest  Grove 50,000  134,000 

Forest  Grove  National,  Forest  Grove 25,000  423,000 

First  National,  Preewater Branch  of  Milton 


-%. 


'^riL 


H|„ri'^«i(^ 


^a 


Uii 


33 


i'liK  VIEW  OX  (irii.irs  laki: 


THF  NE"'-''/  YORF 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP'  OREGON  :>(;7 

Namo                                                                                                                     Cajiital  Deposits 

First  National,  Graul  "s  Pax.s 50,000  495,000 

P'irst  National,  Ilarrisburg 25,000  101,000 

First  National,  Ileppner 100,000  380,000 

First  National,  Hermiston 25,000  100,000 

American  National,   Ilillsboro 50,000  280,000 

Hillsboro    National,    Hillsboro 60,000  189,000 

First  National,  Hood  River 100,000  361,000 

Independence  National,   Independence 50,000  426,000 

First   National,   Joseph 25,000  109.000 

First  National,  Klamath  Falls 100,000  34:5,000 

La  Grande  National,  La  Grande 100,000  671,000 

United  States  National,  La  Grande 100,000  200,000 

First  National,  Lakeview 50,000  354,000 

First  National,  Lebanon 50,000  219,000 

First  National,  Marshfield 100,000  433,000 ' 

First  National,  McMiunville 50,000  450,000 

McMinnville  National,  McMiunville 50,000  475,000 

United  States  National,  McMinnville 50,000  167,000 

First  National,  Medford 100,000  650,000 

Medford   National,   Medford 100,000  475,000 

First    National,    Merrill 25,000  65,000 

First  National,  Milton 50,000  374,000 

First  National,  Monmouth 30,000  180,000 

First  National,   Newberg 50,000  210,000 

U.  S.  National,  Newberg 50,000  305,000 

First  National,  North  Bend 25,000  110,000 

Ontario   National,   Ontario 75,000  153,000 

First  National,   Ontario 53,000  352,000 

First  National,  Oregon  City 50,000  350,000 

American  National,  Pendleton 100,000  1,080,000 

First  National,  Pendleton 250,000  1,765,000 

First   National,    Portland 1,500,000  14,000,000 

Lumbermen 's  National,  Portland   1,000,000  4,017,000 

Merchants  National,   Portland 500,000  2,801,000 

United  States  National,   Portland 1,000.000  11.000-,000 

First  National,  Prairie  City 25.000  101,000 

First  National.   Prineville 50,000  402,000 

Douglas  National,  Roseburg 100,000  870.000 

Roseburg  National,  Roseburg 50,000  361,000 

Capital  National,  Salem 100,000  807,000 

United  States  National,  Salem 100,000  1,300,000 

First  National,  Sheridan 25,000  189,000 

First  National,   Springfield 25.000  137,000 

First  National,   St.  Johns 25,000  185,000 

Peninsula  National,  St.  Johns 50.000  182.000 

First  National,   Siunpter 25.000  50,000 

First  National,  The  Dalles 100.000  702,000 


568  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

JSTame  Capital  Deposits 

First  National,  Tillamook 25,000  155,000 

First  National  ,IInion 50,000  140,000 

First  National,  Vale 50,000  200,000 

United  States  National,  Vale 75,000  350,000 

Stock  Growers  &  Farmers'  Nat.  AVallowa 50,000  124,000 

First   National,    Woodburn 25,000 

THE  STATE  FAIR 

It  is  greatly  to  the  credit  of  Oregon  that  its  prosperity  has  come  to  it  mainly 
through  the  efforts  of  its  own  people.  The  legend  "Alls  volat  propriis" — I  fly 
with  my  own  wings,  which  was  once  a  part  and  the  most  significant  part  of  the 
state  seal,  is  no  idle  or  unearned  boast.  There  has  been  no  organized  action  in 
the  history  of  the  state  that  has  contributed  more  to  the  prosperity  of  the  state 
i;han  the  annual  State  fair  and  the  Lewis  and  Clark  Exposition.  These  two  great 
expressions  of  the  zeal  and  sentiment  of  the  state  deserves  historical  record  here. 

For  a  suitable  record  of  the  origin  of  the  State  Pair  reliance  is  placed  on  the 
statement  of  Hon.  John  Minto,  who  has  been  connected  with  nearly  every  good 
work  for  Oregon  for  over  65  years.  On  August  5,  1911,  Mr.  Minto  penned  the 
following : 

"The  wi'iter  was  a  member  of  the  Marion  County  Agricultural  Society  in 
1858;  also  a  member  and  exhibitor  before  the  Oregon  Pomological  Society,  the 
merging  of  which  with  the  State  Agricultural  Society,  formed  the  basis  for  the 
first  State  Fair  held  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Clackamas  near  its  junction  with 
the  Willamette  river,  in  October,  1861. 

"George  Collier  Robbins  was  the  first  elected  president,  who,  resigning,  was 
succeeded  by  Simeon  Francis,  who  delivered  the  first  address. 

"The  first  Fair  was  begun  in  doubt,  but  closed  as  a  success,  but  the  less  than  a 
dozen  who  had  prepared  for  it  were  convinced  that  its  locality  was  not  the  best, 
and  three  counties  of  the  Willamette  valley  were  left  to  prepare  for  the  second 
State  Fair.  They  were  Yamhill,  Linn  and  Slarion.  The  members  of  the  ilarion 
County  Society  waited  till  they  were  informed  that  nothing  could  be  done  for 
the  fair  in  1862,  in  Linn  or  Yamhill  counties.  Major  Joseph  Magone  canvassed 
the  then  village  of  Salem  for  subscriptions  one  day  and  received  signatures  for 
over  $1,700.  It  was  a  good  showing  of  public  spirit,  and  we  of  the  Marion  County 
Society,  onlj'  40  members,  paying  $1.00  a  year  in  membership,  appointed  a  com- 
mittee to  prepare  grounds  for  the  fair.  Louis  Byrnes,  John  Minto  and  Chas. 
Swegle  were  appointed  on  the  committee,  and  Chester  N.  Terry  was  secretary. 
Eighty  acres  of  land  was  secured,  and  enclosed  by  an  8  foot  fence,  a  pavilion  and 
show  pens  constructed,  and  a  good  fair  was  held.  How  it  was  done  I  cannot  say, 
but  am  sure  a  better  spirit  never  pervaded  any  community  than  that  which 
existed  at  the  second  state  fair.    It  was  a  pleasure  to  work  with  such  men. 

"I  do  not  know  what  others  did,  but  I  was  signed  for  $1,200  for  lumber.  Some 
of  it  was  hauled  from  David  Newsom's  saw  mill  at  the  north  end  of  Howell's 
Prairie. 

"The  fair  was  held  and  accounts  recorded  and  the  Marion  County  Society 
had  $3,600  against  it,  with  40  members  with  $1.00  a  year  membership  fees;  a 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREOON  569 

meeting  was  called  and  a  eommittce  named  to  sell  the  grounds  aiul  improvemenis 
for  the  sum  of  the  debt  it'  it  eould.  li.  G.  Geer  was  chairman,  and  1  think  Cluis. 
Swegle  and  the  writer  served  on  this  committee.  I  desired  to  avoid  a  sale  if 
possible,  and  made  a  slight  attempt  at  a  second  subscription,  making  a  first  essay 
with  George  H.  Jones,  of  the  Salem  Sash  and  Door  Factory.  He  said,  "No,  Mr. 
Jlinto,  we  gave  liberally  before,  bin  I'll  tell  you  what  I  would  be  willing  to  do. 
Make  it  a  county  interest  to  be  held  for  fairs  and  militia  musters,  and  we  \vi\\ 
willingly  pay  our  share  of  the  tax."  I  rode  home  nursing  Mr.  Jones'  plan, 
almost  sure  Mr.  Geer  would  make  no  written  report. 
"I  tried  that  night  and  wrote  the  following  report : 

To  the  officers  and  members  of  the  Marion  County  Agricultural  Society: 
"Your  committee  finds  parties  willing  to  h\iy  the  grounds  and  improvements  on 
which  the  last  state  fair  was  held  for  the  sum  of  the  present  indebtedness  on  con- 
dition that  fairs  continue  to  be  held  there,  and  the  o\raers  of  the  grounds  have 
control  of  the  gate  fees,  but  this,  in  the  judgment  of  your  committee,  is  not  the 
best  means  of  disposal.  We  would  recommend  an  appeal  to  the  county  court  for 
the  simple  business  reason  that  if  fifty  farmers  have  to  leave  this  county  to  attend 
the  state  fair  in  another  county,  at  the  cost  of  $10.00  each,  $500  is  taken  out  of 
circulation  of  this  locality.  If  500  farmers  came  to  Salem  and  spend  as  much, 
$5,000  is  left  here."     This  is  a  low  estimate  of  course. 

"The  county  court  listened  to  reason  and  paid  $3,000  of  the  debt,  leaving 
$600  to  be  paid  by  friends  of  the  proposition,  $100  of  which  was  paid  by  the 
Ladd  &  Bush  Bank,  and  on  the  3rd  or  4th  year  the  county  court  of  Marion  county 
presented  the  fair  grounds  to  the  State  Agricultural  Society  on  condition  that  a 
state  fair  be  held  on  them  consecutively  for  fifteen  years. 

"Linn  county  had  its  full  quota  of  public-spirited  men;  they  bought  and 
enclosed  ground  and  held  county  fairs.  They  sent  James  H.  Douthit  and  John 
Barrell  as  members  of  the  Board  of  Directors;  they  found  the  condition  of 
fifteen  annual  state  fains  at  Salem  legally  binding,  and  became  steady  friends  of 
the  State  Agricultural  Society. 

John  Minto.  " 

Secretary  of  the  State  Agricultural  Society  for  the  two  most  successful  fairs 
of  the  first  decade  of  its  history. 

(Written  from  memory.) 

LEWIS  AND  CLARK  EXPO,SITION 

The  following  is  the  record : 

May  14, 1804,  Lewis  and  Clark  Expedition  starts  from  St.  Louis  for  Oregon. 

August  12,  1805,  Lewis  and  Clark  cross  Louisiana  Territory  into  Oregon 
Territory. 

November  7,  1805,  the  Expedition  reaches  mouth  of  Columbia  river. 

March  23,  1806,  Expedition  leaves  Fort  Clatsop  on  retui-n  trip. 

April  3,  1806,  reaches  Linnton  and  camps  on  Portland  suburb. 

April  7, 1806,  reaches  White  Salmon  river,  and  is  seen  by  Indian  boy,  Tomitsk, 
yet  alive,  picture  on  another  page. 

September  23,  1806,  Expedition  returns  to  St.  Louis. 

Circular  letter  issued  in  May,  1891,  by  George  H.  Himes,  secretary  of  the 


570  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Executive  Committee  of  the  Columbia  River  Centennial  Celebration  Society,  in 
which  reference  is  made  to  the  probable  celebration  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  Cen- 
tennial in  1905. 

November  1,  1895,  Daniel  McAllen  proposes  Lewis  and  Clark  Exposition  to 
Henry  L.  Pittock. 

.  May  1,  1900,  provisional  committee  of  arrangements  for  Lewis  and  Clark 
fair,  organized — J.  M.  Long — chairman. 

December  15,  1900,  proposition  for  fair  endorsed  by  Oregon  Historical 
Society. 

February  21,  1901,  endorsed  by  Oregon  Legislature. 

October  15, 1901,  Lewis  and  Clark  Exposition  Association  incorporated.  Cap- 
ital, $300,000. 

January  21,  1901,  stock  all  taken,  H.  W.  Corbett  elected  president. 

February  14,  1902,  capital  stock  of  exposition  company  increased  to  $500,000. 

July  15,  1902,  Guild's  Lake  chosen  for  site  of  Exposition. 

January  30,  1903,  Oregon  legislature  appropriates  $450,000  to  Exposition. 

March  31,  1903,  Henry  W.  Corbett  dies. 

May  21,  1903,  corner  stone,  Lewis  and  Clark  monument  in  City  Park  laid  by 
President  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

July  24,  1903,  Harvey  W.  Scott  elected  president  of  Exposition  company, 
and  H.  W.  Goode,  director  general. 

February  8,  1904,  U.  S.  Senate  passed  Senator  Mitchell's  bill  appropriating 
$1,775,000  to  the  Exposition. 

April  8,  1904,  congress  passed  bill  providing  $1,000,000  in  souvenir  Lewis  and 
Clark  gold  dollar  coins. 

May  3,  1904,  ground-breaking  ceremonies  for  construction  of  Exposition 
buildings. 

August  8,  1904,  H.  W.  Scott  resigns  as  President,  and  H.  W.  Goodeelected 
his  successor. 

May  1,  1905,  Fair  buildings  completed  on  contract  time. 

May  31,  1905,  U.  S.  government  building  completed. 

June  1,  1905,  Exposition .  opened  to  the  world — all  buildings  completed; 
eclipsing,  all  other  Expositions  on  this  point. 

THE  SIZE  OF  IT 

The  Lewis  and  Clark  Exposition  was  shown  in  three  United  States  government 
buildings — first  class  size. 

13  Oregon  state  buildings — -immense  size. 

Seven  other  state  buildings.  r   .  ,  , 

Sixteen  foreign  nations  participated  in  the  Exposition,  with  large  and  won- 
derfully fine  exhibits. 

Sixteen  other  American  states  participated  in  the  Exposition  with  large 
exhibits. 

The  total  admissions  to  the  fair  were  three  million  and  forty  thousand ; 
of  which  1,834,821  were  paid  admissions. 

The  total  income  of  the  Exposition  association  was  $1,517,222.61. 

Organization  and  construction  accounts  consumed  $908,319.72;  and  operat- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  -)7l 

ing:  expenses  were  1409,447.89;  leaving  a  cash  balance  ol'  $lll,4i')5;  paying  l)aek 
to  the  stockholders  211-2  per  cent  on  their  stock;  a  iinancial  result  never 
attained  by  any  other  national  Exposition. 

This  exposition  was  the  first  financially  successful  National  Exposition  in 
the  history  of  p]xpositions  in  the  United  States ;  and  it  put  Oregon  and  its  chief 
city  on  the  map  and  before  the  world  as  no  other,  or  any  dozen  other  great 
events  had;  and  gave  the  state,  and  the  city  of  Poi-tland,  an  impulse  of  pros- 
perity which  has  never  halted  or  slackened  from  the  day  its  gates  were  closed 
down  to  the  making  of  this  record. 

The  names  whose  loyalty,  talent,  genius  and  untiring  industry  contributed 
most  to  the  success  of  the  Great  Fair  are  Henry  W.  Corbett,  First  President 
and  Capitalist  heading  the  promotion  list  with  $30,000 ;  Henry  L.  Pittock,  pro- 
prietor of  Oregonian  advocating  the  cause  and  otherwise  personally  working 
day  in  and  day  out;  Henry  E.  Dosch,  Oregon  commissioner  to  all  other  fairs 
and  connuissioned  to  solicit  aid  from  other  states  and  foreign  countries;  Henry 
E.  Reed,  secretary,  general  director  of  publicity  and  exploitation,  who  advertised 
the  fair  to  the  ends  of  the  earth ;  and  Daniel  McAllen — the  father  of  the  Expo- 
sition— who  roused  and  rallied  everybody  to  action  when  the  cause  seemed  to 
lag  or  halt  for  want  of  the  spirit  of  progress  or  the  sinews  of  war. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

1834—1912 

THE    MORAL    AND    EDUCATIONAL    AGENCIES    BUILDING    THE    STATE THE    CHUKCHES. 

AND     CHURCH     SCHOOLS— PUBLIC     SCHOOLS    AND     COLLEGES — POETS,     HISTORIANS 

AND    PIONEER    EDITORS AUTOGRAPHIC    HISTORY THE    GRANGE — DIVORCES,    VICE 

AND  CRIME. 

The  settlement  of  Oregon  by  Americans  was  started  by  a  wave  of  religious 
enthusiasm.  Prior  to  the  advent  of  Jason  and  Daniel  Lee  in  1834,  Oregon  had 
no  place  on  the  map  of  the  world  except  that  of  a  vast  game  preserve  for  the 
taking  of  the  furry  skins  of  wild  animals.  Its  native  Indian  population  of 
from  fifty  to  eighty  thousand  had  no  standing  or  consideration  whatever  in 
the  minds  of  civilized  or  Christian  men  prior  to  the  mission  of  Jason  Lee.  To 
Spaniard,  Englishman  and  American,  all  alike,  the  fur  trade  was  the  sole  excuse 
for  any  action  in  relation  to  the  vast  territory  known  as  Oregon. 

The  historical  incidents  leading  up  to  the  planting  of  Christian  missions  in 
Oregon  have  already  been  related.  But  if  the  light  and  experience  of  the  past 
seventy-eight  years  were  reflected  back  on  the  religious  missionary  efforts  to 
Christianize  the  heathen  and  establish  churches  and  religions  in  Oregon,  it 
might  indicate  that  a  vast  amount  of  labor,  effort  and  money  had  been  expended 
without  compensating  results  in  the  propagation  of  Christianity.  At  the  time 
Jason  Lee  and  Marcus  Whitman  voluntarily  cast  themselves  out  into  the  wilder- 
ness of  Oregon  two  thousand  miles  from  a  Christian  church  and  commenced 
their  wonder  making  missions  among  the  Pacific  Coast  Indians,  the  American 
people  were  practically  nine-tenths  professedly  members  of  Christian  churches. 
It  is  within  the  memory  of  the  author  of  this  book  that  the  people  of  the 
western  states  in  the  year  of  the  great  gold  discovery  in  California  were  fully 
nine-tenths  members  of  the  various  churches.  They  are  not  so  now.  And  in 
the  states  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains  there  is  not  one  half  of  the  people 
affiliated  with  the  churches.  It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  work  to  critically 
investigate  the  causes  of  this  change.  The  accumulation  of  wealth,  and  from 
which  came  a  provision  for  idle  and  luxurious  habits  in  all  directions,  and  the 
exploitation  of  secret  societies — fraternal  orders,  so-called — has  sapped  the 
foundations  of  the  Christian  churches  and  broken  down  their  ancient  influences 
on  the  moral  tone  and  unwavering  fiber  of  human  society  and  organized  gov- 
ernment. 

When  the  reader  goes  back  to  the  decade  between  1834  and  1844,  and  takes 
a  look  at  the  work  of  Lee  and  Whitman  at  short  range,  we  see  them  confronted 
with  trials,  dangers  and  opposition  that  would  have  parah'zed  all  the  college 
professor  preachers  of  Oregon  in  1912.    To  begin  with,  they  found  the  Oregon 

573 


574  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Indian  anything,  almost  everything  else  than  the  Christ  hunting  spiritualist 
that  had  started  the  great  wave  of  missionary  sacrifice  into  the  Oregon  wilderness 
— personified  by  the  Flathead  appeal  to  General  Clark  at  St.  Louis  in  1831. 
The  Indian  comprehension  of  the  Christian  religion  was  that  of  a  wonder,  a 
miracle,  and  not  that  of  a  moral  code  and  discipline.  And  upon  such  a  mentality 
"the  line  upon  line,  and  precept  upon  precept"  of  Christian  teaching  had  but 
little  or  no  influence.  And  it  was  because  of  this  defect  in  the  Indian  mind  that 
the  Protestant  missionaries  failed  to  influence  and  control  the  Indian;  while 
the  striking  visual  appeal  of  the  Roman  Catholic  missionary  to  forms,  ceremonies, 
vestments,  and  gowns  caught  the  eye  and  the  imagination  of  the  uneducated 
native  red  man — and  secured  his  friendship  and  obedience. 

In  consequence  of  this  attitude  of  the  Indian  toward  the  Protestant  mission- 
aries, Lee  was  compelled  to  abandon  his  mission  in  the  Willamette  valley  and 
make  his  plans  to  secure  a  permanent  position  and  influence  among  the  American 
immigrants;  while  Whitman  bj'  his  persistence  in  a  futile  efi:ort  among  an  un- 
friendly constituency  lost  his  life  and  wrecked  the  whole  American  Board  mis- 
sionary effort. 

This  was  the  start  of  the  Churches  in  Oregon.  The  Protestants  gained  little 
if  anything  of  a  foothold  among  the  Indian  population;  while  the  Catholics 
established  active  missions  among  all  the  tribes,  many  of  which  have  continued 
down  to  this  day. 

THE   METHODISTS 

The  first  effort  at  colonization  in  Oregon,  is  the  history  of  the  first  missionary 
church  work  in  Oregon,  and  the  history  of  pioneer  Methodism  in  Oregon,  and 
the  record  of  the  pioneer  American  Colony  of  Oregon.  From  1834  to  his  death 
Jason  Lee  was  the  founder,  pioneer  preacher,  and  Bishop  of  the  Methodist^ 
church  on  the  Pacific  coast — not  Bishop  by  appointment,  but  Bishop  by 
virtue  of  his  leadership  and  headship  of  the  great  pioneer  work.  It  was  not 
until  September  5th,  1849,  that  the  first  ]\Iethodist  conference  was  organized 
on  the  Pacific  Coast;  and  that  organization  was  effected  in  the  chapel  of  the 
old  Oregon  Institute  at  Salem,  and  named  ' '  The  Oregon  and  California  Mission 
Conference."  This  organization  was  authorized  by  the  General  Conference  of 
the  Church  in  1848,  and  under  instructions  of  Bishop  Waugh  to  Rev.  William 
Roberts  as  Superintendent.  That  was  the  first  united  action  of  churches  into  a 
working  organization  on  the  Pacific  coast.  The  superintendents  of  the  Oregon 
Methodist  missions  were,  first,  Jason  Lee,  1834  to  1844;  George  Gary  1844  to. 
1847 ;  William  Roberts  1847  to  1849,  when  the  conference  succeeded  the  Mission. 
This  Mission  conference  included  New  Mexico,  which  was  wholly  disconnected 
with  Oregon.  Under  that  Mission  conference,  the  following  ministers  were  ap- 
pointed to  preach  the  gospel  in  Oregon;  in  1849-50,  William  Roberts,  David 
Leslie,  A.  F.  Waller,  J.  H.  Wilbur,  J.  L.  Parrish,  William  Helm,  J.  0.  Raynor, 
J.  McKinney,  C.  0.  Hosford,  and  J.  E.  Parrott;  in  1851,  I.  McElroy,  F.  S.  Hoyt, 
and  Nehemiah  Doane  were  added;  in  1852,  L.  T.  Woodward,  J.  S.  Smith,  J. 
Flinn  and  J.  W.  Miller;  in  1853,  Isaac  Dillon,  C.  S.  King-sley,  P.  G.  Buchanan 
and  Thos.  H.  Pearne.  The  only  survivor  of  this  list  at  this  date  (June,  1912), 
is  John  Flinn,  living  in  East  Portland,  over  ninety  years  of  age.     In  1853, 


The   First   Protestant   Clmroli   West   of   (lie 

Kockv  Jloviiitains— The  First  Jlethodist 

\'h\ircli  at  Oregon   City,   1843 


First    Catliolic    Cliur.-h    Building    Erected    in 
Old  Oregon  at  \'aneouver 


AtlTv!.,   l.Ui::X 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  575 

Bishop  E.  R.  Ames,  visited  Oregon  and  on  March  17,  organized  the  Oregon 
Annual  Conference  which  included  the  territory  of  Oregon  and  AVashington. 
This  Conference  held  its  tirst  session  at  Salem,  and  made  appointments  of  22 
ministers  including  all  those  named  above,  and  the  following — Gustavus  Ilines, 
Harvey  K.  Hines,  T.  F.  Royal,  G.  M.  Berry,  E.  Garrison,  B.  Close,  and  W.  B. 
Morse.  The  second  annual  Conference  was  held  at  the  Belknap  settlement  on 
the  Long  Tom  River,  in  Benton  County.  It  was  presided  over  by  the  greatest 
Bishop  of  the  Church — Matthew  Simpson.  His  journey  to  Oregon  in  1854 
including  a  sea  trip  from  New  York  to  Panama ;  a  journey  across  the  Isthmus ; 
shipwrecked  upon  the  Pacifie  sailing  north ;  transfer  to  a  vessel  which  brought 
him  in  safety  to  Portland;  thence  to  Salem  by  a  primitive  river  steamboat; 
thence  to  Corvallis  by  a  wagon  ride  (for  which  in  passing  it  may  be  noted  that 
he  paid  $30.00)  ;  thence  on  horseback  with  his  satchel  on  his  saddle  horn;  thence 
five  miles  to  the  log  house  in  which  the  sessions  of  the  conference  were  held.  It 
is  i-ecorded  that  this  school  house  "stood  on  the  top  of  a  butte,  in  a  great 
measure  suri-ounded  by  sloughs  and  nearly  a  mile  from  any  house." 

The  determined  Bishop,  nothing  daunted,  went  at  once  to  the  rude  platform, 
detailed  his  experience  in  storm,  shipwreck,  mud  and  darkness,  with  marvelous 
pathos;  quoted  the  .stanzas  of  a  well  known  hymn  of  Henry  Kirk  White,  begin- 
ning: 

Once  on  the  raging  sea  I  rode, 

The  storm  was  loud,  the  night  was  dark; 
The  ocean  yawned  and  rudely  blowed 

The  wind  that  tossed  my  foundering  bark. 
Deep  horror  then  my  vitals  froze. 

Death  struck,  I  ceased  the  tide  to  stem; 
When  suddenly  a  star  arose ; 

It  was  the  star  of  Bethlehem. 

The  iirst  Protestant  church  building  on  the  Pacifie  Coast  was  the  Methodist 
church  at  Oregon  City,  begun  in  1842,  by  A.  F.  Waller,  and  completed  in  1844 
by  Gustavus  Hines.  Governor  Abernethy  added  the  bell  in  1851.  Abernethy 
also  at  that  time  purchased  three  smaller  bells  for  the  Methodists,  one  for  the 
church  in  Salem,  one  for  the  church  in  Portland,  and  one  for  the  Clackamas 
Academy  at  Oregon  City.  But  these  were  not  the  first  bells  in  Oregon,  the 
Catholics  having  one  at  Champoeg  in  a  temporary  arbor  like  chapel,  where  they 
held  religious  services  as  early  as  1836.  Religious  services  were  held  in  Salem, 
by  the  Methodists  as  early  as  1841,  in  the  Chapel  of  the  Oregon  Institute  which 
served  for  church  purposes  until  the  erection  of  the  Church  building  which 
was  dedicated  January  23,  1853 ;  and  was  at  that  time  the  best  Protestant  Church 
building  in  Oregon.  The  Methodist  church  of  Portland  was  organized  in  1848, 
and  its  first  building  built  mainly  by  the  hands  of  its  firet  pastor — James  H.  Wil- 
bur— one  of  the  greatest  of  the  IMethodist  leaders  in  Oregon. 

The  Methodists  were  foremost  in  propagating  their  principles  by  means  of 
schools.  At  the  first  annual  meeting  of  the  Methodist  society  in  Oregon,  in  May 
1841,  a  committee  was  appointed  to  select  a  location  for  a  manual  labor  school. 
The  site  chosen  was  in  what  is  now  North  Salem  of  the  State  Capital.  And  here 
a  building  costing  in  those  days,  ten  thousand  dollars,  was  erected,  and  an 


576  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

Indian  school  kept  for  nine  months  beginning  in  the  autumn  of  1842.  Here 
was  a  substantial  building  with  regular  teachers  and  an  effective  organization 
making  it  in  fact  the  first  school  in  the  State  of  Oregon. 

On  the  7th  of  January,  1842,  a  meeting  was  held  at  the  house  of  Jason  Lee, 
who  had  then  removed  from  his  first  location  on  the  Willamette  river  bottom  to 
the  new  location  at  Salem.  This  meeting  was  called  to  prepare  plans  for  an  edu- 
cational institution  for  white  children  A  committee  was  appointed  consist- 
ing of  Dr.  Ira  L.  Babcock,  Rev.  Gixstavus  Hines  and  Rev.  David  Leslie  to  prepare 
plans.  The  next  meeting  was  held  on  February  1st,  1843,  at  the  old  Mission 
House  on  French  Prairie,  and  there  it  was  decided  to  begin  immediately  to  lay 
the  foundation  of  the  proposed  Institution.  An  organization  was  effected;  and 
the  first  Board  of  Trustees  were  selected,  consisting  of  Jason  Lee,  David  Leslie, 
Gustavus  Hines,  J.  L.  Parrish,  L.  H.  Judson,  George  Abernethy,  Alanson  Beers, 
Hamilton  Campbell,  and  Dr.  Ira  L.  Babcock,  and  the  name  of  the  first  institu- 
tion of  learning  for  Oregon  was  to  be  "  The  Oregon  Institute. ' '  At  this  meeting 
and  co-operating  with  the  Methodists  was  an  independent  Congregationalist 
missionary  named  Harvey  Clarke,  who  took  a  lively  interest  in  the  proceedings, 
and  was  placed  on  the  Committee  to  select  a  site  for  the  Institute  building.  After 
this  site  was  selected,  and  $4,000  raised  by  subscription  made  almost  wholly  by 
the  Methodist  missionaries  themselves,  the  erection  of  a  building  was  commenced 
under  the  superintendence  of  Wm.  H.  Gray,  Presbyterian ;  so  that  in  its  incep- 
tion the  Oregon  Institute  was  not  wholly  a  Methodist  enterprise. 

But  this  institute  formed  a  nucleus  around  which  all  the  Methodist  senti- 
ment and  action  rallied;  and  out  of  it  grew  the  more  pretentious  enterprise 
of  the  Willamette  University.  And  the  University  Sun  had  in  turn  its  satel- 
lites, the  Wilbur  Academy  in  Umpqua  county,  the  Sheridan  Academy,  the  Dallas 
Academy,  and  the  Santiam  Academy  at  Lebanon  in  Linn  county,  and  the 
Portland  Academy.  A  seminary  for  young  ladies  was  established  at  Oregon 
City,  in  1851,  and  conti-olled  and  managed  jointly  by  the  Methodists  and  Con- 
gregationalists  and  of  which  Rev.  Harvey  Clark  was  the  first  teacher. 

The  next  after  the  Methodists  and  Congregationalists,  to  take  up  the  question 
of  church  schools  came  the  Catholics.  The  first  Catholic  school  established  in 
Oregon  was  St.  Mary's  Academy,  on  Fourth  street  in  Portland  in  1859.  On 
October  21,  of  that  year  the  twelve  foundresses  reached  Portland  in  their  long 
journey  from  Montreal,  Canada.  These  heroic  sisters  who  were  to  lay  the  found- 
ation of  a  great  teaching  order  in  the  northwest,  were :  Sisters,  Mary  Alplionse, 
Mary  David,  Mary  of  Mercy,  Adelaide  Renauld,  Mary  Margaret,  Mary  O'Neill, 
Mary  of  the  Visitation,  Agiae  Lucier,  Mary  Francis  Xavier,  Vitaline  Provost, 
Mary  of  Calvary,  Violet  McMullen,  Mary  Frebonia,  Melanie,  Vandandaigue, 
Mary  Florentine,  Alphonsine  Collin,  Mary  Perpetua,  Martine  LaChappelle,  Mary 
Arsenius,  Philomene  Menard,  Mary  Julia,  Olive  Charboneau,  and  Sister  Mary 
Agatha,  Celin  Pepin.  From  this  first  colony  of  teaching  sisters  has  grown  nearly 
fifty  schools  and  colleges  with  over  two  hundred  teachers,  all  of  which  are  purely 
church  schools. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  577 

THE   CONGREGATIONALISTS 

The  oldest  Congi-egational  church  in  Oregon  is  that  of  the  First  church  of 
Tualatin  Plains,  organized  by  Rev.  J.  S.  GrifSn  in  June,  1842.  The  second 
church  is  that  of  Oregon  City  organized  ilay  25,  1844,  by  Rev.  Harvey  Clark ; 
who  also  taught  the  first  schools  in  Washington  county,  and  organized  a  Congre- 
gational church  at  Forest  Grove.  And  while  the  Pacific  University  at  Forest 
Grove  was  founded  by  the  Congregationalists,  and  has  been  in  the  main  endowed 
by  members  of  that  church ;  yet  it  is  and  has  always  been  non-sectarian. 

THE   PRESBYTERIANS 

The  first  member  of  the  Presbyterian  denomination  in  Oregon  was  Rev.  H.  H. 
Spalding,  but  as  Whitman's  mission  was  primarily  to  the  Indians,  and  not  to 
the  founding  of  churches,  it  is  considered  in  another  chapter.  The  first  Pi'es- 
byterian  to  come  to  Oregon  to  preach  to  white  people  was  Lewis  Thompson  of 
Kentucky,  a  graduate  of  Princeton  Theological  Seminary,  who  came  to  the 
Pacific  coast  in  1846,  and  settled  on  Clatsop  plains,  where  the  first  Presbyterian 
church  on  the  Pacific  coast  was  erected.  Mr.  Thompson  on  September  19, 
1846,  preached  his  first  sermon  at  the  residence  of  Wm.  H.  Gray,  and  to  a  con- 
gregation composed  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gray,  and  Alva  Condit  and  his  wife  Ruth 
Condit,  Mr.  Condit  being  a  ruling  elder  in  the  church  from  Missouri.  Truman 
P.  Powers  of  Astoria  was  the  first  ordained  elder  of  the  Presbyterian  church 
on  the  Pacific  coast.  On  the  19th  of  November,  1846,  Robert  Robe,  a  young 
minister  from  Ohio  reached  Oregon,  and  they,  Thompson  and  Robe,  together 
with  Edward  R.  Geary  of  Lafayette  in  Yamhill  county,  organized  the  presby- 
tery of  Oregon  at  the  house  of  Rev.  Geary  in  pursuance  of  an  order  of  the 
General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  church  made  in  1846.  By  1853  there  were 
five  Presbyterian  ministers  in  Oregon — J.  L.  Yantis  and  J.  A.  Hanna,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  three  already  named. 

These  efforts  now  noted  were  all  the  work  of  the  old  school  division  of  the 
Presbyterians.  But  soon  thereafter  other  branches  of  the  same  faith  made  their 
presence  known.  There  were  among  the  pioneers,  Cumberland  Presbyterians, 
Associate  Presbyterians,  and  Associate  Reformed.  In  1851  James  P.  Millar  of 
Albany,  New  York  arrived  in  Oregon  as  a  missionary  of  one  of  these  latter  so- 
cieties. And  finding  here  not  more  than  200  members  and  half  dozen  ministers 
of  the  two  societies  he  proposed  a  plan  of  uniting  them  all  in  one  organization 
under  the  name  of  the  "United  Presbyterian  Church  of  Oregon,"  constituting 
one  presbytery  and  being  independent  of  any  allegiance  to  any  religious  organi- 
zation outside  of  Oregon. 

The  men  who  entered  into  this  agreement  on  October  20,  1852,  to  form  an 
independent  Presbyterian  church  were  James  P.  Millar,  Thomas  S.  Kendall, 
Samuel  G.  Irvine,  Wilson  Blain,  James  Worth,  J.  M.  Dick  and  Stephen  D. 
Gager.  They  completed  their  organization  on  October  11,  1853,  with  a  mem- 
bership of  14  persons,  Mr.  Millar  becoming  the  first  pastor  of  the  church.  In 
1858,  they  founded  the  Albany  Academy,  with  Thomas  Kendall,  Delazon  Smith 
(afterwards  U.  S.  Senator),  Dennis  Beach,  Edward  R.  Geaiy,  Walter  Monteith, 
J.  P.  Tate.  John  Smith,  James  H.  Foster  and  R.  H.  Crawford,  as  the  first  board 
of  trustees.    This  school  was  superseded  by  the  Albany  Institute  in  18G6,  with 


578  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Rev.  W.  J.  Monteith  as  principal;  which  developed  into  the  Albany  College  a 
year  later  when  Walter  and  Thomas  Monteith  donated  seven  acres  of  land  for  a 
site,  and  the  citizens  generally  subscribed  $8,000  to  erect  a  permanent  building, 
and  at  which  time  by  decision  of  public  meeting  and  general  assent  the  land  and 
property  was  conveyed  to  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
for  educational  purposes. 

THE    CUMBERLAND    PRESBYTEEIANS 

The  pioneer  of  the  Cumberland  Presbyterians  was  Rev.  J.  A.  Cornwall  from 
Arkansas,  who  reached  Oregon  in  18-i6.  Cornwall  was  the  only  ordained  minis-, 
ter  of  this  church  in  Oregon  until  1851,  when  Neill  Johnson  of  Illinois  and 
Joseph  Robertson,  of  Tennessee,  arrived.  By  direction  of  Synod  of  Missouri 
these  ministers  met  at  the  house  of  Samuel  Allen  in  Marion  county  in  1852,  and 
organized  the  Oi-egon  presbytery  of  the  Cumberland  Presbyterian  church,  Rev. 
W.  A.  Sweeney,  another  minister  of  that  denomination,  being  present.  At  this 
meeting  there  were,  in  addition  to  the  ministers,  five  ruling  elders  present  who 
had  partially  organized  congregations,  as  follows :  John  Purvine  from  Abiqua, 
Joseph  Carmack  from  La  Creole,  Jesse  C.  Henderson  from  Yamhill,  David 
Allen  from  Tualatin  and  D.  M.  Keene  from  Santiam.  There  were  at  that  time 
four  licentiates  in  the  territory  licensed  to  preach,  viz:  B.  F.  Music,  John  Dil- 
lard,  Wm.  Jolly  and  Luther  White;  and  the  whole  numbers  in  communion 
was  103. 

In  1853  an  effort  was  made  to  raise  funds  to  found  a  college  in  the  interest 
of  this  denomination,  which  resulted  in  securing  subscriptions  to  the  amount 
of  $20,000,  of  which  $4,000  was  available,  and  was  expended  in  erecting  a  build- 
ing at  Eugene  City,  in  which  a  school  was  opened  in  November,  1856,  with  E. 
P.  Henderson,  a  graduate  of  Waynesburgh  College,  Pennsylvania,  as  principal 
teacher,  with  fifty-two  students.  Within  four  days  after  this  auspicious  open- 
ing the  building  was  destroyed  by  a  fire  believed  to  have  been  set  by  an  incendi- 
ary enemy.  Another  building  was  rented,  and  the  school  continued  until  a 
second  building  was  erected,  and  the  second  session  of  the  school  doubled  the 
number  of  students.  The  attendance  of  pupils  increased  to  150  in  1857;  but 
again  on  the  night  of  February  26,  1858,  the  second  building  was  destroyed  by 
fire.  Determined  to  defeat  the  imp  of  incendiarism  that  dogged  the  path  of 
this  energetic  church,  a  third  building  was  commenced  to  be  built  of  stone.  But 
before  it  was  completed  a  division  took  place  in  the  ranks  of  the  supporters 
of  the  infant  college  on  the  question  of  reading  the  Bible  with  prayers  in  the 
school;  and  being  outvoted,  the  opponents  of  prayers  withdrew  their  support, 
and  the  unfinished  building  was  sold  by  the  sheriff  to  pay  off  the  mechanics' 
liens.  After  two  more  terms  of  school  in  a  rented  building.  Parson  Henderson 
seeing  no  hope  for  the  future,  closed  the  doors  of  his  school,  and  thus  ended  the 
Cumberland  Presbyterian  College  enterprise.  But  these  labors  of  the  zealous 
Presbyterians  w^ere  not  without  fruits.  Out  of  this  effort  germinated  the  im- 
pulse to  secure  the  State  University  for  Eugene.  At  the  legislative  session  of 
1857-8  an  act  was  passed  incorporating  the  Union  University  Association,  sec- 
tion 4  of  which  provides :  ' '  That  the  utmost  care  shall  be  taken  to  avoid  every 
species  of  preference  for  any  sect  or  party,  either  religious  or  political." 


RE\'.   GEORGE   H.   ATKINSON 
A    Pioneer    Congregiitinnal     Preaclicr    iiml     College    Promoter 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  r)79 

THE  BAPTISTS 

The  Baptists  were  a  numerous  people  in  the  western  states  when  the  emi- 
gration tide  set  in  towards  Oregon.  And  as  a  consequence  we  find  this  branch 
of  Protestantism  strongly  represented  among  the  pioneers.  A  stern,  honest, 
sincere,  headstrong  people  they  held  to  their  religion  as  well  as  their  politics 
with  the  same  vigor  and  determination  as  sent  the  Puritans  to  the  block  and 
inhospitable  coasts  of  New  England.  As  early  as  1848,  a  society  was  organized 
and  a  church  building  erected  at  Oregon  City ;  although  the  first  Baptist  congi-e- 
gation  was  organized  on  Tualatin  plains  on  May  25,  1844,  by  Deacon  David  T. 
Lenox,  in  his  own  dwelling — a  log  cabin — and  known  as  the  West  Union  church. 
The  charter  members  of  this  church  were  as  follows:  David  T.  Lenox,  Mrs. 
Louisa  Lenox,  William  Beagle,  Luciuda  Beagle,  Alexander  Blevins,  Lavina 
Blevine  and  Henry  Sewell — all  coming  to  Oregon  with  the  immigration  of  1843. 
The  second  Baptist  church  was  organized  in  Polk  county,  near  Crowley,  by  Rev. 
Vincent  Snelling  on  July  18,  1846.    This  was  known  as  the  Rickreall  Church. 

The  first  Baptist  minister  in  Oregon,  Rev.  Vincent  Snelling,  came  with  the 
immigration  of  1844,  and  he  preached  for  the  first  time  at  the  West  Union 
church  in  February,  1845,  and  became  pastor  of  that  church  for  awhile.  In  the 
fall  of  1845  Revs.  Ezra  Fisher  and  Hezekiah  Johnson,  duly  commissioned  by 
the  American  Baptist  Home  ilissionary  Society,  arrived  with  their  families, 
coming  across  the  plains  aud  soon  after  began  their  missionary  work. 

In  June,  1860,  Samuel  Cornelius  was  sent  out  by  the  American  Baptist  Home 
Mission  from  Indianapolis  as  a  missionary  to  labor  in  the  Portland  field.  He 
preached,  first  in  the  Methodist  church,  then  in  a  public  hall,  and  organized  the 
first  Baptist  church  in  Portland  on  August  12,  1860,  with  twelve  members,  of 
which  were  Josiah  Failing  and  wife,  Joshua  Shaw  and  wife,  R.  Weston  aud  wife, 
and  George  Shriver  and  wife.  These  few  members  elected  Mr.  Cornelius 
their  pastor.  Stephen  Coffin  donated  the  little  church  a  half  of  a  city  block 
on  which  to  erect  a  church  building,  and  it  is  a  singular  commentary  ou  the 
inconsistencies  of  this  world's  affairs,  that  while  the  donor  of  this  land  died 
without  property  this  half  block  was  sold  by  this  church  for  money  enough 
to  purchase  nearly  as  much  land  at  another  point  and  ez-ect  thereon  the  boasted 
"White  Temple"  costing  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars.  The  Lord  does 
serve  his  liberal  givers  with  strange  recompenses — some  times. 

The  first  attempt  to  establish  a  Baptist  school  in  Oregon  was  what  was  called 
in  1856 — the  "Corvallis  Institute."  Institutes  were  the  favored  institutions  in 
the  early  days,  but  this  one  never  got  beyond  the  act  of  incorporation.  In  the 
same  year  the  legislature  chartered  the  "West  Union  Institute"  to  be  located  at 
the  north  end  of  the  north  Plain  in  Washington  county,  about  fourteen  miles 
from  Portland.  David  T.  Lenox,  Ed.  H.  Lenox,  Henry  Sewell,  Wm.  Mau- 
zey,  John  S.  White  and  George  C.  Chandler  were  named  as  trustees  for  the 
institution,  and  they  built  a  school  house  and  the  church  known  all  over  the 
Willamette  valley  as  "The  Lenox  Church."  At  the  same  session  of  the  legis- 
lature a  charter  was  granted  for  the  Baptist  college  at  McMinnville.  At  that 
time  (1857)  there  was  already  at  McMinnville  a  school  founded  by  the  Disciples 
or  Christian  church  (frequently  called  the  Campbellites,  after  Alexander  Camp- 
bell the  founder  of  the  sect)  and  this  beginning  of  a  school  with  all  its  property 
was  turned  over  to  the  Baptists  as  a  free  gift  on  the  condition  that  they  should 


580  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

organize  and  keep  up  a  college.     Out  of  this  grew  the  present  Baptist  college 
at  McMinnville. 

THE    CAMPBELLITES 

No  member  of  the  Christian  or  "Disciples  of  Christ"  church  need  take  um- 
brage at  being  called  a  ' '  Campbellite. ' '  There  are  probably  but  few  persons  in 
Oregon  who  ever  heard  the  founder  of  that  church — Alexander  Campbell — 
preach  or  knew  him  personally.  The  author  of  this  book  has  the  pleasure  of 
having  known  and  heard  that  truly  great  man  preach  in  Belmont  county,  Ohio, 
while  he,  Campbell,  was  at  the  head  of  the  college  he  founded  at  Bethany,  West 
Virginia.  Alexander  Campbell  was  born  in  the  Presbyterian  county  of  Antrim 
in  Ireland  in  1788  and  came  to  the  United  States  in  1809.  His  mind  was  early 
impressed  with  the  importance  of  religion,  but  did  not  find  among  all  the  relig- 
ious sects  any  system  he  could  entirely  adopt,  and  subsequently  declared  against 
all  human  creeds,  and  commenced  forming  religious  associations  with  the  Bible 
as  their  only  rule  of  faith.  He  founded  Bethany  college  in  1841;  established 
the  "Christian  Baptist  and  Millenial  Harbinger"  which  became  the  organ  and 
advocate  of  his  religious  system,  and  died  in  1855.  The  church  he  founded  now 
ranks  fifth  in  number  and  influence  in  the  United  States. 

In  addition  to  the  school  started  at  McMinnville  and  turned  over  to  the 
Baptists,  the  Campbellites  a  little  later  founded  Bethel  Academy  among  the 
Eola  Hills  of  Polk  county.  In  1855  it  was  chartered  by  the  Legislature  as 
Bethel  Institute,  and  was  opened  with  great  prospects  and  about  sixty  pupils. 
L.  L.  Rowland  and  N.  Hudson,  familiar  names  in  the  history  of  Yamhill 
and  Polk  counties,  were  the  first  teachers.  At  that  early  day  the  school  had  a 
well  selected  library  and  apparatus  for  teaching  in  the  department  of  science. 
But  Bethel  soon  had  a  rival  in  the  same  county.  There  was  an  influential 
community  of  Disciples  south  of  the  Rickreall  who  did  not  relish  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Methodist  academy  at  Dallas;  and  set  their  wits  to  work  to  hold 
their  church  people  and  rising  generation  together  by  establishing  a  College 
of  the  first  class  among  themselves.  No  country  in  the  world  ever  had  more 
people  who  were  ambitious  to  start  colleges  than  those  of  the  Willamette  val- 
ley of  Oregon.  Accordingly  the  following  persons,  to-wit:  Ira  F.  M.  Butler, 
J.  E.  Murphy,  R.  P.  Boise,  J.  B.  Smith,  S.  Simmons,  Wm.  Mason,  T.  H.  Hutch- 
inson, H.  Burford,  T.  H.  Lucas,  D.  R.  Lewis,  and  S.  S.  Whitman  formed  an 
Association  and  procured  a  charter  from  the  Legislature  in  1855  incorporating 
"Monmouth  University."  As  a  foundation  for  the  ambitious  scheme  460 
acres  of  land  were  donated.  Whitman  giving  200,  Lucas  80,  A.  W.  Lucas  20, 
and  Elijah  Davidson  and  J.  B.  Smith  each  giving  80  acres.  On  this  land  was 
platted  the  towusite  of  Monmouth,  and  lots  sold  to  all  persons  desiring  to 
live  in  a  University  town  which  was  yet  a  wheat  field  or  cow  pasture.  The 
necessity  for  money  as  well  as  land  led  to  the  scheme  of  selling  forty  perpetual 
scholarships  in  the  nascent  University  at  five  hundred  dollars  each,  and  by 
which  the  institution  got  a  prosperous  start.  Thomas  F.  Campbell,  a  graduate 
of  Bethany  College,  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  Institution;  a  brick  build- 
ing was  erected,  and  a  literary  and  religious  journal  entitled  the  "Monmouth 
Christian  Messenger"  was  started.     Monmouth  started  in  this  way  is  now  a 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  581 

prosperous  town  with  two  railroads,  a  bank  and  many  wealthy  and  influential 
citizens. 

The  seed  thought,  as  it  were,  from  which  sprang  the  idea  of  establishing  a 
Christian  (Disciple)  college  in  Oregon  was  planted  in  the  mind  of  Tyrus  Himes 
in  Bradford  county,  Pennsylvania,  in  1838,  as  the  result  of  a  lecture  by  Rev. 
Samuel  Parker,  D.  D.,  of  Ithaca,  New  York,  who  returned  in  1837  from  Oregon. 
Late  in  1838  Dr.  Parker  issued  his  lectures  in  book  form  entitled  a  "Journal 
of  an  Exploring  Tour  Beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains  under  the  Direction  of 
the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  of  Foreign  Missions  in  the  Years  1835, 
1836,  and  1837."  Mr.  Himes  secured  a  copy  of  this  work  and  became  fully 
conversant  with  it  and  decided  he  would  go  to  Oregon  as  soon  as  he  could. 
He  started  with  his  family — wife  and  one  child — to  Oregon  in  the  fall  of  1846, 
with  the  expectation  of  remaining  in  Stark  county,  Illinois,  visiting  some 
brothers,  during  the  ensuing  winter  and  resuming  his  westward  journey  in 
the  spring  of  1847.  Mr.  Himes  had  a  severe  attack  of  illness  during  the  winter 
and  did  not  recover  from  it  in  time  to  go  with  the  emigration  of  that  year. 
In  the  winter  of  1849-50,  during  a  "protracted  meeting"  conducted  by  minis- 
ters of  the  Disciple  church  of  which  Mr.  Himes  was  a  member,  a  number  of 
the  ministers  and  lay  members  of  that  church  were  guests  at  his  house  one 
evening  when  the  question  of  going  to  Oregon  was  discussed.  Then  Mr.  Himes 
suggested,  inasmuch  as  it  was  expected  that  Congress  would  pass  the  Linn 
donation  land  law,  that  he  thought  it  would  be  a  wise  thing  if  a  number  of 
families  would  agree  to  go  to  Oregon,  take  up  donation  claims  in  a  body  and 
set  aside  a  portion  of  the  same  as  a  nucleus  for  a  fund  with  which  to  endow  a 
Christian  college.  This  suggestion  was  approved  of  by  all  present,  as  follows: 
Rev.  John  E.  Jlurphy,  Rev.  Elijah  Davidson,  William  Davidson,  Squire  S. 
Whitman,  Thomas  and  Albert  Lucas,  Elijah  Davidson,  Jr.,  George  Barnett, 
Ethan  A.  Shirley,  Ira  F.  M.  Butler,  and  James  H.  Roundtree.  Whitman 
and  Thomas  Lucas  came  to  Oregon  overland  in  1850,  and  located  at  what  is 
now  Monmouth,  and  the  others  mentioned  came  in  1852-53,  and  settled  in  the 
vicinity. 

Mr.  Himes  intended  to  have  crossed  the  plains  in  1852,  but  was  prevented 
by  circumstances  beyond  his  control.  He  did  cross  in  1853,  however,  with  the 
avowed  purpose  of  becoming  a  neighbor  to  his  old  friends  and  brethren  who 
had  preceded  him ;  but  disasters  on  the  plains  caused  him  to  accept  the  offers  of 
a  kindly-hearted  Kentucky  family,  and  this  led  him  to  settle  in  northern  Ore- 
gon, now  known  as  the  "Puget  Sound  country."  An  attempt,  however,  to 
carry  out  the  original  plan  was  made  as  above  set  foi'th. 

THE  EPISCOPALIANS 

The  pioneer  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  church  in  Oregon  was  St.  Michael 
Fackler,  who  crossed  the  plains  to  Oregon  with  the  immigration  of  1847  to 
improve  his  health  rather  than  to  preach  the  gospel.  ]\Ir.  Fackler  found  a  few 
members  of  this  Church  in  Oregon  City,  and  held  occasional  services  in  1848 
at  the  house  of  A.  McKinlay,  but  without  attempting  to  organize  a  church.  The 
first  missionary  of  this  church  from  the  Eastern  States  was  William  Richmond, 
appointed  by  the  Board  of  Domestic  missions  in  April,  1851,  to  labor  in  Ore- 


582  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

gon;  and  who  organized  congregations  at  Portland,  Oregon  City,  Milwaukie, 
Salem  and  Lafayette.  In  the, autumn  of  1852  Rev.  Richmond  was  joined  by 
James  A.  Woodward  of  the  diocese  of  Pennsylvania,  who  like  Mr.  Fackler, 
made  the  trip  across  the  plains  for  his  health,  aiding  in  driving  and  herding  a 
flock  of  sheep.  The  first  Bishop  of  this  Church — Thomas  Fielding  Scott — of 
the  diocese  of  Georgia,  was  elected  missionary  Bishop  of  Oregon  and  Washing- 
ton at  the  General  convention  of  the  church  held  in  New  York  in  October,  1853 ; 
but  before  he  could  reach  Oregon,  Richmond  and  Woodward  both  returned  to 
the  Atlantic  States,  leaving  only  Mr.  Fackler  and  Rev.  John  McCarty  (an 
army  chaplain  at  Vancouver)  to  found  the  Episcopal  church  in  the  vast 
country  of  Oregon,  Washington  and  Idaho.  Soon  after  the  arrival  of  the 
Bishop  his  clerical  forces  were  reinforced  by  Deacon  Johnston  McCormac 
and  two  brothers,  Revs.  John  and  James  R.  W.  Sellwood.  Bishop  Scott  started 
a  boys'  school  at  Oswego,  and  a  girls'  school  at  Milwaukie,  neither  of  which 
succeeded  on  account  of  their  distance  from  any  settled  membership  of  the 
church.  Bishop  Scott  died  in  1857,  lamented  by  all  who  knew  him,  and  leav- 
ing uncompleted  the  great  work  he  had  planned  and  started.  Scott  was  suc- 
ceeded in  the  wide  extended  Bishopric  by  Benjamin  Wistar  Morris,  of  German- 
town,  Pennsylvania.  Morris  was  a  lineal  descendant  of  the  great  financier,  Robert 
Morris,  who  powerfully  aided  George  Washington  and  Ben  Franklin  to  found  a 
great  nation ;  and  he  inherited  and  exhibited  in  his  active  career  in  Oregon  for 
nearly  forty  years  all  the  noble  principles  of  courage,  integrity  and  self-sacrifice 
which  distinguished  his  great  ancestor.  Bishop  Morris  established  on  firm 
and  prosperous  foundations,  hundreds  of  parish  houses  and  all  the  institutions 
of  his  church,  fully  earning  the  title  of  "The  Great  Bishop,"  and  passed  away 
beloved  by  all  his  people  and  respected  and  honored  by  all  citizens. 

THE  UNITARIANS 

This  denomination  was  started  in  Oregon  long  enough  ago  to  have  his- 
torical standing.  The  first  Unitarian  church  in  the  state  was  organized  at 
Portland  in  1865  by  Thomas  Fi'azar,  E.  D.  Shattuck  and  R.  R.  Thompson. 
Its  first  house  of  worship  at  the  S.  W.  corner  of  Seventh  and  Yamhill  streets, 
accommodating  about  300  people  was  erected  on  a  lot  costing  $7,000.  The 
Congregation  stiU  worships  there  in  a  larger  house;  and  the  lot  has  risen  in 
value  from  the  $7,000  up  to  $250,000;  being  such  an  increase  of  value  that 
the  most  enthusiastic  churchman  would  probably  admit  that  the  value  of 
the  lot  had  far  outstripped  the  growth  of  the  church — or  of  all  the  churches; 
showing  forcibly  that  the  things  of  this  world  still  holds  the  minds  of  men  in 
prefei-ence  to  the  things  of  the  next  world.  While  the  Unitarians  have  not  a 
large  membership  in  Oregon,  they  are  to  have  a  great  College ;  the  gift  of  one 
of  their  deceased  members — Simeon  G.  Reed;  which  is  further  noticed  among 
the  colleges. 

THE    LUTHERANS 

This  branch  of  Protestantism  planted  a  church  in  Oregon  as  early  as  1867 ; 
Aaron  Myers,  a  local  preacher,  and  patent  water  wheel  promoter,  being  its 
founder.     There  is  now  in  the  state  about  a  half  dozen  different  branches  of 


IM.    1;K\      II|;M.\M1\     WIsTM;     \liii;|;i>, 
IIISIKU'   i»K   uUKr.t^N 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  583 

the  Lutheran  chureh  in  Oregon,  all  of  them  tracing  their  title  to  preach  the 
gospel  back  to  the  great  JMartiu  Luther,  who  defied  the  Pope  400  years  ago. 

CIIl'RCII   ORGANIZATION   STATISTICS 
THE    METHODIST    EPISCOPAL 

Turning  now  from  the  churches  as  educational  organizations  to  their  nu- 
merical strength  as  both  teaching  and  religious  bodies,  the  following  statistics 
have  been  secured  for  the  year  of  1911.  All  the  churches  represented  in  the 
state  were  requested  to  furnish  a  statement  for  this  work,  and  it  is  greatly 
regretted  that  some  of  them  have  neglected  to  do  so : 

Beginning  with  the  oldest  in  the  field  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  re- 
port One  Conference,  and  parts  of  two  others  in  the  state ;  six  Presiding  Elder 
districts;  one  Oregon  Conference  Laymen's  Association;  186  resident  minis- 
ters; 141  mission  churches  receiving  missionary  support;  198  ordained  minis- 
ters in  the  state ;  a  total  membership  of  26,539 ;  264  Sunday  schools ;  one  Uni- 
versity; 420  students  in  denominational  colleges;  seven  Home  missionaries;  one 
Foreign  missionary;  first  annual  conference  held  at  Salem,  September  5, 
1849 ;  one  weekly  official  organ — Pacific  Christian  Advocate ;  C.  C.  Rorich, 
secretary  of  Annual  conference. 

THE    FREE    METHODISTS 

This  denomination  I'cports  two  Annual  Conferences  in  the  state;  five  dis- 
tricts; twelve  local  missionary  associations;  25  churches  with  resident  minis- 
ters ;  37  ordained  ministers ;  with  a  total  membership  of  780 ;  30  Sunday  schools ; 
5  Home  missionaries;  Church  organized  in  Oregon  June  10,  1885,  at  Beaver- 
ton;  Rev.  W.  N.  Coffee,  resident  District  elder. 

THE    PRESBYTERIANS 

Next  in  order  of  time  after  the  Episcopal  Methodists,  came  the  ' '  Old 
school ' '  Presbyterians  to  teach  and  preach  in  Oregon ;  the  first  to  ' '  spy  out  the 
land"  being  the  Rev.  Samuel  Parker  in  1835;  and  the  next  the  acting  and  re- 
sponsible representative  of  the  church,  the  lamented  Marcus  "Whitman,  M.  D.,  in 
1836.  The  church  is  now  represented  in  Oregon  by  five  organized  Presbyter- 
ies; 130  organized  congregations;  50  missions  in  Oregon ;155  ordained  minis- 
ters ;  a  total  membership  of  15,557 ;  a  Sunday  School  membership  of  15,403 ; 
one  denominational  college;  three  foreign  missionaries  appointed  from  Ore- 
gon ;  formally  organized  independent  of  Missionary  Board  in  1851. 

UNITED  PRESBYTERIANS 

Reports  one  Presbj'tery  in  Oregon;  9  churches  with  resident  ministers;  4 
mission  churches ;  13  ordained  ministers  in  the  state ;  a  total  membership  of 
850 ;  9  Sunday  Schools ;  4  Home  missionaries ;  one  in  Foreign  lands ;  chureh  or- 
ganized  in   Oregon   at  Albany,   Linn   county. 


584  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

REFORMED  PRESBYTERIAN 

Here  is  the  genuine  article,  carrying  the  reader  back  to  1638  when  Sir 
Henry  "Wotton,  a  favorite  of  James  VI.  of  Scotland,  wrote  in  one  of  his  letters 
that  he  was  sorry  to  hear  of  new  "oathes  in  Scotland  between  the  Covenanters, 
who  they  say  will  have  none  but  Jesus  Christ  to  reign  over  them."  Oregon 
has  but  one  Covenanter  minister,  and  one  church  of  the  covenant,  organized 
December  2,  1911 ;  but  it  would  be  blessing  to  the  state  if  there  was  one 
such  church  of  these  sturdy  Covenanters  on  every  hill  top,  and  in  every  val- 
ley of  the  state. 

CONGREGATIONALISTS 

This  denomination  reports  one  annual  conference;  four  local  or  district 
associations;  fifty-nine  churches  with  sixty-three  ministers  and' 5,135  members: 
forty-eight  Sunday-schools  connected  with  churches,  with  a  membership  of 
5,161;  sixty  missionary  Sunday-schools;  one  general  state  superintendent  of 
general  missionary  work;  one  state  superintendent  of  Sunday-school  work. 
This  report  is  for  the  year  ending  December  31,  1910 — the  last  one  available. 

THE    CATHOLICS 

Archdiocese  of  Oregon  City.  Rev.  Francis  Norbert  Blanchet,  first  Bishop, 
appointed  from  the  Parish  of  Les  Cedres  of  the  District  of  Montreal,  Canada, 
April  17,  1838,  to  be  Vicar  General  of  the  Missions  of  Oregon.  Reached  Ore- 
gon Territory  October  13,  1838 ;  consecrated  Bishop  of  Drasa  July  23,  1845 ; 
Bishop  of  Oregon  City  July  24,  1846;  Archbishop,  July  29,  1850;  died  June 
18,  1883. 

Bishop  Blanchet,  recognized  as  the  great  Catholic  leader  in  Oregon,  was 
succeeded  by  Rev.  Charles  John  Seghers,  who  was  co-adjutor  Bishop  of  Oregon 
City  from  June  29, 1873,  until  the  death  of  Blanchet ;  when  he  became  Archbishop 
on  December  20,  1880,  and  held  the  office  until  his  resignation  in  1884,  when 
he  was  transferred  to  Vancouver's  Island  and  died  November  28,  1886.  The 
next  occupant  of  the  high  office  of  Archbishop  was  Rev.  Wm.  H.  Gross,  pro- 
moted from  the  Bishopric  of  Savannah,  Georgia,  to  the  Archiepiscopate  of 
Oregon  City,  by  his  Holiness  the  Pope  at  Rome  on  February  1,  1885 ;  died 
November  14,  1898.  Bishop  Gross  was  succeeded  by  the  present  occupant  of 
the  office,  the  Rev.  Alexander  Christie,  who  was  promoted  by  his  Holiness  the 
Pope  from  the  Bishopric  of  Vancouver's  Island  to  be  Archbishop  of  Oregon 
City  on  February  12,  1899. 

The  Diocese  of  Oregon  City  comprises  all  the  territory  of  the  State  of 
Oregon  west  of  the  west  boundary  line  of  Wasco,  Crook  and  Klamath  counties; 
and  the  organization  and  activities  of  the  jurisdiction  for  1911  is  shown  by  the 
following  Digest: 

Archbishop,  1 ;  Mitred  Abbots,  2 ;  Diocesan  Priests,  65 ; 

Total  number  of  Priests  of  Religious  Orders 100 

Churches  with  resident  priests  50 

Missions   with   churches    50 

Total  churches  100 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  585 

Mission   stations    95 

Chapels       13 

Seminaries  of  Religious  Order  Students   10 

Academies  for  girls  and  young  ladies 10 

Colleges  and  Academies  for  boys    3 

Students  therein    450 

Parishes  and  Parochial  schools   36 

Pupils  therein   5,000 

Orphan   Asylums    3 

Orphans  therein   314 

Hospitals      5 

House  of  Good  Shepherd 1 

Home  for  the  Aged 1 

Catholic  Young  Woman 's  Home 1 

Catholic  Population  in  the  Diocese    55,000 

DIOCESE  OP  BAKER  CITY 

Charles  J.  O'Reilly,  D.  D. ;  First  Bishop  of  Baker  City  ordained  June  29, 
1890. 

Diocesan  Priests   12 

Priests  of  Religious  orders   14 

Ecclesiastical  students    8 

Religious  women    88 

Churches  with  resident  priests    16 

Missions  with  churches    20 

Chapels 9 

Academies  for  young  ladies   4 

Parishes  with  Parochial  schools  6 

Pupils  attending  Catholic  schools   790 

Catholic   Indians       500 

Orders  of  women      11 

Hospitals       3 

Catholic  population    6000 

Teaching  Sisters      79 

Report  of  schools  comprised  in  the  Catholic  Educational  Association  of  Oregon 

for  the  year  ending  June,  1910 

Av. 
Community  daily 

in  Attend- 

Name  of  School  Charge  ance 

St.  Mary 's  Academy Sister  of  Holy  Names,  Portland  295 

Columbia  University Congre  'tn.  Holy  Cross,  Portland 135 

C.  B.  Business  College Christian  Brothers,  Portland    180 

St.  Mary's  Annex Sisters  of  Holy  Names,  Portland    50 

St.  Joseph's  School  (German)  . .  Dominican   Sisters,   Portland    110 

St.  Stephens   Sisters  of  St.  Mary,  Portland  76 

St.  Mary's  Dominican    Sisters.    Portland    286 

St.  Ignatius Sisters  of  Holy  Names,  Portland 93 


586  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Av. 

Community  daily 

in  Atteud- 

Name  of  School  Charge  ance 

Sacred  Heart Benedictine  Sisters,  Portland   170 

St.  Francis  Academy   Holy  Names  Sisters,  Portland 180 

"  Holy   Redeemer   School    Holy  Names  Sisters,  Portland  85 

St.  Andrew's Immac.  Heart  of  Mary,  Portland   110 

Blanchet  School  (Italian)    ....  Holy   Names   Sisters,    Portland    52 

Ascension  School   Sisters  of  Mercy,  Portland   69 

St.  Patrick's  School Holy  Names  Sisters,  Portland 115 

St.  Lawrence Immac.  Heart  of  Mary,  Portland   185 

St.  Alphonsus  Academy Sisters  of  St.  Mary,  Tillamook 70 

Parochial  School    Sisters  of  Mercy,  Roseburg   40 

St.  James  School   Sisters  of  St.  Francis,  McMinnville   56 

Sacred  Heart  Academy   Holy  Names  Sisters,  Salem   85 

Visitation  School   Sisters  of  St.  Mary,  Verboort  82 

3t.  Benedict's  School Benedictine   Sisters,  Woodburn    95 

Sacred  Heart  School Sisters  of  St.  Mary,  Gervais 86 

St.  Louis '  School  Sisters  of  St.  Mary,  St.  Louis  35 

School  0.  L.  of  Perpetual  Help .  Benedictine  Sisters,  Albany  60 

St.  Paul 's  Academy Holy  Names  Sisters,  St.  Paul 75 

St.  Mary 's  Academy Holy  Names  Sisters,  Medf ord 109 

McLoughlin  's  Institute Benedictine  Sisters,   Oregon  City    180 

St.  Boniface  School Sisters  of  St.  Mary,   Sublimity   118 

St.  Mary 's  Parochial   Sisters  of  Mercy,  Eugene  75 

St.  Mary 's  Home  Holy  Names  Sisters,  V.  M.  Oswego   80 

St.  Mary 's  Home  Sisters  of  St.  Mary,  Beaverton   98 

St.  Mary 's  Institute Sisters  of  St.  Mary,  Beaverton   90 

Holy  Names  Academy Holy  Names  Sisters,  Astoria    68 

Mt.  Angel  Academy Benedictine  Sisters,  Mt.  Angel  294 

Mt.  Angel  College Benedictine  Fathers,  Mt.  Angel  — - 

St.  Andrews '  Indian Jesuit,  Pendleton      66 

St.  Francis  Academy   Sisters  of  St.  Francis,  Baker  City — 

St.  Mary's  Academy Holy  Names  Sisters,  The  Dalles  118 

Sacred  Heart  Academy   Sisters  of  St.  Francis,  La  Grande  85 

St.  Thomas  Aquinas  Academy . .  Dominican  Sisters,  Condon   50 

Total   number   of  teachers   in   all  the   schools,   257. 

The  Catholic  population  of  Oregon  are  maintaining  two  colleges  of  the 
university  class,  as  universities  go  in  Oregon,  Columbia  University  of  Uni- 
versity Park,  and  Mount  Angel  of  Marion  county.  And  in  addition  to  this 
literary  and  religious  organization  the  church  recognizes  with  favor  the  fol- 
lowing fraternal,  if  not  secret,  organizations  ■which  neither  Protestant  nor  sin- 
ners may  join,  to-wit :  Catholic  Order  of  Foresters ;  Catholic  Knights  of  Amer- 
ica; Young  Men's  Institute;  Ancient  Order  of  Hibernians;  Knights  of  Colum- 
bus. 

The  Baptist  Chuech  was  organized  in  Oregon  by  David  T.  Lenox  who 
on  May  25th,  1844,  gathered  into  his  own  house  on  Tualatin  Plains  fifteen 
miles   southwest   of   Portland   his   neighbors,    Eli    Elevens   and   wife,   William 


REV.  AARON  I.ADNER  LINDSLEY,  D.  D. 


ASTci 
TiLOEiv 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  587 

Beagle  and  wife  and  Henry  Sewell,  and  then  and  there  organized  the  West 
Taulatin  Baptist  ehvircli  2,000  miles  distant  from  any  other  Baptist  church. 
From  that  modest  beginning  a  powerful  church  has  growai  up  in  the  state, 
undisturbed  by  divisions  or  factions,  and  pursuing  its  way  for  the  common 
welfare  of  all  members  of  society,  until  now  it  has  in  the  state  12  district 
associations;  90  churches  with  resident  ministers;  42  churches  with  regular 
services  at  stated  periods;  153  ordained  ministers;  119  Sunday  schools;  1 
College  (ilcMinnville)  and  one  church  journal  with  regular  publication,  and 
14,174  members  of  the  church  in  Oregon. 

The  Christian  or  Disciple.  This  church  is  frequently  called  "Campbell- 
ite,"  from  the  name  of  its  founder,  Alexander  Campbell.  Its  operations  in 
the  state  is  divided  into  tive  districts ;  resident  ministers,  63 ;  ordained  mem- 
bers in  the  state,  80 ;  total  membership,  20,000 ;  Sunday  schools,  115 ;  denom- 
inational college,  Eugene  Bible  University ;  oi'ganized  in  Oregon  in  1849 ;  state 
publication,  the  Apostolic  Appeal. 

The  Friends  Church — by  many  called  Quakers — was  organized  in  Ore- 
gon in  1852,  and  holds  now  one  yearly  meeting,  four  quarterly  meetings 
and  eleven  monthly  meetings.  The  church  has  in  Oregon,  12  resident  minis- 
ters; 40  ordained  ministers,  mth  a  total  church  membership  of  1,852;  13  Sun- 
day schools ;  2  foreign  missionaries ;  one  denominational  college — The  Paci- 
fic, at  Newberg. 

The  Evangelical  Association  has  one  Conference,  and  one  District  in 
the  state;  4  self-supporting  churches;  12  mission  churches  with  services  regu- 
larly; and  17  churches  with  local  and  pastoral  services;  26  ordained  ministers 
in  the  state;  and  a  membership  of  1,438;  27  Sunday  schools;  13  home  mission- 
aries ;  church  organized  in  Oregon  in  1865 ;  state  publication,  The  Evangelical 
Messenger. 

The  Radical  United  Brethren  was  organized  in  Oregon  35  j'cars  ago, 
has  one  annual  Conference;  7  churches  with  resident  ministers,  2  mission 
chiH-ehes  with  regular  services,  6  missions  with  local  and  pastoral  services, 
18  ordained  ministers  in  the  state,  a  total  membership  in  the  state  of  800,  15 
Sunday  schools,  one  college  at  Philomath  with  50  students,  and  six  home  and 
one  foreign  missionary. 

The  Reformed  Church  has  one  Classis  in  Oregon,  11  resident  ministers, 
2  missions  with  services  at  stated  periods,  4  local  missions  with  local  services, 
a  membership  of  790  in  Oregon,  and  10  Sunday  schools  in  the  state;  organized 
in   Oregon  in   1874. 

The  Christian  Science  church  has  in  Oregon  two  independent  branches 
of  the  Mother  Church  of  Christ,  Scientist,  in  Boston,  Mass. ;  they  both  repre- 
sent one  work  with  the  same  history;  Mary  Baker  Eddy  being  the  discoverer 
and  founder  of  Christian  Science.  There  are  no  personal  pastors  of  these 
churches;  the  Bible  and  Mrs.  Eddy's  book  entitled  "Science  and  Health,  with 
Key  to  the  Scriptures,"  being  the  only  recognized  pastor  or  authority.  Mrs. 
Lilly,  who  commenced  her  work  in  Portland  in  1880,  was  the  founder  of 
Christian  Science  in  Oregon.  The  first  church  of  this  sect  was  organized  in 
Oregon  in  1895  by  Samuel  Hersey,  D.  H.  Cheney  and  Blanche  Hersey  Hogue. 

The  Universalist  church  was  organized  in  Oregon  on  February  25,  1894 ; 
having  now  one  church  in  the  state  with  a  resident  minister  and  regular  ser- 
vices, the  corner  stone  of  the  church  building  being  laid  by  President  Wm.  H. 


588  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

Taft  in  1910.  The  membership  of  the  church  in  Oregon  is  125;  two  Sunday 
schools,  one  home  missionary,  and  a  monthly,  "Messenger  of  Good  Tidings." 

The  Pentecostai,  Church  op  the  Nazarene  was  organized  in  Oregon  in 
1905 ;  has  one  Northwest  District  Assembly  of  Oregon,  Washington  and  Idaho ; 
eight  churches  with  resident  ministers;  11  ordained  ministers  in  the  state  and 
eight  Sunday  schools. 

The  following  religious  denominations  and  religious  organizations  have  organ- 
ized churches  in  Oregon  but  omitted  to  give  this  history  any  statement  of  their 
number,  history  or  organization:  Apostolic  Christian,  Catholic  in  Zion,  Beth- 
ania  Swedish,  Church  of  Christ,  Church  of  God,  Church  of  the  Brethren  (Dunk- 
ards),  Divine  Truth  Church,  Free  Brethren,  Japanese  Buddist,  Mennoniten 
Brethren,  Swedenborgiau  New  Church,  Adventist,  Seven  Day  Adventist, 
Hebrews,  Latter  Day  Saints,  Lutherans,  Methodist,  South,  Methodists, 
Wesleyan,  Salvation  Army,  Volunteers  of  America,  Trinity  Orthodox  (Greek), 
Church  of  the  Living  God,  Friends   (Quakers). 

PUBLIC    SCHOOLS 

The  first  school  of  any  kind  opened  on  the  great  northwest  coast  of  America 
called  "Old  Oregon,"  was  taught  at  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company's  fort  at  Van- 
couver by  an  American  named  John  Ball.  The  school  was  the  outcome  of  the 
presence  of  Ball  at  Fort  Vancouver.  He  arrived  there  with  the  trading  party 
of  Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth,  in  1832.  Wyeth  had  started  from  the  Missouri  river  with 
a  party  of  nineteen  men  pretty  well  supplied  and  provisioned,  but  on  account  of 
ignorance  and  inexperience  on  the  plains,  had  been  attacked  by  the  Blackfeet, 
and  only  escaped  destruction  by  the  protecting  arm  of  Milton  Sublette,  the  trap- 
per and  trader.  From  one  trouble  to  another  they  finally  reached  a  deep  valley 
in  the  Rocky  mountains  called  Pierre  Hole,  where  they  got  into  another  battle 
with  the  Indians  along  with  some  trappers,  in  which  scrimmage,  twenty-six  In- 
dians, six  white  men,  and  thirty-two  horses  were  killed.  After  this  trouble,  Sub- 
lette and  Wyeth  pulled  out  of  Pierre  Hole  and  pushed  on  west  in  company  until 
they  reached  the  head  waters  of  the  Humboldt  river  near  the  south  boundary  line 
of  Idaho.  Here  the  two  parties  separated,  AVyeth  and  what  was  left  of  his  party 
coming  on  to  Oregon,  and  Sublette  going  to  California.  Wyeth  and  his  few 
weakened  men — our  first  school  teacher,  John  Ball,  among  them — struggled 
through  the  mountains,  suffering  every  trial,  danger  and  hardship  known  to 
reckless  men,  and  finally  reached  Vancouver  on  the  20th  day  of  October, 
1832.  Wyeth  and  his  whole  party  were  absolutely  destitute.  Not  a  dollar 
in  money  had  they.  Their  clothing  was  worn  out,  and  in  rags  and  tatters, 
they  knocked  at  Port  Vancouver  gate  for  shelter,  food  and  clothing.  They 
had  started  from  Boston  to  come  to  Oregon  and  put  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company 
out  of  business,  and  now  found  themselves  suppliants  at  the  door  of  the  man 
they  intended  to  drive  out  of  the  country.  It  was  not  a  light  and  trifling 
matter,  either,  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  people.  For  if  Wyeth  could  get 
across  the  mountains  despite  the  attack  of  Indians,  this  party  might  be  but  the 
forerunner  of  a  great  host  of  Americans  who  would  take  the  country.  But  it  was 
all  the  same  to  the  big  heart  of  John  McLoughlin.  Here  were  starving  men; 
and  blood  was  thicker  than  water.  The  Americans  put  on  a  bold  front.  They 
wanted  work,  and  they  would  pay  for  all  they  got.     What  could  they  do? 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  589 

iVaythiug  that  men  can  do — clear  laud,  run  boats,  chop  wood,  preach  the  gospel, 
or  teach  school.  John  Ball,  the  Yankee  school  master  from  Boston  got  the  first 
job,  and  commenced  teaching  at  Vancouver  the  first  school  ever  opened  west  of 
the  Rocky  mountains,  on  November  17,  1832,  and  had  for  his  pupils  about  two 
dozen  hali'-breed  Indian  children  of  all  ages,  from  six  to  sixteen.  And  thus  was 
lit  the  lamp  of  learning  in  the  far  western  wilds  of  America.  In  a  letter  to 
Elwood  Evans,  author  of  the  History  of  the  Northwest,  Mr.  Ball  gives  the 
following  account  of  that  first  school : 

"The  scholars  came  in  talking  their  respective  languages — Cree,  Nez  Perce, 
Chinook,  Klickitat,  etc.  I  could  not  understand  them,  and  when  I  called  them 
to  order,  there  was  but  one  who  understood  me.  As  I  had  come  from  a  land 
where  discipline  was  expected  in  school  management,  I  could  not  persuade 
myself  that  I  could  accomplish  anything  without  order.  I  therefore  issued  my 
orders,  and  to  my  surprise,  he  who  understood,  joined  issue  with  me  upon  my 
government  in  the  school.  While  endeavoring  to  impress  upon  him  the  neces- 
sity of  discipline  and  order  in  the  school,  and  through  him  making  such  necessity 
appreciated  by  his  associates.  Dr.  McLoughlin,  chief  factor,  entered.  To  the 
doctor  I  explained  my  difficulty.  He  investigated  my  complaint,  found  my 
statements  correct,  and  at  once  made  such  an  example  of  the  refractory  boy  that 
I  never  afterward  experienced  any  trouble  in  governing.  I  continued  in  the 
school  over  eighteen  months,  during  which  the  scholars  learned  to  speak  English. 

' '  Several  could  repeat  some  of  Murray 's  grammar  verbatim.  Some  had  gone 
through  arithmetic,  and  upon  review  copied  it — entirely.  These  copies  were 
afterward  used  as  school  books,  there  having  been  only  one  printed  copy  at  Port 
Vancouver.    The  school  numbered  twenty-five  pupils." 

In  his  journal  Ball  gives  a  somewhat  different  account  of  this  first  school,  as 
follows :  ' '  Not  liking  to  live  gratis,  I  asked  the  doctor  for  some  employment.  He 
repeatedly  answered  me  that  I  was  a  guest,  and  not  expected  to  work.  But 
after  much  urging,  he  said  if  I  was  willing,  he  would  like  me  to  teach  his  own 
son  and  the  other  boys  in  the  fort,  of  whom  there  were  a  dozen.  Of  course  I 
gladly  accepted  the  offer.  So  the  boys  were  sent  to  my  room  to  be  instructed. 
All  were  half-breeds,  as  there  was  not  a  white  woman  in  Oregon.  The  doctor's 
wife  was  a  'Chippewa'  from  Lake  Superior,  and  the  lightest  woman  was  Mrs. 
Douglas,  a  half  breed  from  Hudson's  Bay.  I  found  the  boys  docile  and  atten- 
tive, and  they  made  good  progress.  The  doctor  often  came  into  the  school,  and 
was  well  satisfied  and  pleased.  One  day  he  said:  'Ball,  anyway,  you  will  have 
the  reputation  of  teaching  the  first  school  in  Oregon.'  So  I  passed  the  winter 
of  18.32  and  1833." 

John  Ball,  the  teacher  of  this  first  school  in  Oregon,  was  the  youngest  of 
ten  children  born  on  Tenny's  Hill,  Hebron,  Grafton  county.  New  Hampshire, 
November  12,  1794.  His  childhood  was  spent  on  this  farm.  Of  schooling  he 
had  but  little  before  he  was  twenty  years  old.  In  1814  was  sent  to  a  clergy- 
man in  Groton,  the  next  town,  to  be  taught.  From  there  he  went  to  Salisbury 
Academy  and  entered  Dartmouth  College  in  1816,  spending  his  summer  va- 
cations on  the  fai-m,  and  teaching  country  schools  in  the  winters.  After  gradu- 
ating, he  studied  law,  teaching  school  to  meet  his  expenses.  He  was  admitted  to 
the  bar  to  practice  law,  at  Utica,  New  York,  in  1824.  One  of  his  father's  neigh- 
bors being  John  Ordway,  who  had  been  out  here  in  the  Lewis  and  Clark  party 
in  1805,  and  returned  safely  to  his  old  home,  had  so  filled  the  boy  up  with  the 


590  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

great  reports  about  this  Oregon  country,  that  when  Wyeth  called  for  men  to  go 
to  Oregon  in  1832,  Ball  quickly  joined,  the  Wyeth  party — and  the  school  teach- 
ing experience  was  the  best  luck  he  had  in  Oregon. 

THE  FIRST   MISSION   SCHOOL 

The  first  school  south  of  the  Columbia  river  was  the  Mission  school,  taught  by 
Philip  L.  Edwards  in  1835,  near  old  Champoeg,  in  what  is  now  Marion  county. 
Commencing-  with  only  a  few  pupils,  twenty-five  more  were  brought  in  from  the 
settlers  on  French  prairie,  and  from  native  Indians,  on  either  side  of  the  Cas- 
cade mountains,  until  all  the  persons,  pupils,  and  others  at  the  mission  amounted 
to  thirty  persons.  These  people  were  all  packed  into  one  small  house.  None 
of  them  were  accustomed  to  such  confinement,  all  having  been  brought  up  ia 
tents,  tepees,  or  the  open  air.  Some  were  diseased,  many  became  ill  from  change 
of  diet,  and  soon  an  epidemic  of  something  like  diphtheria  broke  out,  and  instead 
of  a  school,  the  place  became  a  hospital  with  sixteen  children  lying  sick  at  one 
time  in  one  small  room.  The  school  was  a  failure,  and  nearly  broken  up  for  want 
of  some  common  sense  in  regard  to  the  simplest  precautions  to  protect  the 
health  of  children.  The  school  was  continued  amid  discouraging  circumstances, 
the  missionaries  doing  everything  in  their  power  to  remedy  the  want  of  proper 
buildings,  as  Dr.  McLouglilin  testifies,  until  1838.  During  this  time,  there  never 
was  at  best  more  than  thirty-five  or  forty  pupils,  mostly  natives  or  half-breeds, 
and  of  these,  one-third  died.  In  Himes '  History  of  Oregon,  it  is  stated,  ' '  That 
the  mission  school  consisted  of  twenty-three  Indian  and  half-breed  children,  ten 
of  whom  were  orphans.  And  besides  these,  there  were  twenty-two  Indians,  and 
eight  half-breeds  who  attended  the  day  school.  All  were  taught  to  speak  English, 
and  several  could  read.  The  larger  boys  worked  on  the  farm  in  fine  weather, 
earning  at  the  lowest  pay  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  their  board,  clothing 
and  tuition." 

This  first  teacher  in  Oregon,  Philip  L.  Edwards,  was  a  Kentuckian  by  birth, 
and  came  from  Richmond,  Missouri,  to  Oregon  when  he  was  twenty-three  years 
of  age.  Of  more  than  ordiuarj^  attainments,  he  loved  order  and  refinement.  A 
frontier  man,  he  knew  how  to  accomodate  himself  to  the  rough  and  tumble  of 
frontier  life.  While  possessed  of  high  moral  sense,  he  was  not  a  missionary  or 
a  professor  of  religion.  After  teaching  this  school,  he  returned  to  Missouri, 
studied  law  and  married,  and  during  the  troubles  with  the  Mormans  in  1841, 
enlisted  in  the  militia  forces  against  the  Mormons,  and  was  appointed  a  colonel. 
In  1850  he  emigrated  to  California,  settling  in  Nevada  county,  taking  an  active 
part  in  politics  and  dying  in  May,  1869. 

To  Nathan  Dane,  of  Massachusetts,  who  was  a  member  of  the  Continental 
Congress  from  1785  to  1787,  is  due  the  honor  of  framing  the  memorable  ordi- 
nance of  1787  which  organized  the  great  northwest  territory,  prohibited  slavery 
therein,  and  declared  that  "schools  and  the  means  of  education  shall  be  for- 
ever encoui-aged. "  By  a  previous  act  of  the  same  congress,  and  in  pursuance 
of  a  contract  made  by  the  officers  of  the  United!  States  treasurj^  with  Rev.  Ma- 
nasseh  Cutler  and  Winthrop  Sargent,  of  the  State  of  Connecticut,  in  October 
1787,  the  sixteenth  section  of  public  land  in  each  township  in  all  states  formed 
out  of  the  northwest  territory  was  devoted  to  the  support  of  public  schools. 

In   framing  the  act  for  the   organizs.tion  of  Oregon   territory,   the   thirty- 


"Mk%  ^^'%''^^^'^l 


FOUNDERS  OF  THE  FIRST  HOME  IX  ORE(iO.\  FDR  THE  ACED 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  591 

sixth,  section  of  laud  in  each  township  was  aclded  to  the  sixteenth  for  the  sup- 
port of  public  schools  in  Oregon.  This  provision  provoked  great  opposition  in 
congress.  To  J.  Quinn  Thornton  of  Oregon  is  due  the  honor  of  getting  this 
great  addition  to  our  educational  resources.  Thornton  spent  the  summer  of  1848 
in  Washington  City  as  a  delegate  from  the  Provisional  Government  of  Oregon, 
and  by  his  persistent  indefatigable  labors  not  only  Oregon,  but  every  state 
organized  since  1S4S,  has  thus  been  grandly  endowed.  And  historical  record 
is  here  made  and  attention  is  called  to  the  fact,  that  the  pioneer  Oregoniau,  J. 
(^uinn  Thornton,  stands  on  ihe  same  pedestal  of  fame  as  Nathan  Dane  of  JVlas- 
sachiisetts,  and  that  both  me),  together  have  done  moi'e  for  the  cause  of  popular 
education  in  the  United  States  than  all  the  senators  and  congressmen  since  their 
day.  And  this  fact  is  another  unfading  laurel  in  the  crown  of  glorious  fame 
of  our  Pioneer  Provisional  Government. 

ilarch  3,  1849,  Hon.  Jos.  Lane  issued  his  first  proclamation  as  governor  of 
the  territory.  Soon  after,  a  public  meeting  was  called  in  Oregon  City  at  the 
instance  of  Rev.  Geo.  H.  Atkinson,  to  discuss  some  matters  of  importance.  One 
question  was,  "Shall  we  organize  a  system  of  free  schools?"  After  a  lengthy 
discussion,  a  vote  was  taken  which  resulted  as  follows:  37  for  and  6  against 
free  schools.  At  the  request  of  Governor  Lane,  Rev.  Geo.  H.  Atkinson  pre- 
pared the  educational  part  of  the  forthcoming  message  to  the  first  territorial 
legislature,  July  17,  1849.  This  was  the  first  impulse  toward  the  organization 
of  our  public  school  system.    The  first  school  bill  was  passed  September  5,  1849. 

George  H.  Atkinson,  arrived  in  Portland  in  June,  1848.  He  recalls  Miss 
Carter's  school  as  being  then  in  session.  Dr.  Atkinson  brought  with  him  $200 
worth  of  school  books  of  the  latest  and  best  authors.  He  came  to  Oregon, 
charged  especially  witli  the  educational  interests  of  the  territory.  He  after 
ward  imported  about  $1,700  worth  more  of  school  books,  and  sold  out  to  S.  J. 
McCormick,  Esq. 

And  since  that  early  day  the  public  school  system  of  the  state  has  had  the 
conscientious  consideration  of  each  succeeding  legislative  assembly.  Possibly  a 
larger  fund  might  have  been  made  out  of  the  school  lands,  but  a  large  and  in- 
creasing fund  has  been  secured. 

The  common  school  fund  of  Oregon  now  totals  between  $5,000,000  and 
$6,000,000,  and  it  not  only  supplies  a  source  of  income  for  the  public  schools  of  the 
state,  but  it  is  a  source  of  assistance  to  farmers  and  landowners  in  need  of  cash 
in  every  county  in  the  state. 

This  fund  has  been  derived  from  the  sale  of  school  lands  of  the  state,  and  is 
loaned  oiit  in  the  following  amounts  in  various  counties,  on  first  mortgages. 

Baker    $160,801.83 

Benton    101,787.84 

Clackamas    38,150.05 

Clatsop   29,100.00 

Columbia    22,609.70 

Coos    171,634.72 

Crook    24,350.00 

Curry    30,846.05 

Douglas    119,703.51 


592  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Gilliam 399,030.94 

Grant 185,481.38 

Harney  200,603.67 

Hood  River  140,040.00 

Jackson 162,763.93 

Josephine    104,807.22 

Klamath  130,610.12 

Lake 25,680.00 

Lane    210,829.94 

Lincoln  68,749.42 

Linn    94,473.12 

Jlalheur    248,027.89 

Marion    297,110.28 

Morrow 249,868.88 

Multnomah 114,109.90 

Polk 53,263.00 

Sherman 200,893.41 

Tillamook 259,125.55 

Umatilla  403,837.80 

Union    292,203.97 

Wallowa   216,487.35 

Wasco   272,103.39 

Washington   32,403.93 

Wheeler    236,505.92 

Yamhill 86,057.01 

Total $5,374,051.82 

The  statistics  relative  to  the  county  supervisors,  the  number  of  districts  they 
represent,  and  the  number  of  pupils,  are  as  follows : 

No.  No.       No.  ch'drn 

Super-  Rural       in  Rural 

County                                                                                                          visors  Districts         District 

Baker     3  62            2855 

Benton       1  53            1712 

Clackamas       4  110            5076 

Clatsop       1  28            2485 

Columbia       1  48            1697 

Coos       2  77            3185 

Crook       ; 2  68            1528 

Curry       1  23              647 

Douglas      5  123            3281 

Gilliam       1  32              781 

Grant       1  38              982 

Harney      1  37              735 

Hood  River      ' .     1  13              696 

Jackson      3  85            2845 

Josephine       1  47            1929 


No. 

No.  ch'drn 

Rural 

ill  Rural 

listricts 

District 

35 

1130 

171 

5292 

25 

658 

58 

1310 

112 

4907 

41 

1528 

105 

7655 

40 

860 

37 

8638 

57 

2357 

26 

608 

41 

1168 

83 

3298 

53 

2944 

68 

1734 

55 

2046 

87 

4918 

25 

659 

80 

4904 

THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  593 

No. 
Super- 
County  visor.s 

Klamath       1 

Laue        5 

Lake       1 

Lincoln       2 

Linn      3 

Malheur 1 

Marion       3 

Morrow       1 

Multnomah      1 

Polk      2 

Sherman       1 

Tillamook      1 

Umatilla      3 

Union      1 

Wallowa       1 

Wasco       2 

Washington       2 

Wheeler       1 

Yamhill      2 

The  figures  represent  only  rural  schools  and  rural  school  districts,  schools 
in  cities  and  towns  not  coming  under  the  work  of  county  supervisors. 
Statistics  for  the  year  1910  are  as  follows : 

Number  of  Districts  in   the   State    2,266 

Average   No.   Days   of   School   per   Year    138 

Average    Salary    Male    Teachers    per    Month $  73.53 

Average  Salary  Female  Teachers  per  Month  55.05 

"Wliole  amount  paid  Teachers  per  annum   2,299,689.42 

Amount   received   from   District   Tax    2,346,555.69 

Amount  received  from  County  Tax   1,322,081.93 

Amount  received  from  State  Fund 320,272.27 

Total   amount   of   School   Funds    6,378,508.20 

Total  value   of   School    Property    8,624,731.43 

The  apportionment  of  the  common  school  funds  to  the  counties  of  the  State 
for  the  year  1912  is  as  follows : 

The  total  apportionment  is  $347,124.48  divided  among  180,794  school  chil- 
dren as  follows : 

Baker       $  10,439.04 

Bentou      6,205.44 

Clackamas       19,340.16 

Clatsop     8,586.24 

Columbia     6,303.36 

Coos      10,901.76 

Vol.  I— 3  8 


594  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Crook    ' 4,654.68 

Curry      1,345.92 

Douglas    11,219.68 

Gilliam  2,096.64 

Grant 3,452.16 

Harney     2,280.96 

Hood  River 3,953.28 

Jackson      13,284.48 

Josephine     6,074.88 

Klamath     ' 4,177.92 

Lake    2,511.36 

Lane 20,770.56 

Lincoln     3,429.12 

Linn    14,904.96 

Malheur 4,886.40 

Marion     23,431.68 

Morrow    2,651.52 

Multnomah      83,089.92 

Polk    8,561.28 

Sherman     1,920.00 

Tillamook 3,534.72 

Umatilla       11,990.40 

Union     10,588.80 

Wallowa     5,473.92 

Wasco     7,173.12 

Washington     13,655.04 

Wheeler 1,658.88 

Yamhill      12,076.80 


Total $847,124.48 

SCHOOL  LANDS  UNSOLD 

The  revised  list  of  school  lands  remaining  unsold  January  1,  1912,  showed  a 
total  acreage  of  about  500,000.  There  are  no  more  state  lands  remaining  in 
Clackamas,  Clatsop,  Columbia,  Linn,  Marion,  Multnomah,  Polk,  Washington  and 
Yamhill  counties.  List  of  counties  and  acreage  of  school  land  remaining  unsold 
in  each  follow : 

Baker     19,840 

Benton 200 

Coos       200 

Curry     940 

Crook     40,200 

Douglas     950 

Gilliam    3,520 

Grant     21,840 

Harney    145,280 


THE   TWELVE  FOUNDRESSES  UE   ST.   MARY'S.  UE   PURTEAXD,  AND  MANY  OTHER 
SCHOOLS   FOR   GIRLS 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  595 

Jackson     440 

Josephine      920 

Klamath     9,220 

Lake     94,240 

Lane    120 

Lincoln      360 

Malheur    175,520 

Morrow     1,960 

Sherman      1,400 

Tillamook     120 

Umatilla    4,360 

Union     5,120 

Wallowa      3,320 

Wasco    3,560 

Wheeler     8,160 

This  land  is  now  sold  by  the  state  at  a  minimum  of  $7.50  per  acre,  some  of  it 
selling  under  bid  as  high  as  $15.00  per  acre.  The  receipts  go  to  the  irreducible 
school  fund,  which  is  loaned  to  citizens  of  the  state  on  good  real  estate  first  mort- 
gage securit}'  at  six  per  cent  interest. 

The  public  school  system  of  Oregon  along  with  that  of  other  states  is  being  at 
this  time  severely  criticised  by  the  public  press.  And  not  without  good  reason. 
More  and  more  public  money  is  demanded  every  year,  the  expense  of  the  schools 
increasing  faster  than  the  children  to  be  taught ;  and  the  results  of  the  teaching  in 
practical  every  day  life  diminishing  in  value.  The  number  of  text  books  in  the 
schools  are  now  three  or  four  times  as  many  as  a  generation  ago ;  and  the  output 
of  scholarship  so  far  as  success  in  every  day  life  is  concerned  is  not  half  so  good. 
The  training  of  the  youth  in  schools  is  now  all  directed  to  learning  something  from 
books;  while  fifty  years  ago  the  books  were  a  mere  instrument  to  learning  how 
to  do  practical  every  day  work.  The  boy  or  girl  that  has  to  work  as  well  as  study 
is  the  pupil  that  succeeds  in  the  battle  of  life.  As  showing  public  opinion  on  this 
subject  in  the  year  1912,  the  following  extract  is  taken  from  a  recent  editorial  in 
the  widely  read  New  York  Independent : 

"What  we  want  is  an  American  people  trained  for  American  enterprises 
and  American  home  life.  We  have  seen  the  folly  of  educating  our  lads  and 
lassies  in  such  a  way  that  they  are  less  and  less  qualified  to  do  things  most 
needed   for  home  and  community  and  state." 

In  addition  to  the  public  schools  and  the  state  colleges,  a  state  library  sys- 
tem is  being  provided  for  by  public  taxation,  and  free  books  and  free  reading 
rooms  provided  at  public  expense.  So  that  in  every  way  the  professional  edu- 
cators can  think  of  book  learning  is  to  be  thrust  upon  the  rising  generation 
of  boys  and  girls.  What  the  result  will  be  in  the  future  may  be  guessed  at  from 
what  has  come  to  pass  in  the  last  twentj'  years. 

COLLEGES    AND    UNIVERSITIES 

The  state  of  Oregon  has  more  colleges  and  universities  of  education  in  pro- 
portion to  its  population  than  any  other  state  in  the  Union;  and  now  (1912) 


596  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

stands  third  in  rank  to  those  that  have  the  highest  percentage  of  students  at- 
tending colleges  according  to  population.  Kansas  is  first,  with  one  college  student 
to  every  112  inhabitants,  Utah  second  with  one  to  every  121  inhabitants,  Oregon 
third  with  one  to  every  150.  This  result  was  not  to  have  been  expected  from  a 
population  of  men  and  women  who  had  fewer  opportunities  for  such  education 
than  those  of  a  majority  of  the  states  of  the  Union,  and  M'hile  it  is  a  high  compli- 
ment to  their  ambition  and  appreciation  of  higher  education,  it  shows  their  inex- 
perience with  such  expensive  embellishment  of  modern  life.  In  this  year,  A.  D. 
1912,  college  education  is  coming  in  for  its  full  share  of  public  criticism  in  com- 
mon with  the  hackneyed  technicalities  of  the  public  schools.  Of  a  large  class 
of  young  men  who  support  the  colleges,  Dr.  Winship,  a  prominent  educator,  says: 
"Rich  men's  sons  usually  prepare  for  college  in  fashionable  fitting  schools  where 
fraternities,  athletics  and  society  functions  consume  so  much  of  their  energy  that 
they  have  not  much  left  for  study.  They  are  carried  through  the  course  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  faculty  and  then  go  to  college  because  it  is  the  fashionable  thing 
to  do.  If  it  were  fashionable  to  finish  with  four  years  in  a  coal  mine  they  would 
do  that.  They  have  no  purpose  in  life  except  to  enjoy  themselves,  and  the  only 
enjoyment  they  know  about  is  the  set  routine  which  wealthy  custom  provides. 
College  being  included  in  that  routine  they  go  to  college,  but  not  with  the  faintest 
wish  to  learn  anything.  Indeed,  they  regard  learning  with  haughty  contempt. 
Since  this  is  their  attitude  of  mind  it  would  be  foolish  to  expect  them  to  stand 
at  the  head  of  their  classes.  They  deem  it  far  more  desirable  to  be  at  the  foot. 
They  scorn  intellectual  labor  as  they  do  labor  of  any  other  kind.  In  order  to  live 
comfortably  in  their  station  in  life  they  must  be  perfectly  useless  and  devote  their 
entire  energy  both  of  mind  and  body  to  the  pursuit  of  pleasure. ' ' 

Of  the  college  fraternities  the  Daily  Oregonian  of  December,  1911,  says: 

"It  would  be  interesting  to  learn  the  exact  number  of  young  men  who  are 
killed  year  after  year  at  their  initiation  ceremonies  into  the  Greek-letter  fra- 
ternities. Of  course  the  greatest  pains  are  taken  to  conceal  each  of  these 
'accidents'  or  explain  them  away,  but  now  and  then  the  real  facts  come  out  in 
all  their  hideousness.  The  youth  who  was  burned  almost  to  death  at  a  fashion- 
able Philadelphia  academy  cannot  be  the  only  one  who  has  suffered  from  the  wor- 
ship of  the  fetish  this  fall  and  winter.  There  must  have  been  many  more. 
Loyalty  to  the  class,  to  the  college  or  school,  to  the  fraternity,  naturally  closes 
every  mouth  as  a  usual  thing.  It  is  only  in  cases  rarely  exceptional  that  the 
truth  leaks  out  in  spite  of  efforts  to  conceal  it.  In  athletics,  class  elections, 
student  parties  and  the  like  the  fraternities  are  all-powerful.  The  honors  which 
they  hold  out  are  preferred  by  ambitious  students  far  above  any  intellectual 
distinctions.  The  faculty  has  nothing  to  offer  which  can  compete  for  a  moment 
with  the  glory  of  an  election  to  the  leading  fraternity. 

"In  this  way  the  ambitions  of  the  student  are  perverted.  The  true  object  of 
attendance  at  college  is  forgotten  and  false  standards  erected.  Intellectual 
prowess  becomes  something  to  be  despised  while  'social'  and  athletic  eminence 
are  all  in  all.  The  fraternities  stand  very  high  among  the  influences  which  have 
made  the  modern  college  a  factor  of  questionable  value  in  our  civilization." 

In  athletics  Oregon  colleges  are  well  up  in  the  lead ;  a  local  newspaper  sums 
up  the  honors  and  the  great  men  as  follows  for  the  j'ear  1912 : 

"Football  popularity  increased  rather  than  decreased  last  season  and  re- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  597 

mained  at  the  head  of  the  list  iu  major  sports.  Absence  of  any  football  fatali- 
ties and  the  scarcity  of  serious  injuries  were  factors  in  maintaining  its  pres- 
tige. The  future  of  football  teams  for  this  season  appears  bright.  Washing- 
ton retains  most  of  its  championship  team,  as  does  the  University  of  Oregon, 
which  has  re-engaged  Glenn  H.  Warner,  of  Cornell  as  head  coach.  Oregon 
Agricultural  College  students  are  pinning  their  faith  upon  the  ability  of  Coach 
'Rosy'  Dolan,  an  Oregon  boy,  who  was  all-western  tackle  as  a  member  of  the 
Notre  Dame  eleven  to  whip  a  team  into  shape  from  new  material.  Reports 
from  other  northwest  schools  express  considerable  optimism  over  the  football 
out  look. 

"The  northwest  colleges  have  developed  many  athletic  stars,  among  them 
being  Forrest  Smithson,  world's  champion  120-yard  high  hurdler;  A.  C.  Gil- 
bert, former  holder  of  the  world's  pole  vaulting  record;  Dan  Kelly,  sprinter 
and  jumper;  Heston  Philbrook  and  Dimick,  football  players  of  national  repu- 
tation, and  the  present-day  athletic  stars,  Brailey  Gish,  Ira  Courtney,  Edmun- 
son  and  Martin,  members  of  the  recent  University  of  Washington  and  Univer- 
sity of  Idaho  track  teams.  Washington,  Idaho  and  Oregon  universities  have  been 
big  factors  in  upbuilding  track  and  outdoor  athletics  iu  the  Northwest  in  the 
last  few  years." 

The  scholarship  of  these  heroes  of  football  and  baseball  did  not  seem  to  be 
worth  mentioning.  A  criticism  of  another  kind  comes  from  the  Carnegie 
Foundation  for  the  advancement  of  teaching,  which  in  its  last  annual  report 
says: 

"  'Unnecessary'  educational  institutions  continue  to  'contribute  to  the  de- 
terioration of  educational  standards. ' 

"The  increase  in  the  number  of  size  of  post-graduate  schools — 50  per  cent 
in  the  last  decade  and  ten-fold  in  the  last  30  years — has  been  much  greater  than 
the  natural  need.  Poor  and  pretentious  graduate  schools,  conducted  with  the 
funds  of  undergraduate  colleges  and  attended  chiefly  by  subsidized  students, 
often  merely  impair  the  appreciation  of  good  undergraduate  teaching  and  ham- 
per real  research. 

"In  legal  education  there  is  an  improvement  in  instruction  and  an  increas- 
ing emphasis  on  better  standards  by  authoritative  bodies  like  the  American 
Bar  Association,  but  poor  schools  still  turn  out  three  times  as  many  lawyers  as 
the  country  needs,  and  one-half  of  our  states  have  no  adequate  educational 
requirements  for  admission  to  the  bar.  The  miscarriage  of  justice,  the  law's 
delay,  the  cost  of  litigation,  public  disregard  of  law,  and  disrespect  for  the 
judiciary,  all  proceed  in  no  small  degree  from  this  multiplication  of  ill-trained 
lawyers. ' ' 

WILLAMETTE    UNrVERSlTY 

Among  the  Universities  and  colleges,  in  points  of  age,  the  Willamette  Uni- 
versity stands  at  the  head.  It  is  controlled  and  managed  by  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  church,  and  goes  back  to  the  pioneer  Oregon  Institute  and  Jason  Lee 
for  its  charter  and  authority  to  lead  and  teach.  From  Lee's  Indian  mission 
school  down  to  the  present,  this  institution  traces  a  direct  and  unbroken  descent, 
giving  the  University  a  responsible  teaching  career  of  seventy-eight  years.    For 


598  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

many  years  it  was  the  only  school  offering  instruction  in  collegiate  studies; 
and  its  growth  has  been  steady,  continuous,  sturdy  and  influential  on  the  thought, 
development  and  uplifting  of  the  whole  mass  of  the  population  of  Old  Oregon 
embraced  in  the  states  of  Oregon,  Washington  and  Idaho.  For  these  reasons 
this  veteran  institution  of  learning  has  always  had  a  strong  hold  upon  the 
affections  and  substantial  support  of  the  people,  until  now,  when  it  can  rely 
on  the  largest  endowment  fund  contributed  to  any  college  in  the  state  by  the 
people  of  the  state.  This  university  has  never  received  one  dollar  from  the 
state,  or  any  public  tax  or  emolument;  and  is  now  after  all  these  years  of 
labor  able  to  offer  instruction  in  a  college  of  Liberal  Arts,  and  in  schools  of 
Theology,  Law,  Medicine,  Oratory,  and  Music,  with  a  corps  of  fifty-four  pro- 
fessors and  teachers.  The  activities  of  the  University  are  carried  on  in  seven 
buildings,  all  of  which  have  been  the  gifts  of  enthusiastic  Oregon  friends. 
Recently  a  cash  endowment  of  half  a  million  dollars  has  been  raised  by  friends 
of  the  institution  in  and  out  of  Oregon ;  with  an  additional  gift  of  a  lump  sum  of 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars  by  Mr.  P.  W.  Severson  of  Portland  which  is  to 
be  devoted  to  a  special  purpose.  The  first  president  of  Willamette  was  Rev. 
Francis  S.  Hoyt,  who  served  in  that  office  from  1850  to  1860,  and  who  only  died 
within  the  past  year  at  the  age  of  90  years.  The  present  head  of  the  institution 
is  the  Rev.  Fletcher  Homan. 

Among  thousands  of  former  students  and  over  a  thousand  graduates  from 
her  different  departments  are  numbered  preachers,  missionaries,  teachers,  pro- 
fessors, congressmen,  judges  of  county  courts,  of  superior  courts,  of  circuit  courts, 
of  supreme  courts,  of  United  States  district  courts,  editors,  authors,  explorers, 
municipal  officers,  physicians.  United  States  senators.  Governors,  United  States 
attorneys.  Consuls,  Secretaries  of  State,  United  States  Surveyors  General,  Presi- 
dent of  State  Senate,  Speaker  of  House  of  Representatives,  and  scores  of  promi- 
nent and  successful  citizens. 

Pacific  University.  Next  in  point  of  age  among  the  Collegiate  institutions 
of  Oregon  is  "Pacific  University."  This  institution  dates  back  to  1849  for  its  in- 
corporated authority  under  the  name  of  ' '  Tualatin  Academy ; ' '  which  was  by  the 
Legislature  of  1853  enlarged  to  ' '  Pacific  University. ' '  This  was  in  the  early  days 
called  a  Presbyterian  institution  because  of  the  connection  of  Rev.  Harvey  Clark 
with  it,  who  was  in  those  days  regarded  by  the  people  as  an  independent  Presby- 
terian missionary.  Clark's  theology  was  substantially  Presbyterian,  but  his  inde- 
pendence led  him  into  the  fold  of  Congregationalism ;  and  where  his  most  effective 
labors  were  displayed.  He  was  unquestionably  a  very  devout  and  thoroughly 
Christian  man,  unselfishly  seeking  to  help,  enlighten,  lift  up  and  benefit  the 
human  race  without  regard  to  color  or  social  distinctions. 

In  connection  with  Pacific  Universtiy  a  nice  historical  question  has  arisen 
as  to  which  of  two  persons  is  entitled  to  the  greater  honor  of  founding  that 
Institution — the  Rev.  Harvey  Clark,  or  Mrs.  Tabitha  Moffat  Brown.  The  facts 
attending  the  origin  of  this  school  are  as  follows:  Mrs.  Brown  was  the  widow 
of  Rev.  Clark  Brown,  an  Episcopalian  minister  of  Stonington,  Conn.,  who, 
dying  in  early  life,  left  his  widow  without  property  and  three  small  children 
to  support.  To  accomplish  this  task  she  resorted  to  teaching,  first  in  the  state 
of  Maryland,  and  then  afterwards  removing  to  Missouri  where  wages  would 
be  better.    In  the  year  1846,  after  rearing  her  family,  and  at  the  age  of  sixty-six. 


TABITHA    BROWN 
A   Pioneer   Heroine — A    Founder   of    Pacific   University 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  599 

in  order  to  be  with  her  sons  and  grandchildren  that  had  removed  to  Oregon, 
she  crossed  the  plains  with  an  ox  team,  coming  into  Oregon  by  the  Southeru 
route,  and  suffering  the  extremity  of  dangers  and  trials  on  the  trip.  The  ex- 
perience of  Mrs.  Brown  in  her  life  and  death  struggle  to  reach  Oregon  will  be 
good  for  the  pupils  of  Pacific  University  to  read  while  they  are  getting  an 
education  in  the  college  she  foiinded,  surrounded  by  every  comfort  and  con- 
venience.    The  following  statement  is  Mrs.  Brown 's  account  in  her  own  words : 

"In  1843  one  of  her  sons,  Orus  Brown,  made  the  trip  overland  to  Oregon, 
and  returning  to  Missouri  in  1845  induced  his  mother  to  start  for 
Oregon  in  1846.  And  with  her  son  and  daughter,  and  their  families,  they 
set  out  for  this  country,  taking  \vith  them  John  Brown,  an  aged  bi-other  of 
her  dead  husband.  Mrs.  Brown  was  now  sixty-six  years  of  age.  After  reach- 
ing the  head  waters  of  Snake  river  her  son,  Orus,  fearing  they  might  run  out 
of  provisions,  pushed  on  ahead  of  the  party  with  a  view  of  getting  help  and  re- 
turning to  meet  the  immigrants.  And  after  his  departure,  she  was  prevailed 
upon,  with  others  of  the  party,  to  follow  the  lead  of  an  unknown  guide  who  mis- 
led them  into  what  is  known  as  the  southern  Oregon  route.  And  here  they  fell 
victims  to  the  direst  terrors  of  travel  that  ever  beset  any  immigration  to  this 
".ountry. "  In  the  year  1854,  Mrs.  Brown  wrote  out  an  account  of  that  awful  trip, 
Prom  which  the  following  has  been  taken  : 

' '  Winter  had  set  in.  We  were  yet  a  long  distance  from  any  white  settlement. 
The  word  was  '  fly,  everyone  that  can,  from  starvation ;  except  those  who  are  com- 
pelled to  stay  by  the  cattle  to  recruit  them  for  further  travel.'  Mr.  Pringle 
insisted  on  my  going  ahead  with  Uncle  John  to  try  and  save  our  lives.  They  wei-e 
obliged  to  stay  back  a  few  days  to  recruit  the  cattle.  They  divided  the  last  bit  of 
bacon,  of  which  I  had  three  slices ;  I  had  also  a  cup  full  of  tea.  No  bread.  We 
saddled  our  horses  and  set  off,  not  knowing  that  we  should  ever  see  each  other 
again.  Captain  Brown  was  too  old  and  feeble  to  render  any  assistance  to  me.  I 
was  obliged  to  ride  ahead  as  a  pilot,  hoping  to  overtake  four  of  five  wagons  that 
left  camp  the  day  before.  Near  sunset  we  came  up  with  the  families  that  had 
left  that  morning.  They  had  nothing  to  eat,  and  their  cattle  had  given  out. 
We  all  camped  in  an  oak  grove  for  the  night,  and  in  the  morning  I  divided  my 
last  morsel  with  them  and  left  them  to  take  care  of  themselves.  I  hurried  Capt. 
Brown,  so  as  to  overtake  the  three  wagons  ahead.  We  passed  beautiful  moun- 
tains and  valleys,  saw  but  two  Indians  in  the  distance  during  the  day.  In  the 
afternoon,  Capt.  Brown  complained  of  sickness,  and  could  only  walk  his  horse 
at  a  distance  behind.  He  had  a  swimming  in  his  head,  and  a  pain  in  his  stomach. 
In  two  or  three  houre  he  became  delirious  and  fell  from  his  horse.  I  was  afraid 
to  jump  down  from  my  horse  to  assist  him,  as  it  was  one  that  a  woman  had 
never  ridden  before.  He  tried  to  rise  upon  his  feet  but  could  not.  I  rode  close 
to  him  and  set  the  end  of  his  cane,  which  I  had  in  my  hand,  hard  in  the  ground 
to  help  him  up.  I  then  urged  him  to  walk  a  little.  He  tottered  along  a  few 
yards  and  then  gave  out.  I  then  saw  a  little  sunken  spot  a  few  steps  ahead  and 
led  his  horse  to  it.  and  with  much  difficulty  got  him  raised  to  the  saddle.  I  then 
told  him  to  hold  fast  to  the  horse's  mane  and  I  would  lead  by  the  bridle.  Two 
miles  ahead  was  another  mountain  to  climb  over.  As  we  reached  the  foot  of  it 
he  was  able  to  take  the  bridle  in  his  own  hands  and  we  passed  over  safely  into  a 
large  valley,  a  wide,  solitai-y  place,  but  no  wagons  in  sight. 


600  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

"The  sun  was  now  setting,  the  wind  was  blowing,  and  the  rain  was  drifting 
upon  the  sides  of  the  distant  mountains.  Poor  me !  I  crossed  the  plains  to 
where  three  mountain  spurs  met.  Here  the  shades  of  night  were  gathering  fast, 
and  I  could  see  the  wagon  tracks  no  further.  Alighting  from  my  horse,  I  flung 
off  saddle  and  saddle-pack  and  tied  the  horse  fast  to  a  tree  with  a  lasso  rope. 
The  captain  asked  me  what  I  was  going  to  do.  My  answer  was,  'I  am  going  to 
camp  for  the  night.'  He  gave  a  groan  and  fell  to  the  ground.  I  gathered  my 
wagon  sheet,  which  I  had  put  under  my  saddle,  flung  it  over  a  projecting  limb 
of  a  tree,  and  made  me  a  fine  tent.  I  then  stripped  the  captain 's  horse,  and  tied 
him,  placed  saddle,  blankets,  and  bridles  under  the  tent,  then  helped  up  the  be- 
wildered old  gentleman  and  introduced  him  to  his  new  lodgings  upon  the  bare 
ground.  His  senses  were  gone.  Covering  him  as  well  as  I  could  with  blankets, 
I  seated  myself  upon  my  feet  behind  him,  expecting  he  would  be  a  corpse  before 
morning. 

THE  SITUATION 

"Pause  for  a  moment  and  consider  the  situation.  "Worse  than  alone,  in  a 
savage  wilderness,  without  food,  without  fire,  cold  and  shivering,  wolves  fighting 
and  howling  around  me.  Dark  clouds  hid  the  stars.  All  as  solitary  as  death. 
But  that  same  kind  Providence  that  I  had  always  known  was  watching  over  me 
still.  I  committed  all  to  Him  and  felt  no  fear.  As  soon  as  light  dawned  I  pulled 
down  my  tent,  saddled  my  horse,  found  the  captain  able  to  stand  on  his  feet.  Just 
at  this  moment  one  of  the  emigrants  whom  I  was  trying  to  overtake  came  up.  He 
was  in  search  of  venison.  Half  a  mile  ahead  were  the  wagons  I  hoped  to  over- 
take, and  we  were  soon  there  and  ate  plentifully  of  fresh  meat.  Within  eight 
feet  of  where  my  tent  had  been  set  fresh  tracks  of  two  Indians  were  to  be  seen, 
but  I  did  not  know  that  they  were  there.  They  killed  and  robbed  Mr.  Newton, 
only  a  short  distance  off,  but  would  not  kill  his  wife,  because  she  was  a  woman. 
They  killed  another  man  on  our  cut-off,  but  the  rest  of  the  emigrants  escaped 
with  their  lives.  We  traveled  on  for  a  few  days  and  came  to  the  foot  of  the  Cali- 
pooia  mountains.  Here  my  children  and  my  grand-children  came  up  with  us — a 
joyful  meeting.  They  had  been  near  starving.  Mr.  Priugle  tried  to  shoot  a  wolf, 
but  he  was  too  weak  and  trembling  to  hold  the  rifle  steady.  They  all  cried  be- 
cause they  had  nothing  to  eat ;  but  just  at  this  time  their  own  son  came  to  them 
with  a  supply,  and  all  cried  again.  Winter  had  now  set  in.  We  were  many  days 
crossing  the  Calipooia  mountains,  able  to  go  ahead  a  mile  or  two  each  day.  The 
road  had  to  be  cut  and  opened  for  us,  and  the  mountain  was  covered  with  snow. 
Provisions  gave  out  and  Mr.  Pringle  set  off  on  horseback  to  the  settlement  for 
relief,  not  knowing  how  long  he  would  be  away,  or  whether  he  would  ever  get 
through.  In  a  week  or  so  our  scanty  provisions  were  all  gone  and  we  were  again 
in  a  state  of  starvation.  Many  tears  were  shed  through  the  day,  by  all  save  one. 
She  had  passed  through  many  trials  sufficient  to  convince  her  that  tears  would 
avail  nothing  in  our  extremities.  Through  all  my  sufferings  in  crossing  the 
plains,  I  not  once  sought  relief  by  the  shedding  of  tears,  nor  thought  we  should 
not  live  to  reach  the  settlement.  The  same  faith  that  I  ever  had  in  the  blessings 
of  kind  Providence  strengthened  in  proportion  to  the  trials  I  had  to  endure.  As 
the  only  alternative,  or  last  resort,  for  the  present  time,  Mr.  Pringle 's  oldest  son. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  001 

Clark,  shot  down  one  of  his  father's  best  working  oxen  and  dressed  it.  It  had 
not  a  particle  of  fat  on  it,  but  we  had  something  to  eat — poor  bones  to  pick, 
without  bread  or  salt. 

BLESSED  RELIEF 

"Orus  Brown's  party  was  six  days  ahead  of  ours  in  starting;  he  had  gone 
down  the  old  emigrant  route  and  i-eached  the  settlement  in  September.  Soon 
after  he  heard  of  the  suffering  emigrants  at  the  south  and  set  off  in  haste  with 
four  pack  horses  and  provisions  for  our  relief.  He  met  Mr.  Pringle  and  turned 
about.  In  a  few  days  they  were  at  our  camp.  We  had  all  retired  to  rest  in  our 
tents  hoping  to  forget  our  misery  until  daylight  should  remind  us  again  of  our 
sad  fate.  In  the  stillness  of  the  night  the  footsteps  of  horses  were  heard  rush- 
ing toward  our  tents.  Directly  a  halloo.  It  was  the  well-known  voices  of  Orus 
Brown  and  Virgil  Pringle.  You  can  realize  the  joy.  Orus,  by  his  persuasive  in- 
sistence, encouraged  us  to  more  effort  to  reach  the  settlements.  Five  miles  from 
where  we  had  encamped  we  fell  into  the  company  of  half-bred  French  and  In- 
dians with  pack-horses.  We  hired  six  of  them  and  pushed  ahead  again.  Our  pro- 
visions were  becoming  short  and  we  were  once  more  on  an  allowance  until  reach- 
ing the  first  settlers.  There  our  hardest  struggles  were  ended.  On  Christmas 
day,  at  2  P.  M.,  I  entered  the  house  of  a  Methodist  minister,  the  first  house  I  had 
set  my  foot  in  for  nine  months.  For  two  or  three  weeks  of  my  journey  down 
the  Willamette  I  had  felt  something  in  the  end  of  my  glove  finger  which  I  sup- 
posed to  be  a  button ;  on  examination  at  my  new  home  in  Salem,  I  found  it  to  be 
a  6-1/4  cent  piece.  This  was  the  whole  of  my  cash  capital  to  commence  business 
with  in  Oregon.  With  it  I  purchased  three  needles.  I  traded  off  some  of  my  old 
clothes  to  the  squaws  for  buckskin,  worked  them  into  gloves  for  the  Oregon 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  which  cleared  me  upwards  of  $30.00. 

THE  BEGINNING  OP  PACIFIC  UNIVERSITY 

"Later,  I  accepted  the  invitation  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Harvey  Clark,  of  Tualatin 
plains,  to  spend  the  winter  with  them.  I  said  to  Mr.  Clark  one  day,  'Why  has 
Providence  frowned  on  me  and  left  me  poor  in  this  world?  Had  he  blessed  me 
with  riches,  as  he  has  man.y  others,  I  know  right  what  I  would  do.'  'What 
would  you  do ? '  'I  would  establish  myself  in  a  comfortable  house  and  receive  all 
the  poor  children,  and  be  a  mother  to  them.'  He  fixed  his  keen  eyes  on  me  to 
see  if  I  was  in  earnest.  '  Yes,  I  am, '  said  I.  '  If  so,  I  will  try, '  said  he,  '  to  help 
you.'  He  purposed  to  take  an  agency  and  get  assistance  to  establish  a  school  in 
the  plains.  I  should  go  into  the  log  meeting-house  and  receive  all  the  children, 
rich  and  poor,  whose  parents  who  were  able  to  pay  $1  a  week,  for  board,  tuition, 
washing  and  all.  I  agreed  to  labor  for  one  year  for  nothing,  while  Mr.  Clark  and 
others  were  to  assist  as  far  as  they  were  able  in  furnishing  provisions.  The 
time  fixed  upon  to  begin  was  March,  1848,  when  I  found  everything  prepared  for 
me  to  go  into  the  old  meeting-house  and  cluck  up  my  chickens.  The  neighbors 
had  collected  what  broken  knives  and  forks,  tin  pans,  and  dishes  they  could  part 
with,  for  the  Oregon  pioneer  to  commence  housekeeping  with.  I  had  a  well- 
educated  lady  from  the  east,  a  missionary's  wife,  for  a  teacher,  and  my  family 


602  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

increased  rapidly.  In  the  summer  they  put  me  up  a  boarding-house.  I  now  had 
thirty  boarders  of  both  sexes,  and  of  all  ages,  from  four  years  old  to  twenty-one. 
I  managed  them  and  did  all  my  work  except  washing.  That  was  done  by  the 
scholars.  In  the  spring  of  '49  we  called  for  trustees.  Had  eight  appointed. 
They  voted  me  the  whole  charge  of  the  boarding-house  free  of  rent  and  I  was  to 
provide  for  myself.  The  price  of  board  was  established  at  $2  per  week.  What- 
ever I  made  over  my  expenses  was  my  own.  In  '51  I  had  forty  in  my  family  at 
$2.50  per  week;  mixed  with  my  own  hands,  3,423  pounds  of  flour  in  less  than 
five  months.  Mr.  Clark  made  over  to  the  trustees  a  quarter  section  of  land  for 
a  town  plot.  A  large  and  handsome  building  is  on  the  site  we  selected  at  the 
first  starting.  It  has  been  under  town  incorporation  for  two  years,  and  at  the 
last  session  of  the  legislature  a  charter  was  granted  for  a  University  to  be  called 
Pacific  University,  with  a  limitation  of  $50,000.00.  The  president  and  professor 
are  already  here  from  Vermont.  The  teacher  and  his  lady  for  the  academy  are 
from  New  York.  I  have  endeavored  to  give  general  outlines  of  what  I  have 
done.  You  must  be  judges  whether  I  have  been  doing  good  or  evil.  I  have 
labored  for  myself  and  the  rising  generation,  but  I  have  not  quit  hard  work,  and 
live  at  my  ease,  independent  as  to  worldly  concerns.  I  own  a  nicely  furnished 
white  frame  house  on  a  lot  in  town,  within  a  short  distance  of  the  public  build- 
ings. That  I  rent  for  $100  per  year.  -I  have  eight  other  town  lots,  without 
buildings,  worth  $150  each.  I  have  eight  cows  and  a  number  of  young  cattle. 
The  cows  I  rent  out  for  their  milk  and  one-half  of  their  increase.  I  have  rising 
$1,000  cash  due  me ;  $400  of  it  I  have  donated  to  the  University ;  besides  $100  1 
gave  to  the  academy  three  years  ago.  This  much  I  have  been  able  to  accumulate 
by  my  own  industry,  independent  of  my  children,  since  I  drew  6-1/4  cents  from 
the  finger  of  my  glove." 

On  this  statement  the  partisans  of  Mrs.  Brown  found  her  claim  to  the  honor 
of  starting  a  college.  Give  Mr.  Clark  all  the  credit  he  is  entitled  to ;  and  still  the 
story  goes  back  to  the  proposition  of  the  devoted  Christian  woman  to  take  the 
orphan  children  and  be  a  mother  to  them,  feed,  educate  and  care  for  them  if  any- 
body would  help  her.  She  was  fortunate  in  making  the  proposition  to  the  right 
man;  a  man  who  never  counted  dollars,  self-interest  or  personal  convenience 
against  any  proposition  to  do  good  to  his  fellow  man. 

Other  facts  throw  light  on  this  question.  The  idea  of  starting  this  school 
was  proposed  by  Mrs.  Brown  in  1847.  Prior  to  that  time  Mr.  Clark  had  in  1842, 
co-operated  with  the  JMethodists  in  selecting  the  site  for  the  Oregon  Institute  at 
Salem;  taught  children  of  settlers  on  Tualatin  Plains  in  1842;  had  acted  as 
chaplain  to  the  provisional  legislature  in  1843 ;  taught  in  the  Clackamas  Semi- 
nary at  Oregon  City  (Methodist)  in  1851,  leaving  Mrs.  Brown  to  hold  the  Forest 
Grove  post,  Mrs.  Clark  assisting  as  teacher.  A  life  like  picture  of  Mrs.  Brown 
is  given  on  another  page.  Just  as  Jason  Lee's  Indian  school  was  the  germ  of 
Willamette  University,  in  like  degree  was  Mrs.  Brown's  orphan  school  the  germ 
of  Pacific  University. 

Rev.  Gushing  Eells  was  the  first  principal  of  Tualatin  Academy,  assisted  by 
Mrs.  Eells.  After  that  he  had  for  an  assistant  Miss  Elizabeth  Millar,  sent  to 
Oregon  by  the  National  Board  of  Popular  Education,  Governor  William  Slade, 
of  Vermont,  president,  through  the  efforts  of  Rev.  Geo.  H.  Atkinson.  Miss 
Millar  married  Joseph  G.  Wilson  of  Salem,  who  became  the  first  circuit  and 
supreme  judge  in  eastern  Oregon,  and  afterwards  a  member  of  Congress,  dying 


SIMEON   G.   REED 
Founder  of  Reed  Institute 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  603 

in  that  office.  Mrs.  Wilson  is  still  alive  and  a  iiKMubcr  ot:  the  advisory  board  for 
this  history.  Mr.  Clark  gave  nearly  all  of  his  donation  land  claim  to  aid  the 
academy  and  college.  Rev.  George  H.  Atkinson,  the  first  Congregational  home 
missionary  to  Oregon,  took  an  active  interest  in  the  school,  and  tixed  its  char- 
acter permanently  as  a  Congregational  institution.  In  1853  Dr.  Atkinson  secured 
the  services  of  Rev.  Sidney  Harper  ilarsh  to  take  charge  of  the  school.  Prof. 
Marsh  was  well  adapted  to  the  work;  entered  upon  this  duty  with  great  energy 
and  perseveringly  pushed  the  work  of  the  college  for  twenty-six  years.  What- 
ever Pacific  University  is  in  the  world  of  science  and  litei'ature  is  owing  to  the 
life  work  of  Sidney  Harper  Marsh.  The  fii'st  graduate  of  this  college,  18G3,  was 
Harvey  W.  Scott,  who  was  for  half  a  century  the  editor-in-chief  of  the  Daily 
and  Weekly  Oregonian,  and  by  many  persons  considered  the  ablest  editorial 
writer  in  the  United  States.  The  college  has  twenty-seven  professors  and  teachers, 
affording  every  facility  for  instruction  in  the  liberal  arts,  sciences  and  practical 
and  professional  teaching.  William  Nelson  Perrin  is  president  of  the  faculty, 
1912. 

McMiNNViLLE  College.  To  the  Rev.  Ezra  Fisher  is  due  the  honor  of  sug- 
gesting the  first  Baptist  educational  work  in  Oregon.  His  work  was  the  organi- 
zation on  paper  of  the  Oregon  City  College  at  Oregon  City  in  1849.  Mr.  Fish- 
er's college  was  eclipsed  by  the  gold  mining  rush  to  California  in  that  year; 
and  the  good  man  was  afterwards  engaged  in  keeping  a  respectable  hotel  at 
Salem  in  1864.  The  first  Baptist  school  incorporated  in  Oregon  after  Fisher's 
effort  was  the  "Corvallis  Institute"  incorporated  in  1856.  It  also  ended  with 
the  Act  of  Incorporation.  In  1857  the  Legislature  chartered  the  "West  Union 
Institute"  in  Washington  County,  with  David  Lenox,  E.  11.  Lenox,  Henry 
Sewell,  Wm.  IMauzey,  John  S.  White  and  George  Chandler  as  Trustees.  This 
school  would  have  been  located  about  fifteen  miles  from  the  city  of  Portland. 
At  the  same  session  of  the  Legislature  a  charter  was  granted  to  the  Baptist 
college  at  McMinnville,  a  school  already  founded  by  the  Christian  (Campbell- 
ites)  and  turned  over  to  the  Baptists  with  all  its  property  and  franchises,  six 
acres  of  ground  and  a  school  building,  as  a  free  gift,  upon  the  condition  that 
the  Baptists  should  maintain  in  operation  a  collegiate  school.  Here  is  found 
the  origin  of  McMinnville  and  its  college.  In  1852-3  W.  T.  Newby,  whose  like- 
ness appears  on  another  page,  cut  a  water  ditch  from  Baker  creek  (a  branch 
of  Yamhill  river)  to  Cozine  creek,  upon  his  own  land,  and  erected  a  flouring 
mill.  In  1854,  Sebastian  C.  Adams,  whose  farm  was  four  miles  north,  took  a 
grist  of  wheat  to  Newby 's  mill,  and  in  the  course  of  conversation  remarked  to 
Newby  the  favorable  location  his  place  afforded  for  a  towusite.  Whereupon 
Newby  replied  that  if  Mr.  Adams  would  start  the  town  he  (Newby)  would  give 
him  a  block  of  lots  and  select  his  own  location,  from  which  point  the  survey  should 
start.  Adams  accepted  the  proposition  and  in  the  spring  of  1855  hauled  lumber 
to  the  ground  for  a  house  to  be  erected  200  yards  from  the  Newby  mill,  and 
when  completed  Adams  made  the  house  his  home.  Immediately  afterwards 
Adams,  who  was  a  teacher,  begun  to  agitate  the  starting  of  a  select  school  as  a 
nucleus  for  a  settlement ;  and  as  he  and  most  of  the  settlers  in  that  vicinity  were 
members  of  the  Christian  church,  the  school  became  a  Christian  or  Campbellite 
institution.  Dr.  James  McBride,  Adams  and  Newby  worked  up  the  scheme, 
and  Newby  gave  six  acres  of  land  for  a  home  for  the  school ;  laid  out  the  town 
and  named  it  IMc^Iinnville  after  his  native  tovm  in  Tennessee,  and  Adams  be- 


604  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

came  the  first  teacher  in  the  school  that  developed  into  McMinnville  College. 
John  R.  McBride,  afterwards  member  of  congress  and  chief  justice  of  Idaho, 
George  L.  Woods,  governor  of  Oregon,  and  L.  L.  Rowland,  superintendent  of 
the  state  insane  asylum,  were  pupils  at  that  first  McMinnville  school.  But  pay- 
ing pupils  were  scarce  in  those  days  and  Adams  had  much  difficulty  in  keeping 
the  school  going.  The  Baptists  were  likely  to  take  away  some  patronage  for 
their  proposed  school  at  West  Union ;  and  as  the  main  purpose  was  to  establish 
a  high  school  at  that  point  Adams  proposed  to  his  associates  to  turn  the  enter- 
prise over  to  the  Baptists  and  thus  prevent  them  from  starting  their  school 
down  in  AVashington  county.  This  was  agreed  to  and  the  school  building  and 
six  acres  of  land  was  turned  over  to  Henry  Warren,  James  jM.  Fulkerson, 
Ephraim  Ford,  Reuben  C.  Hill,  J.  S.  Holman,  Alexis  N.  Miller,  Richard  Miller 
and  Willis  Gaines,  who  were,  in  January,  1858,  incorporated  as  a  Board  of 
Trustees  of  McMinnville  College.  The  Washington  county  (West  Union)  school 
was  dropped,  and  McMinnville  College  was  launched  with  Rev.  George  C. 
Chandler  as  principal,  and  Mrs.  N.  Morse  assistant  in  charge  of  the  preparatory 
department.  To  this  foundation  additional  land  was  donated  by  Samuel  and 
Mahala  Cozine;  and  jMcMinnville  College  has  kept  its  doors  wide  open  to  all 
students  ever  since  that  day.  It  now  has  a  corps  of  twenty-one  professors  and 
teachers,  is  housed  in  a  new  and  substantial  college  building  with  ample  facili- 
ties to  give  all  needed  collegiate  instruction  in  the  Liberal  Arts,  Literature  and 
the  Natural  Sciences.  The  college  has  never  received  a  dollar  of  public  money ; 
but  has  secured  a  substantial  endowment  from  friends  and  occupies  a  safe  and 
sane  financial  position.  Leonard  W.  Riley,  D.  D.,  is  the  present  president  of  the 
institution. 

St.  Mary's  Academy  and  College.  This  institution  of  learning  was  founded 
in  Portland  in  1859  by  twelve  Catholic  sisters  known  as  the  twelve  foundresses, 
an  engraving  of  their  faces  appearing  an  another  page.  They  were  brought  to 
Oregon  from  Canada  through  the  agency  of  the  first  Catholic  Bishop  of  Oregon 
— -Francis  Norbert  Blanchet.  This  college,  which  is  a  college  for  women,  was 
incorporated  as  an  academy  in  1866,  and  as  a  college  in  1893.  It  has  a  large 
corps  of  teachers,  and  furnishes  instruction  in  all  studies  in  English,  and  in 
the  Latin,  French,  German  and  Spanish  languages  and  in  music,  drawing  and 
painting,  as  well  as  in  all  the  sciences  including  domestic  science.  Its  buildings 
and  grounds  will  accommodate  500  pupils;  has  no  public  funds  or  endowanent 
and  is  supported  wholly  and  liberally  by  the  tuition  fees  of  its  patrons. 

St.  Mary's  Academy  and  College,  under  the  direction  of  the  Sisters  of  the 
Holy  Names  of  Jesus  and  Mary,  is  pre-eminently  a  Catholic  school.  Its  aim 
is  to  educate  young  women  by  the  growth,  development,  and  discipline  of  their 
physical,  mental,  and  moral  powers.  That  woman  may  attain  to  the  ideal  of 
her  highest  self,  that  she  maj^  be  prepared  for  the  larger  life  stretching  beyond 
the  realms  of  her  school  life — knowledge  and  religion  must  go  hand  in  hand 
in  the  formation  of  her  character. 

St.  Mary's  claims  the  distinction  of  being  the  first  permanent  Catholic  insti- 
tution of  higher  learning  in  the  Pacific  northwest.  Prom  the  humble  little  school 
in  the  pioneer  Portland  of  1859,  it  has  become  an  educational  force  in  the 
greater  Portland  of  today  with  an  influence  that  is  far-reaching. 

The   Catholics  have  three  other  colleges  in  Oregon  besides  this  woman's 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  605 

college,  viz:  Columbia  University,  Mt.  Angel  College,  and  the  College  of  the 
Christian  Brothers;  but  of  which  the  managers  of  such  institutions  were  not 
disposed  to  give  this  history  any  account  of.  And  in  this  same  position  was 
found  the  Young  Ladies'  Seminary  named  St.  Helen's  Hall,  and  conducted  by  the 
Sisters  of  the  Episcopal  church. 

Philomath  College.  Next  in  order  of  time  conies  the  college  of  the  United 
Brethren  located  at  the  town  of  Philomath  in  Benton  county.  Prom  the  annual 
catalogue  is  copied  an  authorized  statement. 

Educational  work  in  Oregon  under  the  auspices  of  this  church,  began  in 
1865,  when  Philomath  college  was  founded.  From  the  first  it  has  been  a  school 
of  the  distinctly  Christian  type.  The  aim  in  its  founding  and  maintenance 
has  been  to  make  it  a  character  factory  as  well  as  an  institution  of  learning. 
Wliile  the  ideals  of  its  founders,  real  pathfinders  of  education  and  progress 
on  the  Pacific  Coast,  may  not  have  been  fully  realized,  yet  the  institution  has 
achieved  much,  and  hundreds  of  young  people  have  in  it  received  their  training 
and  equipment  for  useful  and  honorable  living.  The  history  of  these  years, 
though  marked  by  great  struggles  and  sacrifices,  furnishes  a  record  of  which 
its  friends  and  patrons  may  be  justly  proud. 

The  first  board  of  trustees  of  Philomath  College  was  elected  by  the  Oregon 
Conference  of  the  Church  of  the  United  Brethren  in  Christ,  September  16th, 
1865.  Limited  resources  and  burdensome  debts  greatly  hindered  the  progress 
of  the  college  for  many  years.  A  new  era  in  its  history,  however,  was  reached 
in  1901,  when  its  debts  were  fully  liquidated,  and  in  June  of  the  same  year 
the  articles  of  incorporation  were  so  amended  as  forever  to  prohibit  the  man- 
agers of  the  institution  from  contracting  any  debts  against  the  incorporation, 
or  mortgaging  the  property  of  the  college.  Thus  the  funds  and  interests  of  the 
institution  are  wisely  and  permanently  safeguarded. 

The  school  is  supported  from  its  annual  income,  which  consists  of  the  interest 
on  permanent  and  temporary  endowment,  gifts,  and  the  tuition  of  students. 
Tliough  this  is  by  no  means  adequate  to  meet  the  growing  needs  of  the  insti- 
tution, it  is,  nevertheless,  most  gratifying  to  record  that  through  careful  and 
economical  management  and  the  self-sacrificing  devotion  of  its  faculty  and 
friends,  it  is  able  to  carry  on  a  high  standard  of  educational  work. 

The  control  of  the  college  is  vested  in  the  board  of  trustees,  composed  of 
fifteen  members,  whose  term  of  service  is  three  years.  The  board  determines 
the  general  policy  of  the  school,  confers  degrees,  elects  the  faculty  and  other 
administrative  officers,  and  is,  therefore,  responsible  for  the  character  and 
work  of  the  school. 

During  the  early  years  of  the  institution  it  received  ])artial  support  from 
public  school  funds,  as  it  maintained  elementary  instruction  in  all  the  grades. 
That  has  long  been  discontinued,  however,  and  since  strong  courses  in  secondary 
and  higher  education  have  been  furnished.  The  college  now  has  a  faculty 
and  equipment  of  sufficient  capacity  to  make  it  a  strong,  ediicational  factor 
in  the  wise  and  practical  training  of  young  people  for  lives  of  highest  worth 
and  usefulness.  It  enjoys  an  excellent  reputation  for  the  work  it  does  and  the 
influence  it  exerts  in  developing  a  dependable  manhood  and  womanhood.  The 
friends  of  higher  Chi-istian  education,  therefore,  will  find  Philomath  College 


606  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

an  institution  where  investments  insuring  incomparable  returns  in  educated 
minds  and  hearts  may  be  made. 

The  college  has  a  faculty  of  eleven  professors  and  teachers,  giving  instruction 
in  all  standard  college  branches  of  studies ;  and  making  a  specialty  of  careful 
and  thorough  religious  instruction.  The  college  work  is  divided  into  the  fol- 
lowing departments:  The  Academy.  The  College  of  Liberal  Arts.  The  School 
of  Pedagogy.  The  Summer  School.  The  College  of  Music.  The  Business 
College.  The  School  of  Oratory.  The  School  of  Art.  The  School  of  Physical 
Culture.  The  College  of  Liberal  Arts  maintains  standard  courses  requiring 
four  years  for  their  completion,  and  leading  to  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Phil- 
osophy, Bachelor  of  Arts,  and  Bachelor  of  Science.  Marion  R.  Drury,  D.  D., 
is  the  president. 

Albany  College.  The  next  Oregon  college  in  order  of  time  is  the  Albany 
college  already  referred  in  connection  with  the  founding  of  the  Presbyterian 
church. 

Albany  college  was  founded  through  the  efforts  of  early  Presbyterian  mis- 
sionaries in  the  Willamette  valley.  Rev.  Edward  R.  Geary,  D.  D.,  came  to  this 
coast  with  a  commission  from  the  Board  of  Domestic  Missions  to  found  and 
maintain  churches,  and  with  another  commission  from  the  Board  of  Education 
to  establish  an  academy  or  college  wherever  he  should  feel  justified  by  the  con- 
ditions in  doing  so.  An  effort  was  made  to  start  a  college  in  1855,  but  it  was 
unsuccessful.  Several  years  later  attempts  were  made,  and  in  1865  one  or 
more  mass  meetings  were  held  in  the  court-house  in  Albany,  to  plan  for  starting 
a  college.  Messrs.  Walter  and  Thomas  Monteith  donated  seven  acres  of  land 
and  a  subscription  of  $8,000  was  raised  for  a  building.  The  building  was  begun 
in  1866;  the  college  was  chartered  by  the  legislature  of  Oregon  in  1867,  and 
formally  opened  in  the  new  building  in  the  fall  of  that  year  with  Rev.  Walter 
J.  Monteith,  brother  of  the  donors  of  the  land,  as  the  first  president.  The  col- 
lege building  was  much  enlarged  in  1892.  There  have  been  fourteen  presidents. 
Rev.  Wallace  H.  Lee,  A.  M.,  held  this  office  from  1895  until  1905,  since  which 
time  the  president  has  been  Harry  Means  Crooks.  For  many  years  the  college 
was  under  the  control  of  the  Willamette  Presbytery.  It  is  now  under  the 
control  of  the  Synod  of  Oregon. 

During  the  past  year  a  movement  has  been  under  way  that  is  now  approach- 
ing completion  to  secure  $250,000  of  endowment.  The  trustees  have  recently 
purchased  a  new  campus  of  forty-six  acres  in  the  edge  of  Albany.  Plans  for  a 
group  of  college  buildings,  dormitories,  gymnasium,  etc.,  have  been  drawn  by 
the  Architects,  and  it  is  expected  that  the  college  will  move  to  the  new  campus, 
ocupying  at  least  three  new  buildings,  by  September  of  1913.  This  college  has 
a  corps  of  fifteen  professors  and  teachers  furnishing  instruction  in  all  the  stand- 
ard college  studies,  specializing  on  Economics,  Sociology,  Political  Science,  Con- 
stitutional History  of  England,  France,  Germany  and  the  United  States.  The 
responsible  head  of  the  institution  is  Harry  Means  Crooks,  president,  and  a 
graduate  of  the  University  of  Wooster. 

The  Oregon  Agricultural  College.  The  0.  A.  C.  is  really  older  than  the 
date  of  its  incorporation.  Its  history  goes  back  to  the  year  1868,  when  the 
legislature  of  the  state  of  Oregon  selected  Corvallis  as  the  most  promising  place 
in  the  great  Willamette  valley  for  the  seat  of  a  school  of  agriculture:  and 


Nu.   1— Fraiir,.^  Fuller  \- 
No.  2— Will.   II.  Cniy. 
No.  4 — J.  Hciirv   lirijun. 


Xu.  3— Genr-e  II.  Iliiiies. 
Xo.  .5 — Horace  Lyman. 
X'o.  6 — Haivev  K.  Hiiies. 


HISTORIANS  OF  OREGON 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  607 

asked  the  trustees  of  Corvallis  college,  entering  into  contract  with  them,  to  in- 
corporate into  the  curriculum  of  their  institution,  the  distinctive  features  of  such 
a  school.  Corvallis  college  was  then  under  the  control  of  the  Methodist  Episco- 
pal Church,  South.  While  the  Corvallis  Methodists  were  as  good  as  any,  the 
terrible  ordeal  of  the  Civil  war  had  cast  a  shade  of  suspicion  over  everything, 
and  almost  everybody  hailing  from  the  southern  confederacy.  For  that  reason 
the  college  under  the  southern  Methodists  was  literally  dying  out  by  inches. 
But  its  managers  did  not  lack  ability,  shrewdness  or  courage. 

Congress  in  1862  set  aside  90,000  acres  of  land  in  Oregon,  the  proceeds  of  the 
sale  of  which  were  to  constitute  a  perpetual  fund  for  the  support  of  an  agricul- 
tural college.  And  to  this  bonus  the  managers  of  the  Corvallis  college  promptly 
laid  siege,  and  by  deft  management  of  the  legislature  of  1868  induced  that 
august  body  to  come  to  Corvallis  as  an  humble  suitor  and  ask  the  Southern 
Methodist  church  to  kindly  enlarge  its  list  of  studies  and  take  in  agriculture 
along  with  the  proceeds  of  the  land  grant.  This  was  done,  but  it  never  gave 
satisfaction  to  the  public,  and  much  less  to  the  patriotic  members  of  other 
churches.  So  that  by  the  year  1885,  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South, 
voluntarily  relinquished  its  claim  on  the  funds  of  the  college ;  and  the  state, 
through  a  board  of  regents,  assumed  full  control  of  the  institution.  The  legis- 
lature then  permanently  located  the  agricultural  college  at  Corvallis,  Benton 
county,  on  condition  that  the  citizens  of  said  county  "within  four  years,  erect 
on  the  farm  containing  35  acres,  immediately  west  of  the  city  limits,  known  as 
the  agricultural  college  farm,  a  brick  building  for  the  accommodation  of  said 
agricultural  college  at  a  cost  of  not  less  than  $20,000."  This  the  citizens  agreed 
to  do;  and  on  August  17,  1887,  the  governor  of  Oregon  was  invited  to  lay  the 
corner-stone.  Removal  from  the  old  college  buildings  was  effected  in  October 
of  1888,  and  this  date  really  marks  the  beginning  of  a  new  era  for  the  institu- 
tion, an  era  of  growth  and  prosperity. 

President  B.  L.  Arnold,  who  had  efficiently  directed  the  affairs  of  the  insti- 
tution since  1872,  following  President  Finley,  was  called  by  death  into  an  early 
grave  in  1892.  He  was  succeeded  by  President  John  M.  Bloss,  former  state 
superintendent  of  public  instruction  of  Indiana,  who  was  president  for  four 
years,  or  until  1896,  when  he  resigned.  The  next  incumbent  was  President 
H.  B.  Miller,  a  practical  horticulturist  and  man  of  affairs,  who  introduced  new 
ideas  and  efifected  salutary  reforms.  He  resigned  in  1897,  and  was  succeeded 
by  President  T.  M.  Gatch,  for  ten  years  previous  president  of  the  University 
of  Washington.  President  Gatch  proved  to  be  an  educator,  tried  and  thorough, 
who  believed,  preached,  and  practiced  that  nothing  so  much  helps  and  advances 
a  student  as  sustained  efforts  and  strict  attention  to  his  studies.  When  Presi- 
dent Gatch  resigned  in  1907,  the  attendance  had  passed  the  800  mark. 

With  the  advent  of  President  W.  J.  Kerr,  the  present  incumbent,  who  came 
in  1907  from  the  presidency  of  the  agricultural  college  at  Logan,  Utah,  the 
scope  of  the  work  has  been  greatly  enlarged.  Prom  the  class-room  and  labora- 
tory, the  distinctive  work  of  the  institution  is  now  carried'  all  over  the  state. 
Into  every  county,  town  and  hamlet,  the  specialist  and  research  worker  takes 
his  message  of  helpfulness,  proffering  assistance  to  the  stock-raiser,  wool-grower, 
horticulturist,  miner  and  business  man.  During  his  inactive  season  the  farmer 
is  invited  to  attend  a  winter  course  at  the  institution.    Every  school,  every  de- 


608  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

partment,  every  individual  factor,  connected  with  the  institution  is  placed  at 
the  disposal  of  the  citizenry  of  Oregon.  In  co-operation  with  the  great  trans- 
portation companies,  demonstrating  trains  are  sent  out  to  the  very  ends  of  the 
great  iron  highways  to  give  popular  demonstration  to  the  ambitious  husbandmen 
of  "how  to  do  things"  in  the  most  approved  way. 

While  the  farmer  benefits  in  a  material  and  substantial  way  in  his  particular 
sphere,  the  farmer's  wife  and  daughter  are  by  no  means  neglected.  In  the 
department  of  domestic  science  and  art  at  the  college  the  daughter  learns  to 
cook,  to  sew,  to  make  and  fit  her  own  dresses,  to  launder,  to  take  care  of  the 
sick,  to  plan  houses,  and  to  practice  hygienic  living;  she  also  studies  etiquette. 
This  information  she  takes  home  with  her  to  the  farm,  and  proceeds  to  put 
into  practice  to  the  benefit  of  the  family,  thus  helping  to  render  social  conditions 
on  the  farm  as  ideal  as  they  are  in  the  most  cultured  families  in  the  city. 

All  these  advantages  are  appreciated,  for  the  attendance  in  the  five  years  of 
Dr.  Kerr's  administration  has  grown  beyond  2,000.  With  this  increase  the 
number  of  buildings  has,  of  course,  multiplied  also,  until  today,  the  whole  plant 
in  size  represents  a  miniature  city. 

This,  then,  is  the  part  the  Oregon  Agricultural  College  has  been,  and  is 
now,  taking  as  a  sociological  factor  in  the  growth  and  development  of  the  state, 
and  partly  also  of  the  nation,  for  many  of  the  graduates  reside  outside  the 
boundaries  of  Oregon.  The  college,  though  established  primarily  as  an  agent 
for  the  improvement  of  conditions  among  the  industrial  classes  of  the  state, 
is,  through  its  extension  course,  open  to  every  one,  regardless  of  position  or  occu- 
pation ;  for  since  it  is  at  least  partly  maintained  by  state  taxation,  its  ultimate 
purpose  naturally  is,  service  to  all. 

The  enrollment  of  pupils  for  the  current  year  is  about  2900.  The  History  is 
indebted  for  this  information  to  Mr.  H.  M.  Tennant,  the  registrar  of  the  college, 
and  should  like  to  have  had  more.  As  for  example,  the  income  and  the  expenses 
of  the  institution ;  the  number  of  professors  and  teachers,  and  what  they  teach. 

The  University  of  Oregon.  In  the  month  of  July,  1872,  five  citizens  of 
Eugene  met  in  the  old  school-house  in  Eugene  to  consult  upon  plans  to  secure  the 
location  of  the  state  university  at  that  town.  Prior  to  that  time,  and  especially 
during  the  period  when  the  state  capital  was  on  wheels  or  up  in  the  air,  the 
university  had  been  a  mere  pawn  upon  the  political  chessboard  of  the  state, 
offered  and  shifted  around  from  town  to  town  to  influence  votes  in  favor  of 
the  greater  interest  involved  in  the  location  of  the  capital.  The  five  men  com- 
posing that  little  meeting,  and  entitled  to  honorable  mention  here,  were  Judge 
J.  J.  Walton,  B.  P.  Dorris,  John  M.  Thompson,  John  C.  Arnold  and  S.  H. 
Spencer;  and  a  search  through  the  annual  catalogue  of  the  university  for  the 
year  1911-12,  containing  300  pages  and  an  introductory  sketch  of  the  institution, 
makes  no  mention  of  these  worthy  pioneers  of  higher  education. 

The  first  thought  at  this  pioneer  meeting  was  that  of  a  high  school;  but  on 
the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Thompson,  it  was  finally  agreed  that  an  effort  should  be 
made  to  secure  the  location  of  the  state  university  at  Eugene.  Subsequently,  and 
in  pursuance  of  this  primary  meeting,  in  August,  1872,  the  Union  University 
Association  was  incorporated  for  the  purpose  of  securing  the  location  of  the 
university.  The  incorporators  of  this  association  were  J  .M.  Thompson,  J.  J. 
Walton,  W.  J.  Scott,  B.  P.  Dorris,  J.  B.  Underwood,  J.  J.  Comstock,  A.  S. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  G09 

I'attei-son,  S.  H.  Spencer,  E.  L.  Bristow,  E.  L.  Applegate  and  A.  W.  Patterson; 
and  the  capital  stock  was  fixed  at  $50,000.  J.  J.  Walton  was  made  secretary  of 
tliese  incorporators.  And  in  consequence  of  this  selection,  and  the  duties  laid 
upon  the  shoulders  of  Walton  he  prepared  a  bill  to  be  presented  to  the  ensuing 
legislative  assembly  in  September,  offering  grounds  and  buildings  for  the  uni- 
versity to  be  located  at  Eugene.  The  legislature  took  Walton's  bill  and  amended 
it  so  as  to  require  the  university  association  to  provide  a  suitable  building  site 
for  the  university  buildings,  and  erect  thereon  a  building  which  with  its  furni- 
ture and  the  grounds  should  be  worth  not  less  than  $50,000  cash,  and  the  prop- 
erty to  be  conveyed  by  deed  to  the  board  of  directors  of  the  state  university  free 
of  all  incumbrances.  After  a  prolonged  and  strenuous  effort  these  conditions 
required  by  the  legislature  were  complied  with.  The  law  provided  that  the  first 
board  of  trustees  for  the  university  (now  termed  regents)  should  be  composed 
of  six  appointed  by  the  governor  and  thi-ee  elected  by  the  university  association. 
On  the  part  of  the  state  Gov.  Grover  appointed  jMatthew  P.  Deady,  Portland; 
Lewis  L.  McArthur,  The  Dalles;  Reuben  S.  Strahan,  Albany;  Dr.  S.  Hamilton, 
Roseburg ;  John  M.  Thompson,  Thomas  G.  Hendricks,  Eugene ;  and  the  associa- 
tion elected  Benjamin  P.  Dorris,  George  Humphrey,  Joshua  J.  Walton,  Eugene. 
At  the  first  meeting  of  this  board  held  in  April,  1873,  Deady  was  elected  presi- 
dent and  Walton,  secretary.  Eighteen  acres  of  land  was  secured;  and  a  three- 
story  building  80  by  57  feet  in  size  was  erected ;  John  W.  Johnson  was  appointed 
president  and  professor  of  ancient  classics,  Mark  Bailey,  professor  of  mathe- 
matics, Thomas  Condon,  professor  of  natural  sciences,  and  Mrs.  Mary  P.  Spiller, 
principal,  and  Miss  Elizabeth  Boise,  assistant,  in  charge  of  the  preparatory 
school,  and  the  university  ship  was  launched  on  September  16,  1878,  with  89 
pupils  in  the  collegiate  and  123  in  the  preparatory  department. 

The  University  has  had  a  steady  if  not  a  rapid  growth.  The  last  published 
enrollment  of  pupils  shows  648  in  the  regular  college  of  literature,  science,  arts 
and  engineering.  While  the  young  men  and  women  attending  the  theological 
school  at  Eugene,  and  the  law  and  medical  schools  at  Portland  are  enrolled  as  a 
part  of  the  university  activities,  they  are  not  herein  counted  as  part  of  the  con- 
stituency which  the  state  should  undertake  to  educate. 

The  University  is  now  possessed  of  SO  acres  of  land  adapted  to  its  uses ;  and 
housed  in  eleven  buildings  devoted  to  distinct  purposes,  as  follows :  Deady  Hall, 
a  three-story  building,  was  presented  to  the  state  by  the  citizens  of  Lane  county, 
and  was  named  in  honor  of  Matthew  P.  Deady,  the  first  president  of  the  board 
of  regents.  It  contains  the  biological  and  physical  laboratories,  and  the  depart- 
ments of  Latin,  Greek,  Romance,  Languages,  German,  and  modern  English 
Literature. 

ViLLARD  Hall,  erected  in  1885,  was  named  in  honor  of  Henry  Villard,  the 
greatest  individual  donor  to  the  university  endowment.  It  contains  the  offices  of 
the  president,  the  steward,  the  assembly  hall  of  the  University,  the  Condon 
geological  collection,  and  the  departments  of  early  English,  Literature,  Geology, 
and  Mathematics. 

McClure  Hall  was  built  in  1900.  It  is  devoted  to  the  departments  of  Chem- 
istry and  Mining.  It  has  three  floors,  with  laboratory  facilities  for  200  students, 
and  contains  the  latest  appliances  for  research  work  in  all  lines  of  mining  and 
of  manufacturing  chemistry. 

Mechanical  Hall,  erected  in  1901,  contains  the  central  heating  and  lighting 


610  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

plant  of  the  university,  and  the  departments  of  electi-ieal  and  mechaniea,! 
engineering.  The  shops  are  run  by  electricity  and  equipped  with  tools  and 
machinery. 

The  Timber  Testing  Station  was  established  in  1905.  The  testing  laboratory 
is  equipped  with  machines  and  appliances  necessary  for  testing  the  strength  of 
timber,  stone  and  metals. 

The  Girls'  Gymnasium  is  a  brick  building  fitted  with  suitable  apparatus 
for  the  use  of  the  women  of  the  university  only.  The  basement  is  fitted  with 
shower  baths,  steel  lockers,  and  dressing  rooms. 

The  Men's  Dormitory,  erected  in  1893,  is  a  three-story  brick  building, 
equipped  with  electric  lights,  steam  heat,  hot  and  cold  baths. 

The  Library  Building,  completed  in  June,  1907,  is  a  two-story  with  base- 
ment building,  containing  the  university  library,  a  general  reading  room,  a 
general  reference  room,  a  consultation  room  for  faculty  and  students,  and  the 
offices  of  the  librarian  and  the  cataloguer. 

IIary  Spiller  Hall,  erected  in  1907,  will  accommodate  about  200  girls.  It 
is  a  two-story  and  basement  building,  heated  and  lighted  and  comfortably  fitted 
for  living.    Cost  of  board  and  room  in  the  hall  is  $4.50  and  $5.00  per  week. 

Engineering  Hall  was  completed  'in  February,  1909,  is  a  two-story  building, 
designed  especially  for  engineering  instruction.  It  houses  all  of  the  departments 
of  civil  engineering.  The  general  university  repair  shops  (plumbing,  carpenter 
and  paint)  are  located  in  the  basement. 

The  Men's  Gymnasium.  The  new  gymnasium  for  men  is  fitted  completely 
with  all  modern  conveniences,  the  best  apparatus,  an  indoor  running  track,  a 
swimming  pool,  shower  baths,  lockers,  etc. 

The  athletic  field  has  a  four-lap  track  surrounding  a  football  field.  The  grand 
stand  and  bleachers  will  seat  3,500. 

Excluding  the  professors,  teachers  and  lecturers  in  the  'biblical,  law  and 
medical  departments  the  university  has  now  a  corps  of  forty-six  professors  and 
teachers  of  literature,  the  arts,  sciences,  music  and  athletics,  not  counting  student 
assistants.  From  1878  down  to  the  present  the  university  has  had  but  four  presi- 
dents :  John  W.  Johnson,  of  Yamhill  county,  Oregon,  from  the  opening  day  to 
1893 ;  C.  H.  Chapman,  of  Portland,  from  1893  to  1899 ;  Frank  Strong,  of  Law- 
rence, Kansas,  from  1899  to  1902 ;  P.  L.  Campbell,  of  Polk  county,  Oregon  from 
1902  to  date. 

Pacific  College.  Last,  but  not  least,  turning  from  the  abundant  promises 
and  ambitious  claims  of  the  larger,  older  and  wealthful  educational  institutions 
of  the  state  to  the  modest  and  unpretentious  little  Bulletin  of  the  Friends 
(Quakers),  we  find  their  Pacific  College  at  Newberg,  in  Yamhill  county,  a  very 
interesting  proposition.  The  authors  of  this  bulletin  are  fully  justified  in  saying 
that  education  has  always  been  the  handmaid  of  religion  among  the  Friends. 
The  history  of  Oregon  Quakerism  was  no  exception  to  the  rule.  When  Friends 
began  to  settle  in  this  part  of  the  country,  they  at  once  began  to  provide  for 
the  education  of  their  children  and  long  before  the  public  school  furnished 
the  means  for  elementary  education  here,  the  Society  of  Friends  had  provided 
schools  for  the  primary  education  of  the  children. 

But  the  need  for  higher  education  soon  became  apparent.  In  1885,  accord- 
ingly, the  Friends'  church  established  Pacific  Academy. 


No.  1 — Samuel  A.  Clarke,  Poet  and  Historian 
No.  2 — Orvil  Dodge,  History  of   Coos  and  Curry 
No.  3 — Valentine  Brown,   native  son.  printer,   poet 
No.  4 — Miss   Frances  Kemp   of  Woodburn.  Oregon, 
practicing  law  in  Oregon 


and    lawyer 

The   first    woman   to   make   a   success   of 


THE  CENTENNIAL  ITTSTORY  OF  OREGON  ,        Gil 

Soon  the  academy  beeaiue  inadequate  to  meet  the  growing  demands  for 
higher  education,  and  in  1891  the  course  of  study  was  advanced,  the  institution 
was  equipped  for  college  work,  and  opened  for  students  September  9,  1891. 

In  January,  1895,  a  joint  stock  company  for  the  maintenance  of  the  school 
was  organized  and  incorporated,  with  a  capital  of  !l^40,000.  In  1906  the  stock 
feature  was  abolished  and  the  stockholders  became  life  members  of  the  corpora- 
tion which  elects  the  board  of  managers.  New  members  are  elected  to  this 
corporation  by  Oregon  Yearly  Meeting  of  Friends.  The  board  of  managers 
is  elected  by  the  members  of  the  corporation,  part  of  them  being  nominated  by 
the  Yearly  Meeting  and  part  by  the  alumni  of  the  college. 

While  denominational  in  auspices.  Pacific  College  is  unsectarian  in  policy. 
An  annual  report  is  prepared  by  the  president  and  is  submitted  to  the  Yearly 
Meeting,  and  this  body  appoints  a  visiting  committee,  whose  duty  is  to  visit 
the  college  frequently,  to  keep  in  touch  with  the  work  and  to  offer  any  sugges- 
tions, advice  or  encouragement  they  may  deem  proper.  The  college  is  controlled 
by  a  board  of  managers,  twelve  in  number,  divided  into  three  classes,  each  serv- 
ing three  years.  The  board  of  managers,  together  with  the  president  of  the 
college,  has  entire  control  of  affairs  of  the  college,  electing  the  members  of  the 
faculty,  administering  the  finances  of  the  college,  conferring  degi-ees  and  out- 
lining its  general  policy. 

To  the  faculty  is  delegated  all  the  details  of  college  work  in  instruction  and 
discipline.  They  also  recommend  to  the  board  those  suitable  to  receive  degrees 
and  certificates. 

Pacific  College  is  the  child  of  Christian  sacrifice,  and  its  prosperity  is  owing 
to  the  enterprise  and  generosity  of  its  friends,  who  have  faithfully  stood  by  it 
from  the  first.  No  institution  can  have  a  stronger  guarantee  of  permanence 
than  the  united  devotion  of  its  friends. 


It  is  the  purpose  of  the  college  to  offer  to  young  men  and  young  women  the 
benefits  of  a  liberal  Christian  education.  Its  courses  of  study  are  arranged  to 
give  the  broad  culture  which  should  be  the  possession  of  every  intelligent  man 
and  woman.  The  founders  recognized  the  great  importance  of  religious  train- 
ing, and  the  work  of  the  class-room  is  not  merely  consistent  with  Christianity, 
but  decidely  Christian  in  its  tendencies. 

REGULATIONS 

Every  student  is  expected  to  be  diligent  in  study  and  to  deport  himself  in 
an  orderly,  courteous  and  moral  manner,  both  in  the  college  and  in  the  commun- 
ity. When  a  student  enters  the  college  it  is  assumed  that  he  agrees  to  have 
due  regard  for  all  the  regulations  of  the  institution.  All  the  requirements  are 
designed  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  college  community.  It  is  intended  to 
allow  the  fullest  libertj^  consistent  with  efiicient  work.  It  is  taken  for  granted 
that  the  purpose  of  college  attendance  is  earnest,  persistent  work,  and  that 
social  enjoyment  must  always  be  subordinate  to  the  regulations  made  for  the 
accomplishment  of  the  most  efficient  work.    The  patronage  of  students  who  are 


612  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

already  seriously  demoralized  is  not  solicited.  When  the  faculty  is  satisfied  that 
a  student  is  not  filling  the  expectations  placed  in  him,  his  parents  or  guardian 
will  be  notified  of  the  fact,  and  then,  if  there  is  no  reformation,  his  removal 
from  the  college  will  be  requested. 

The  same  course  will  be  pui*sued  when  a  student  does  not  appear  to  be  bene- 
fited by  the  advantages  offered  or  shows  an  unwillingness  to  assist  cheerfully 
in  maintaining  good  order,  or  indulges  in  practices  detrimental  to  himself  and 
others  or  to.  the  reputation  of  the  college. 

Students  who  are  guilty  of  habitual  profanity,  the  use  of  intoxicants,  playing 
cards,  carrying  concealed  weapons,  or  attending  dancing  parties,  forfeit  their 
rights  to  the  privileges  of  the  college.  The  iise  of  tobacco  in  all  its  forms  is 
forbidden,  and  the  students  who  cannot  cheerfully  accept  the  conditiotis  here, 
outlined  are  requested  not  to  apply  for  admission. 

This  model  institution  of  education  has  thirteen  professors  and  teachers, 
teaching  all  branches  of  the  arts  and  sciences  usually  taught  in  standard  colleges, 
as  well  as  music,  domestic  science,  and  the  French  and  German  languages.  Wil- 
liam J.  Reagan  is  acting  as  president ;  and  the  institution  has  about  one  hundred 
students. 

Reed  College.  The  latest  candidate  for  favor  among  the  patrons  of  col- 
legiate education  in  the  northwest  is  Reed  College,  of  Portland,  Oregon.  The 
author  of  this  book  had  the  honor  of  an  intimate  personal  acquaintance  with 
the  founder  of  this  institution  having  been  a  partner  in  business  with  him  for 
years.  And  from  such  acquaintance  is  enabled  to  say  that  Simeon  G.  Reed 
would  not  have  planned  the  great  work  to  commemorate  his  name  on  the 
exceptional  and  esoteric  lines  proposed  by  its  trustees.  Mr.  Reed  was  eminently 
a  practical  man,  a  friend  to  the  common  man  and  a  discerner  of  the  things  and 
the  education  that  would  most  benefit  the  mass  of  mankind.  He  thoroughly 
believed  in  the  idea  that  work,  employment,  with  practical  education  that  the 
great  mass  could  reach  and  appropriate  in  practical  every  day  life,  was  the 
safeguard  of  society  and  the  salvation  of  the  individual  man.  No  person  knew 
of  this  desire  and  trend  of  Mr.  Reed's  thoughts  and  plans  better  than  his  noble 
wife  who  had  largely  aided  in  the  accumulation  of  their  fortune.  The  clause 
in  her  will,  planning  to  carry  out  the  intent  of  her  husband,  which  recited  that 
she  gives  to  the  trustees  of  their  fortune  the  three  million  dollars  for  a  special 
purpose,  was  not  void  for  uncertainty,  and  could  not  have  been  misunderstood  by 
practical  men.    That  clause  reads  as  follows : 

"All  the  rest,  residue  and  remainder  of  my- estate  and  property  of  every 
kind,  real,  personal  and  mixed,  whatever  its  character,  and  wherever  the  same 
may  be  situated,  I  give,  devise  and  bequeath  to  my  friends  *  *  *  and  their  suc- 
cessors, in  trust,  to  use  the  same  and  the  income  therefrom  arising  in  the  found- 
ing, establishment  and  maintenance  at  the  city  of  Portland,  Oregon,  of  an  institu- 
tion of  learning,  having  for  its  object  the  increase  and  diffusion  of  practical 
knowledge  among  the  citizens  of  said  city  of  Portland,  and  the  promotion  of 
literature,  science  and  art.  Such  institution  hereby  provided  for  shall  be  named 
and  known  as  'The  Reed  Institute,'  in  memory  of  my  departed  husband, 
Simeon  G.  Reed.  In  it  shall  be  established  such  departments  of  learning,  gal- 
leries of  art,  natural  and  technical  museums,  appliances  for  manual  training  and 
other  appliances  and  appurtenances,  as  such  trustees  or  their  successors  in  the 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  613 

trust  hereby  created  may  from  time  to  time  prescribe.  Such  instruction  shall  be 
given  therein  by  competent  teachers  and  lecturers  in  literature,  music,  the 
arts  and  sciences,  and  such  classes  created  for  the  people,  and  especially  young 
men  and  women  earning  their  livelihood,  as  said  trustees  and  thei/r  succes- 
sors may  from  time  to  time  direct. 

"  It  is  my  desii-e  and  intention  that  the  institution  so  founded  and  established, 
shall  be  a  means  of  general  enlightenment,  intellectual  and  moral  culture,  the 
cultivation  and  development  of  fine  arts,  manual  training  and  education  for  the 
people. 

"I  desire  and  direct  that  it  foi-ever  be  and  remain  free  fi'om  sectarian  influ- 
ence, regulation  or  control,  permitting  those  who  may  seek  its  benefits  to  affiliate 
with  such  religious  societies  as  their  consciences  may  dictate. ' ' 

And  while  this  College  is  not  to  be  what  its  founder  proposed,  yet  it  is  to  be 
something  different  from  everj'thing  else  in  Oregon.  And  to  begin  with  its 
catalogue  and  announcement  is  to  have  a  new  style  of  spelling  that  will  certainly 
banish  Noah  Webster  and  all  his  works  to  the  dark  ages  of  the  world.  The 
new  college  opened  its  doors  on  September  19,  1911,  with  a  corps  of  seventeen 
professors  and  instructors  and  a  roll  of  forty-six  pupils,  thirty-nine  of  them 
being  residents  of  Portland  and  seven  from  points  outside  the  city. 

liei'e  follows  the  college  announcement  in  its  new  st3ie  of  orthography. 

"Reed  College  purposes  to  take  full  advantage  of  its  splendid  freedom  from 
harassing  traditions.  While  endeavoring  to  profit  by  the  rich  experience  of  other 
institutions,  it  plans  to  study  exhaustively  the  peculiar  needs  of  Portland  and 
of  the  Northwest,  and  so  to  develop  each  department  that  it  will  serv  the  com- 
munity more  effectively  than  could  any  merely  transplanted  institution.  What 
this  involvs  in  the  way  of  original  constructiv  work  will  be  explained  from  time 
to  time  as  present  plans  mature. 

"The  College  reservs  the  right  to  limit  the  number  of  students,  at  any  time, 
in  the  interests  of  efficiency.  As  the  instruction  of  each  student  will  cost  several 
times  as  much  as  his  tuition  fee,  and  as  the  primary  interest  of  the  College  is  in 
the  quality  of  the  work  done,  and  the  character  of  its  graduates,  nothing  what- 
ever will  be  sacrificed  in  the  interests  of  mere  numbers. 

"It  is  the  policj'  of  the  Reed  Institute  to  establish  and  maintain,  with  the 
income  from  its  present  endowment,  only  a  college  of  liberal  arts  and  sciences, 
and  to  extend  its  work  only  when  it  received  further  resources.  It  will  attempt 
to  do  only  as  much  as  it  can  reasonably  expect  to  do  as  well  as  such  work  is 
done  anywhere.  Accordingly  it  will  not  overburden  its  instructors,  allow  its 
enrolment  to  increase  more  rapidly  than  its  resources,  or  entrust  any  of  its  teach- 
ing to  temporary,  underpaid  assistants,  whose  interests  do  not  center  in  their 
students.  It.  aims  to  appoint  and  retain  only  those  who  are  devoted  to  their  stu- 
dents and  their  teaching,  who  know  how  to  teach  and  can  not  but  inspire,  and 
whose  whole  life  is  imbued  with  the  professional  spirit. 

' '  The  chief  compensation  that  Reed  College  offers  such  teachers  is  the  freedom 
to  pursue  their  ideals,  as  members  of  a  faculty  thus  selected,  in  an  institution 
with  such  avowed  purposes,  having  before  it  an  absolutely  clear  field,  and  splendid 
opporti;nities  for  sei-vis.  It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  College  is 
unfriendly  to  research.  On  the  contrary,  the  College  desires  only  teachers  who 
are  eager  to  make  independent  studies  in  their  favorite  fields,  chiefly  for  the 


614  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

invigoration  of  their  teaching.  Schedules  and  equipment  are  arranged  accord- 
ingly. ' ' 

The  editor  of  the  College  presents  their  president  with  rare  confidence  and 
enthusiasm  as  follows : 

"William  Trufant  Foster,  President  of  Reed  College,  is  scarcely  more  than 
thirty  years  of  age.  He  was  born  in  Boston,  in  1879,  and  attended  the  Boston 
public  schools.  Harvard  University  gave  him  the  degree  of  A.  B.,  and  from  Har- 
vard University  he  received  the  degree  of  A.  M.  in  English  language  and  litera- 
ture, and  from  Columbia  University  the  degree  of  Ph.  D.  in  education  and 
sociology.  He  taught  English  at  Bates  College  for  two  years.  In  1905  he 
became  Professor  of  English  and  Argumentation  at  Bowdoin  College,  and  later 
Professor  of  Education.  In  1909  he  was  lecturer  in  the  Principles  of  Education 
at  the  Harvard  Summer  School,  and  in  1910  lecturer  in  Educational  Adminis- 
tration at  Columbia  University.  He  was  for  one  year  Fellow  in  Education  at 
Teacher's  College,  Columbia  University.  He  is  the  author  of  'Argumentation 
and  Debating'  and  'Administration  of  the  College  Curriculum'  " 

And  of  the  College  itself,  this  editor  proceeds : 

"Reed  College  proposes  to  take  full  advantage  of  its  splendid  freedom  from 
harassing  traditions. ' '  It  will  be,  if  the  ideal  of  its  president  is  realized,  a  ' '  col- 
lege free  to  pursue  its  mission  as  the  maker  of  men  and  women  and  enlightener 
of  mankind,  with  unobscured  vision  of  the  truth  and  power  to  proclaim  the 
truth  without  fear  or  favor  of  politicians,  or  religious  sects,  or  benefactors,  or 
public  cries,  or  its  own  administi*ative  machinery. ' ' 

Good!  Very  good!  And  let  there  be  hope  that  this  new  and  brave,  if  not 
boastful  announcement  will  bring  great  good  to  Oregon.  And  while  we  hope 
let  us  not  forget  that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun ;  that  Solomon  wrote 
the  book  of  Proverbs  2,927  years  ago;  that  there  has  been  but  one  Homer,  and 
he  gave  the  world  the  Iliad  nearly  3,000  years  ago ;  that  Plato,  the  father  of  all 
philosophy,  was  only  500  years  the  junior  of  Homer;  that  Julius  Caesar  gave 
the  Pagan  world  laws  and  institutions  before  the  birth  of  Christ  which  have 
not  been  repealed  to  this  day;  that  there  has  been  but  one  Shakespeare,  but 
one  George  AVashington,  but  one  Benjamin  Franklin,  and  but  one  Abraham 
Lincoln ; — and  that  none  of  these  mighty  men  were  collegians. 

THE  lEREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT 

In  making  this  review  of  the  unexampled  effort  of  the  people  of  Oregon  to 
give  not  only  a  common  school  education  to  every  child  without  respect  to  race, 
nativity,  sect  or  religious  belief,  but  also  to  bring  within  reach  of  the  great  mass 
the  advantages  of  a  collegiate  education,  it  seems  to  the  author  that  the  effort  has 
developed  a  very  serious  question  for  the  future  to  decide.  For  if  the  purpose  of 
human  effort  and  education  is  to  be  the  development  of  a  composite  but  individu- 
ally independent  character,  then  our  system  of  public  schools  and  independent 
sectarian  colleges  is  well  adapted  to  that  end.  But,  if  the  purpose  be  to  carry 
into  'successful  effect  a  great  scheme  of  morals  and  unified  action  in  church  and 
state,  then  our  Oregon  system  of  education  is  at  war  therewith.  So  far  in  the 
history  of  so-called  civilized  nations  the  world  has  but  one  example  of  the  second 
proposition ;  and  that  is  found  in  the  career  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church.     For 


Editor,   Historian,   and    Collector   of   Autograplis 


^H,  LSWOX  AN& 

;'<   FOUNDATICnS 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  (515 

centuries  it  has  steadily  pursued  the  policy  of  centralizing  all  the  agencies  of 
teaching  and  education  under  the  control  of  the  Chunih,  to  the  end  that  all  its 
children  and  believers  may  accept  and  act  upon  the  doctrine  that  it  is  the  one 
true  church  and  infallible  guide  for  the  individual  man,  human  society,  and 
temporal  power.  Protesting  church  organizations,  schools  and  governments, 
iuive  been  arrayed  against  this  propaganda,  but  not  in  any  combined  and  con- 
crete organism ;  and  the  result  is  seen  in  the  increasing  power  of  Catholicism  in 
all  Protestant  countries.  This  shifting  of  the  balance  of  power  from  the  sep- 
arated and  independent  organizations  of  Protestantism  to  the  concrete  organism 
of  Catholicism,  will  in  the  ordinary  course  of  human  activities  go  steadily  for- 
ward until  the  predominate  secular  power  of  the  church  impinges  upon  the  civil 
power  of  the  state.  Modified  by  the  spirit  and  institutions  of  the  republic,  the 
antagonism  between  the  orthodoxy  of  the  church  and  the  sectarianism  of  its  op- 
ponents may  never  be  so  acute  in  this  country  as  in  European  nations.  But  that 
there  will  be,  sooner  or  later,  a  trial  of  strength  in  some  form  or  another  for  the 
mastery  and  direction  of  all  the  activities  of  political  power  in  favor  of  or  against 
the  dominant  clerical  organization,  there  can  be  but  little  doubt.  In  the  funda- 
mental nature  of  all  human  organizations,  power  is  continually  stealing  away 
from  the  weaker  to  the  stronger.  Two  diverse  agencies  of  human  action  cannot 
exist,  grow  and  expand  within  the  same  area  of  human  effort  without  contact, 
contest,  and  strife. 

LITERATURE,  ART  AND  SCIENCE 

Thomas  Condon.  At  the  head  of  Oregon's  distinguished  list  of  literary  men 
and  women,  and  who,  for  evei-ything  that  stands  for  the  welfare  of  his  fellow 
man,  and  for  comprehension  of  the  works  of  the  great  Architect  of  the  Universe, 
stands  the  sublime  character  of  Thomas  Condon.  As  a  man  of  science  he  stands 
in  the  front  rank  in  the  United  States.  In  his  study  and  elucidation  of  the 
geology  of  Oregon  and  adjoining  regions  he  stands  apart  from  and  far  above  all 
other  students  of  nature.  His  patient  and  persevering  study  of  the  testimony  of 
the  rocks  in  the  formation  of  the  earth,  his  clear  and  indisputable  reasoning 
thereon,  and  his  volume  on  "Two  Islands"  has  given  him  not  only  a  national 
reputation,  but  a  world-wide  fame  among  students  of  science.  His  likeness  ap- 
pears on  another  page,  and  his  biography  in  another  volume. 

The  Poets,  Historians  and  Editors.  Some  wise  man  has  written:  "Let  me 
write  the  songs  of  the  people,  and  I  care  not  who  writes  their  laws."  This  was 
the  observation  of  a  by-gone  age ;  an  age  when  books  were  few  and  far  between, 
and  when  songs  were  the  common  heritage  of  all,  and  when  fireside  tales — -folk- 
lore— was  as  good  as  a  circulating  library.  Now  in  this  year  of  1912  when  scholar- 
ship, literature,  and  learning  is  waiting  at  the  street  corners  for  printing  presses 
to  hurry  off  to  the  news  stands  millions  of  copies  of  books,  essays,  poems — cheap 
as  a  song — the  time-honored  songs,  the  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  and  the  folk-lore 
of  the  ages  have  little  or  no  influence  in  moulding  the  thoughts  or  character  of 
the  people.  But  no  state  in  the  Union  has  produced  greater  talent,  or  more 
distinguished  men  and  women  in  literature  in  proportion  to  population  than 
Oregon. 

Joaquin  Miller.  The  Poet  of  the  Sierras,  is  wrongfully  claimed  by  Cali- 
fornia.    But  he  is  an  Oregon  boy,  an  Oregon  man,  and  an  Oregon  poet ;  and  no 


616  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

poet  of  his  era  has  produced  lines  as  great  as  his  Ode  to  Columbus,  or  equal  to 
his  "Bravest  Battle  Ever  Fought."  The  lines  to  Columbus  are  made  a  part  of 
the  engraving  to  Columbus  on  a  former  page.  In  a  recent  critical  article  the 
London  Athenseum  pays  this  compliment  to  Miller: 

"In  point  of  power,  workmanship  and  feeling,  among  all  the  poems  written 
by  Americans,  we  are  inclined  to  give  first  place  to  'Columbus,'  by  Joaquin 
Miller." 

Miller's  other  greatest  poem  is  preserved  here  as  follows: 

' '  The  bravest  battle  that  ever  was  fought ! 

Shall  I  tell  you  where  and  when  ? 
On  the  maps  of  the  world  you  will  find  it ;  no — 

'T  was  fought  by  the  mothers  of  men. 
Nay,  not  with  cannon  or  battle  shot, 

With  sword,  or  nobler  pen ; 
Nay,  not  with  eloquent  word  or  thought. 

From  mouths  of  wonderful  men; 
But  deep  in  a  walled-up  woman's  heart — 

Of  woman  that  would  not  yield. 
But  bravely,  silently  bore  her  part — 

Lo !  there  is  that  battle-field. 
No  marshalling  troops,  no  bivouac  song, 

No  banner  to  gleam  and  wave ; 
But,  oh!  these  battles,  they  last  so  long — 

From  babyhood  to  the  grave. 
Yet  faithful  still  as  a  bridge  of  stars. 

She  fights  in  her  walled-up  town — 
Fights  on  and  on  in  the  endless  wars. 

Then  silent,  unseen — goes  down. 
Oh,  spotless  woman  in  a  world  of  shame. 

With  splendid  and  silent  scorn. 
Go  back  to  God  as  white  as  .you  came. 

The  kingliest  warrior  born ! ' ' 

The  first  poems  of  Joaquin  Miller  to  be  issued  in  book  form  were  a  number 
that  he  employed  George  H.  Himes,  of  Portland,  to  print  in  the  spring  of  1869, 
the  leading  one  being  entitled  "Loua  Ella,"  an  Indian  maiden.  The  work  was 
about  four  by  six  and  one-half  inches  in  size,  and  contained  perhaps  sixty-four 
pages,  and  was  entitled  "Specimens."  Of  this  volume  three  hundred  copies 
were  printed. 

In  the  spring  of  1870  Mr.  Himes  printed  a  second  volume  of  the  same  size, 
containing  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight  pages.  The  leading  poem  was  "Joa- 
quin." The  title-page  of  this  work  was  Joaqiiin,  Et  AL,  by  C.  H.  Miller,  Port- 
land, Oregon.     S.  J.  McCormiek,  Publisher,  1870. 

' '  Joaquin, ' '  Mr.  Miller 's  hero,  was  Joaquin  Muriata,  a  noted  Gringo  of  Cali- 
fornia, who  fought  the  Amei'icans  desperately  for  what  he  conceived  to  be  his 
rights.  He  was  killed,  with  a  number  of  his  band,  by  the  California  State  Rang- 
ers, under  Captain  Love,  in  the  wilds  of  Tulare  county,  California,  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1853.    It  was  this  volume  that  gave  Mr.  Miller  the  name  of  "Joaquin." 


^t/i^   ryvr.^  fU-'-iAJi^  AAjjThjL^     ^^    /^^V  ?'>/ 

y%iyJUAAAA   Ctrvilp^^^^'HM^    AAyiAi^ti^iA^ 

yVlM.  ^'PxM^   IU\A^, 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  617 

A  few  years  later  he  prepared  a  third  vohime,  which  he  called  "The  Songs  of 
the  Sierras,"  the  manuscript  of  which  he  took  to  London,  England,  and  had  pub- 
lished. "With  that  publication  his  fame  began  to  grow,  until  now  it  is  world 
wide. 

Miller  has  been  sketched  by  a  friend,  Mr.  A.  II.  Harris,  as  follows : 

"Joaquin  Miller  was  Cineinnatus  Heine  Miller,  a  son  of  a  modest  Oregon 
farmer,  when,  in  1861,  he  left  his  father's  home  near  Eugene  to  make  his  'stake' 
in  the  mines  of  Idaho.  But  once  in  the  lifetime  of  Miller  did  the  lure  of  gold 
appeal  to  him,  but  once  did  he  listen  to  the  call  of  ambition  to  make  money.  For 
years  he  lived  the  life  of  the  Bohemian  in  California,  in  Nevada,  in  remote 
sections  of  the  new  west.  Wanderlust  had  taken  possession  of  him,  and  about  the 
country  he  aimlessly  went.  During  the  winter  of  1860-61  an  awakening  oc- 
curred, and  as  the  warm  days  of  spring  came  to  the  quiet  "Willamette  valley,  a 
sudden  impulse  struck  young  Miller  to  seek  gold  and  secure  it  at  any  cost.  "With 
his  usual  impetuosity  he  was  gone  in  a  day,  and  the  next  that  was  heard  of  him 
was  from  Oro  Fino,  on  the  Clearwater  river  above  Lewiston,  where  the  great 
gold  excitement  was  at  white  heat. 

' '  Cineinnatus  had  made  the  best  of  his  nomadic  life  in  learning  the  ways  of  the 
world)  and  once  in  Oro  Fino  he  saw  a  great  light.  The  country  was  filled  with 
prospectors  and  the  byways  with  'road  agents.'  To  carry  money,  or  what  was 
better  than  money  (gold  dust)  about  was  to  court  death  with  one's  boots  on.  Des- 
perate, and  determined.  Miller  saw  his  opportunity  to  make  a  small  fortune  and 
he  grasped  it. 

"In  a  night  ;\Iiller  gathered  three  Indian  ponies  worth  a  trifle  more  than  15 
cents  each,  a  saddle,  saddle  bags  and  a  bridle.  With  a  crude  shed  to  protect  his 
'stock'  he  was  o\raer,  manager,  agent  and  rider  for  the  'Miller  Pony  Express,' 
organized,  equipped  and  doing  business  within  24  hours.  Miller  was  20  years  of 
age,  long,  lank,  ungainly,  uneducated,  yet  an  expert  horseman  and  a  'dead'  shot 
with  anything  that  would  carry  powder  and  lead. 

"Fearless  under  the  most  trying  conditions  and  showing  it  in  his  demeanor, 
Miller  was  soon  doing  a  heavy  express  business  in  gold  dust  between  Oro  Fino 
and  Boise  on  the  south  and  Walla  Walla  on  the  west.  With  thousands  of  dollars 
worth  of  the  precious  metal  in  his  saddle  bags,  vnth  a  bundle  of  letters  and  light 
express  packages  from  merchants  and  miners,  with  determination  in  his  eye  and 
two  trusted  guns  in  his  clothes.  Miller  would  set  out  through  the  wilderness  to 
Walla  Walla,  150  miles  over  trails  that  would  have  puzzled  a  redskin. 

The  season  had  been  prosperous,  even  beyond  the  wildest  dreams  of  the  young 
rider.  The  fame  of  his  'express'  had  spread,  and  he  was  carrying  the  bulk  of 
the  gold  dust  for  the  rich  Idaho  diggings.  Between  $3,000  and  $4,000  in  bright 
gold  had  been  hidden  away  as  the  earnings  of  the  hazardoiis  rides,  when  the 
shortening  days  of  autumn  overtook  Miller.  The  frosty  mornings  told  him  to 
retire'  with  his  wealth,  but  the  lure  of  the  gold  still  held  him  firmly. 

"In  the  summer's  riding  Jliller  had  heard  of  and  dreamed  of  'road  agents;' 
of  being  robbed,  even  of  being  killed.  But  wdth  the  most  precious  of  his  burdens 
he  had  made  the  trip  safely — no  one  had  disturbed  him  in  the  least. 

"On  his  last  trip  he  was  followed  by  two  'road  agents' — robbers — determined 
to  kill  him  for  what  he  was  carrying.     But  the  speed  and  nerve  of  his  pony 


618  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

saved  him;  and  nine  years  later  we  find  him  in  London,  where  a  fashionable 
publishing  house  was  publishing  his  poems,  making  permanent  his  fame. ' ' 

Minnie  Myrtle  Miller,  Joaquin 's  wife,  was  also  a  poet — in  some  respects  equal 
to  her  husband.  But  being  abandoned  by  her  husband,  sank  beneath  the  blight 
of  poverty  and  woman 's  inability  to  grapple  with  the  human  throng  of  thought- 
less selfishness  which  surges  over  and  tramps  down  those  who  faint  by  the  way — 
and  the  gentle  spirit  in  the  prime  of  her  powers  passed  over  to  the  silent  land. 

Samuel  L.  Simpson  is  the  popular  poet  of  Oregon.  He  had  the  happy  faculty 
of  embodying  in  his  lyrics  the  beauties  of  Oregon,  and  will  for  this  reason  be 
longer  remembered  than  those  who  appealed  to  sentiment.  While  not  born  in 
Oregon  he  came  to  the  state  in  childhood  and  was  educated  at  "Willamette  Uni- 
versity. His  lines  on  the  Oregon  river  made  his  fame,  and  a  few  stanzas  are 
given  here : 

From  the  Cascades'  frozen  gorges. 

Leaping  like  a  child  at  play, 
"Winding,  widening  through  the  valley, 
Bright  "Willamette  glides  away ; 
Onward  ever, 
Lovely  river. 
Softly  calling  to  the  sea. 

Time,  that  scars  us. 
Maims  and  mars  us. 
Leaves  no  track  or  trench  on  thee. 

In  thj'  crystal  deeps  inverted 

Swings  a  picture  of  the  sky, 
Like  those  wavering  hopes  of  Aidenn 

Dimly  in  our  dreams  that  lie ; 
Clouded,  often,  drowned  in  turmoil. 

Faint  and  lovely,  far  away — 
"Wreathing  sunshine  on  the  morrow. 

Breathing  fragrance  round  today. 
Love  would  wander 
Here  and  ponder. 
Hither  poetrj^  Avould  dream ; 

Life's  old  questions, 

Sad  suggestions 
"Whence  and  whither?     throng  thy  stream. 

On  the  roaring  waste  of  ocean 

Shall  thy  scattered  waves  be  tossed, 
'Mid  the  surge's  lythmic  thunder 

Shall  thy  silver  tongues  be  lost. 
Oh !  thy  glimmering  rush  of  gladness 

Mocks  this  turbid  life  of  mine, 
Racing  to  the  wild  forever 

Down  the  sloping  paths  of  time. 
Onward  ever. 
Lovely  river. 


1    r     ^X^/^^hvL^^^^/^^'^ 


x-AS^*^  — 


cM^^^^-r^- 


~P 


8  ...^^^^^  a^^^^f^^^^^ 

9      ^^^JL  y^e^'^S^ 


(O 


''  c^  Jl^dcoc^^^ 


/2 


/ 


THE  CENTENNIAL  TrrSTOHY  OF  OREGON  619 

Softly  calling  to  the  sea ; 

Time  that  sears  us. 

Maims  and  mars  us, 
Leaves  no  track  or  trench  on  thee. 

Edwin  Markiiam.  Next  to  Joaquin  IMiller,  if  not  even  liis  superior  in  power 
of  expression,  comes  Edwin  Markham,  poet,  writer  and  lecturer,  who  was  born 
in  Oregon  C'it.y  in  1852.  In  1867  Markham  went  to  California  where  he  worked 
as  a  farm  hand,  at  blacksmithing.  herding  cattle,  earning  money  to  pay  his  way 
through  the  San  Jose  normal  school  and  Santa  Rosa  college.  We  claim  him  for 
Oregon.  He  is  now  a  professor  in  the  University  of  California,  Berkeley.  His 
most  remarkable  poem  is  "The  Man  with  a  Hoe" — a  part  of  which  are  the  fol- 
lowing lines : 

Bowed  by  the  weight  of  eentnries  he  leans 

Upon  his  hoe  and  gazes  at  the  groimd 

The  emptiness  of  ages  in  his  face, 

And  on  his  back  the  burden  of  the  world. 

Who  made  him  dead  to  rapture  and  despair, 

A  thing  that  grieves  not,  and  that  never  hopes. 

Stolid  and  stunned,  a  brother  to  the  ox? 

Who  loosened  and  let  down  this  brutal  jaw? 

Whose  was  the  hand  that  slanted  back  this  brow? 

Whose  breath  blew  out  the  light  within  this  brain  ? 

Is  this  the  thing  the  Lord  God  made  and  gave 

To  have  dominion  over  sea  and  land  ; 

To  trace  the  stars  and  search  the  heavens  for  power; 

To  feel  the  passion  of  Eternity  ? 

Is  this  the  dream  He  dreamed  who  shaped  the  suns 

And  pillared  the  blue  firmament  with  light? 

Down  all  the  stretch  of  Hell  to  its  last  gulf 

There  is  no  shape  more  terrible  than  this — 

More  tougued  with  censure  of  the  world's  blind  greed — 

More  filled  with  signs  and  portents  for  the  soul ! — 

More  fraught  with  menace  to  the  universe. 

Time's  tragedy  is  in  that  aching  stoop  ; 
Through  this  dread  shape  humanity  betrayed. 
Plundered,  profaned  and  disinherited. 
Cries  protest  to  the  judges  of  the  world — 
A  protest  that  is  also  prophecy. 

0  masters,  lords  and  rulers  in  all  lands. 
How  will  the  future  reckon  with  this  man  ? 
How  answer  his  brute  (juestion  in  that  hour 
When  whirlwinds  of  rebellion  shake  the  world? 
How  will  it  be  wdth  kingdoms  and  with  kings — 
With  those  who  shaped  him  to  the  thing  he  is — 
When  this  dumb  Terror  shall  reply  to  God 
After  the  silence  of  the  centuries  ? 


620  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Other  Poets.  The  g-raud  mountain  scenery,  the  peaceful  vales,  the  umbra- 
geous woods,  the  magnificeut  water  falls,  the  mighty  Columbia,  and  the  exciting- 
incidents  of  Oregon  history  have  all : 

' '  Conspired  to  tempt  the  Muse  in  Oregon. 
Three  poets  in  three  distant  ages  born, 
Greece,  Italy  and  England  did  adorn, 
But ;  here  lies  the  land  of  song ; 
Here   lies  the  poet's  native  land." 

The  poet's  harp  should  not  be  discouraged.  His  talent  appeals  to  the  best  in 
the  hearts  and  minds  of  men  and  women.  A  wise  man  has  said  "let  me  write 
the  songs  of  the  people,  and  I  care  not  who  writes  their  laws. "  "  The  Star  Span- 
gled Banner ' '  sent  out  more  soldiers  and  armed  them  with  a  fiercer  patriotism  to 
crush  the  Southern  Confederacy,  than  all  the  speeches  of  law  makers,  and  all  the 
laws  of  Congress,  and  all  the  appeals  of  president  and  cabinet. 

"Worthy  of  record  in  this  history  are  the  efforts  of  many  Oregon  writers  of 
■verses.  One  who  has  never  thrust  his  productions  on  the  market  place  is  Valen- 
tine Brown,  of  Portland.  Probably  not  a  hundred  persons  knew  that  Mr.  Brown 
was  a  composer.  A  printer,  poet  and  lawyer,  he  found,  like  Lee  or  Budgel,  he 
could  ' '  rhyme  print ; ' '  and  did  rhyme  and  print  his  own  productions,  comprising 
four  volumes ;  one  of  his  poems  336  pages,  issued  in  1900 ;  one  of  Armageddon, 
150  pages,  issued  in  1902 ;  one  of  Satires,  200  pages,  issued  in  1903 ;  one  of  tales  in 
verse,  175  pages,  issued  in  1904.  Mr.  Brown  is  a  native  Oregonian,  and  his  four 
volumes  should  be  in  every  librarj^  The  following  lines  bespeak  the  loyalty  to 
his  native  land : 

"Hail,  land  of  valleys,  plains  and  hills. 
Of  rivers  grand,  and  crystal  rills; 
Snow-covered  mountains,  slopes  of  green. 
And  lakes  enrobed  in  silvery  sheen. 
Of  boundless  groves  and  bounding  sea — 
My  native  land,  dear  land  to  me. ' ' 

Entitled  to  notice  in  any  Oregon  book,  and  a  niche  in  the  ladder  of  fame,  are 
the  two  poet  sisters,  practically  natives  to  the  soil,  Mrs.  Ella  Higginson  and 
Carrie  Blake  Morgan.  They  were  each  far  above  the  ordinary  in  their  com- 
positions— serious,  thoughtful,  and  helpful  in  all  they  wrote.  The  following  lines 
from  the  latter  named  sister  could  not  be  made  more  expressive  by  any  pen : 

' '  To  feel  the  failing  power ;  to  sit  and  note 
The  slipping  cogs  within  the  mental  wheel ; 
To  strive  to  hold  a  thought,  and  see  it  steal 
Away ;  to  watch  each  golden  fancy  float 
Beyond  our  reach.     To  be  no  longer  bold. 
And  sure  and  free ;  to  falter  and  to  gTope ; 
Until  the  struggle  ends-^and  we  are  old. ' ' 

Mrs.  M.  L.  T.  Hidden,  president  of  the  Woman's  Press  Club  of  Oregon,  has 
also  done  great  work  along  the  lines  of  increasing  woman's  influence  on  social 


38  ^^^^^^r^^^^^^W^. 


^ '  //  0~yy\--^^i^^ 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  621 

and  political  questions,  by  her  active  pen  and  platform  addresses.  Mrs.  Hidden 
is  one  of  the  many  thousands  of  good  women  given  the  United  States  by  fair 
Canada,  being  a  native  of  Trenholm  in  the  Province  of  Quebec. 

Another  Miller  in  addition  to  Joa(iuin,  and  his  talented  girl  bride,  entitled  to 
notice  here  as  a  poet  and  writer  of  unusual  ability,  is  Mrs.  Lischen  Miller,  wife  of 
Joaquin  Miller's  brother.  Mrs.  Miller  was  Miss  Lischen  Cogswell,  the  daugh- 
ter of  a  Lane  county  farmer,  and  one  of  the  founders  of  Oregon's  first  and  only 
great  magazine,  the  Pacific  Monthly. 

Another  representative  of  Oregon's  native  poetical  talent  is  June  iMcMillen 
Ordway,  daughter  of  Captain  J.  H.  McMillen,  a  vetei-an  in  the  Indian  wars  of 
Oregon.  Mrs.  Ordway 's  writings  have  been  mainly  devoted  to  the  Oregon  pio- 
neers and  their  services  to  the  state;  and  in  this  she  has  written  much  that  will 
remain  the  permanent  literary  wealth  of  the  state.  Captain  McMillen  was  presi- 
dent of  the  North  Pacific  History  Company  which  published  in  1889  a  valuable 
history  entitled  "History  of  the  Pacific  Northwest,"  edited  by  Hon.  Elwood 
Evans  of  Olympia,  "Washington. 

And  last,  but  not  least,  to  be  recorded  here  as  an  Oregon  poet,  is  the  veteran 
pioneer,  farmer,  stock-breeder,  herdsman,  legislator,  mountain  explorer,  road 
builder,  magazine  writer  and  model  citizen — Hon.  John  Minto.  From  an  inti- 
mate acquaintance  for  half  a  century  it  is  a  pleasure  to  record  here  that  no  other 
citizen  of  Oregon  has  done  as  much  for  the  general  welfare  of  all  classes  of  its 
people  as  this  worthy  man,  now  passed  on  beyond  his  four-score  and  ten  years 
filled  to  the  overflowing  with  useful  labor,  and  still  in  the  harness  to  help  along 
every  good  work.  His  "Farmer's  Songs"  and  "Rhymes  of  Life"  have  the  genu- 
ine Ben  Franklin  flavor  of  1776. 

The  Historians.  Francis  Fuller  Victor  fills  a  large  page  in  Oregon  history, 
not  only  as  an  historian  but  also  as  a  poet  of  great  merit.  The  late  Harvey  W.  Scott 
being  once  asked  who  was  the  most  reliable  historian  in  Oregon,  replied:  "Oregon 
has  but  one  historian — Mrs.  F.  F.  Victor."  This  was  high  praise  from  a  com- 
petent judge.  Mrs.  Victor's  work  as  a  writer  of  Oregon  history  is  greater  than 
that  of  all  others  combined;  and  as  a  collector  of  Oregon  history  her  work  is 
second  only  to  that  of  George  H.  Himes.  Mrs.  Victor  died  at  Portland,  Ore- 
gon, November  14,  1902,  and  after  her  death  Mr.  Wm.  A.  Morris  prepared  with 
great  care  a  sketch  of  her  literary  work  as  follows : 

A  book  of  poems  in  1851. 

Florence  Fane  Sketches,  1863-5. 

The  River  of  the  West,  1870. 

All  Over  Oregon  and  Washington,  1872. 

Woman's  War  Against  Whiskey,  1874. 

The  New  Penelope,  1877. 

Bancroft's  History  of  Oregon,  2  Vols.,  1886. 

Bancroft's  History  of  Idaho,  Washington  and  ilontana. 

Bancroft's  History  of  Nevada,  Colorado  and  Wyoming. 

Bancroft's  History  of  California. 

History  of  Oregon  Indian  Wars,  1893. 

Atlantis  Arisen,  1896. 

A  second  volume  of  Poems.  1900. 

Mrs.  Victor  had  collected  all  the  material  for  the  Oregon  history  w^hen  the 
Bancroft  Publishing  House  offered  her  ten  vears'  work  on  their  histories  on 


622  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

condition  that  she  would  turn  over  her  collections  to  Mr.  Bancroft — who  wrote 
history  by  proxy.  Mrs.  Victor  accepted  this  proposition  because  she  had  not 
the  money  to  bring  out  her  own  book.  Prances  Fuller  was  born  in  Rome,  New 
York,  in  1826,  and  thirteen  years  later  was  carried  to  Wooster,  Ohio,  with  her 
family,  and  commenced  writing  verses  at  the  age  of  fourteen.  In  1885  she  was 
married  to  Henry  C.  Victor,  a  naval  engineer,  who  was  ordered  to  the  Pacific 
coast  in  1863.  Mrs.  Victor  followed  her  husband  in  1865,  and  they  settled  on 
land  in  Columbia  county  and  tried  to  develop  a  salt  spring,  and  did  make  some 
salt.  Mr.  Victor  was  drowned  in  the  sinking  of  an  ocean  steamship — The  Pacific, 
November  4,  1875,  south  bound  from  Victoria,  B.  C. — and  his  widow  commenced 
then  to  write  Oregon  history. 

William  H.  Gray,  the  author  of  Gray's  History  of  Oregon,  will  forever 
hold  a  unique  place  in  the  history  and  early  literature  of  the  state.  Always  in 
the  forefront  of  the  battle  for  what  he  conceived  to  be  cause  of  truth  and  justice 
to  the  pioneers  of  Oregon,  he  will  be  recognized  and  remembered  as  one  of 
Homer 's  heroes : 

"Oh  friends,  be  men,  and  let  your  hearts  be  strong. 

And  let  no  warrior  in  the  heat  of  fight 

Do  what  may  bring  him  shame  in  others'  eyes." 

Gray  Avill  not  be  remembered  so  much  for  his  History  of  Oregon  as  for  the 
facts  and  experiences  which  made  the  book.  While  he  may  not  have  planned 
the  battle  at  Old  Champoeg  on  May  2,  1843,  he  was  undoubtedly  one  of  the 
most  active  partisans  of  the  American  cause  at  that  history -making  contest.  Mr. 
Gray  was  imbued  with  the  idea  that  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company  was  scheming 
to  beat  the  United  States  out  of  Oregon  Territory,  and  that  the  Catholic  church 
was  partner  in  the  scheme.  And  so  impressed,  he  was  big  with  an  irrepressible 
disposition  to  give  battle  to  these  recognized  opponents  of  American  occupation 
of  the  country,  whenever  an  opportunity  offered. 

Samuel  A.  Clarke's  "Pioneer  Days  of  Oregon  History"  is  one  of  the  first 
and  best  contributions  to  Oregon  history,  because  Mr.  Clarke  writes  of  matters 
' '  all  of  which  he  saw  and  much  of  which  he  was  a  part. ' '  Mr.  Clarke  was  essen- 
tially a  literary  man  with  versatile  tastes  and  talents.  He  could  write  history, 
poetry  and  magazine  articles,  and  edit  a  political  newspaper  or  a  farmer's 
journal  equally  well.  He  was  editor  of  the  Daily  Oregonian  for  a  time,  editor 
of  the  Oregon  Statesman  for  years,  and  editor  and  proprietor  of  the  Willamette 
Farmer  when  that  journal  had  a  larger  sirculation  than  any  other  agricultural 
paper  ever  published  in  Oregon. 

Brown  's  Political  History.  The  documentary  and  political  history  of  Ore- 
gon, from  the  treaty  between  Great  Britain  and  Spain  signed  in  October  1790, 
down  to  the  organization  of  Oregon  Territory  in  1848,  prepared  by  J.  Henry 
Brown,  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  additions  to  the  history  of  Oregon.  Brown 
was  a  printer,  and  conceived  the  idea  of  compiling  all  the  official  documents, 
treaties,  laws  and  letters  relating  to  the  protracted  negotiations  between  the 
United  States,  England  and  other  nations  for  the  possession  of  the  old  Oregon 
territory.  With  the  help  of  a  friend  he  succeeded  in  publishing  one  volume 
covering  the  period  above  named,  but  ill  health  and  want  of  means  pravented 
him  from  completing  his  long  cherished  purpose. 


•TcP 


^^   ^^J^^,.<^ 


^C^4^'^-^ 


,:i»y^^^^^ 


I^^^^:::.^^ 


^^jo^.  :>  -^>^  ^^o^v^ 


(T^^ 


73 


/f^ypt^ 


tC^^^ 


a. 


r6 


^j:^ 


/y^^^^ 


77 


7V  <3    c7<5?.    ^7<^c^c^ 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  623 

Lyman's  History  of  Okegon.  This  is  an  elaborate  work  in  four  volumes  pre- 
pared by  Horace  Lyman  in  the  year  1903,  and  for  which  Messrs.  Ilai-vey  \V. 
S<'()tt.  V.  15.  Bellinger  and  \V.  1).  Kenton  stand  as  spon.sors.  The  work  was  pre- 
l):ircd  wilh  Ihat  care  which  cliar.ulrri/.ed  all  of  Mr.  Lyman's  literary  work.  The 
sou  of  the  pioneer  minister  and  college  professor,  Rev.  Horace  Lyman,  Sr.,  aud  a 
graduate  of  the  pioneer  college  at  Forest  Grove,  iMr.  Lyman  was  endowed  with 
that  enthusiasm  for  the  old  pioneers  which  prepared  him  to  comprehend  and 
appreciate  the  character  and  great  work  of  the  pioneers,  and  to  fully  and  faith- 
fully portray  their  services  to  the  state  in  his  history.  Mr.  Lyman  spent  years  in 
traveling  about  interviewing  the  old  pioneers  in  their  homes  and  getting  their 
story  of  Oregon  from  first  hands,  much  of  it  given  to  the  world  in  his  work, 
and  much  more  published  in  the  Quarterly  of  the  Oregon  Historical  Society. 

HiMES  AND  Lang  's  History,  generally  known  as  Himes '  history  of  the  Wil- 
lamette Valley,  was  prepared  and  published  in  the  year  1885  by  George  H.  Himes 
and  H.  0.  Lang.  Mr.  Himes  had  been  then,  and  is  yet,  an  indefatigable  collector 
of  historical  material  for  the  Pioneer  Society  and  Historical  Society  of  Oregon; 
and  Mr.  Lang  acted  more  as  an  editor  of  this  material  than  as  an  historian  of 
Oregon.  The  work  contains  over  900  pages  of  historical  matter,  one-third  of 
which  is  biographical;  and  the  highest  compliment  the  author  of  this  volume 
can  pay  to  his  predecessor  and  co-laborer  herein,  is  to  work  out  the  Centennial 
History  on  the  plans  of  Himes  and  Lang.  For  first  hand  sketches  of  the 
old  pioneers  the  Himes'  history  is  invaluable,  and  in  this  matter  will  always  be 
accepted  as  standard  authority. 

HiNEs'  History  op  Methodism.  This  is  the  standard  authority  upon  the 
early  history  of  Methodism  in  Oregon.  Harvey  K.  Hines  was  one  of  the  pioneer 
Methodist  missionaries,  and  shared  in  all  their  trials,  labors,  victories  and  disap- 
pointments in  their  grand  scheme  of  civilizing  and  Christianizing  the  native 
Indians.  He  lived  to  see  and  enjoy  in  an  honored  old  age  the  fruits  of  his  labor 
and  the  happiness  of  having  largely  contributed  to  making  his  church  the 
dominant  factor  in  the  religious  and  educational  work  of  the  state.  These  old 
servants  of  the  church  who  gave  up  all,  and  sacrificed  all  to  promote  the  welfare 
of  their  fellow  men,  are  worthy  of  and  richly  deserve  the  honor  and  veneration 
of  posterity. 

Holman's  McLoughlin,  is  a  biographical  sketch  of  the  life  and  woi:k  of  John 
McLoughlin.  There  can  be  vei-y  little  history  of  pioneer  Oregon  written  without 
giving  large  space  to  the  subject  of  Mr.  Holman''s  sketch.  But  to  establish  the 
conviction,  and  the  record,  that  John  McLoughlin  was  the  greatest  of  the  pio- 
neers, and  in  fact  "Father  of  Oregon,"  has  been  a  labor  of  love  with  Frederick 
v.  Holman,  president  of  the  Oregon  Historical  Society.  That  IMr.  Holman  was 
amply  equipped  to  say  the  last  word  on  the  character  and  position  of  his  hero 
in  the  history  of  the  state,  is  evident  from  the  facts  that  he  is  a  pioneer  himself, 
the  son  of  a  pioneer,  and  the  owner  of  many  historical  books,  pamphlets  and 
published  writings  relating  to  the  history  of  this  state.  The  book  was  prepared 
and  published  in  first-class  style  at  large  expense,  and  with  no  idea  of  ever  getting 
remuneration  for  the  work  in  any  other  way  than  the  satisfaction  of  rendering 
justice  to  the  name,  fame  and  good  works  of  a  most  honorable,  unselfish  and 
worthy  man.  For  doing  this  public  service  to  the  state,  and  to  one  of  its  chief 
founders,  if  not  the  chief  of  all  founders,  Mr.  Holman  deserves  the  thanks  of  all 
good  citizens,  and  every  man  and  woman  who  loves  justice. 


624  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Other  Writers  op  History.  Oregon  has  had  many  contributors  to  the 
record  of  its  history  who  have  not  printed  their  works  in  books ;  but  not  the  less 
valuable  for  that  reason.  The  Oregon  Pioneer  and  Historical  Societies  have 
been  the  stimulus  to  many  writers,  who,  but  for  the  aid  and  encouragement 
which  these  associations  afforded,  would  never  have  given  to  posterity  the  great 
mass  of  incident  and  facts  which  make  up  the  unique  history  of  this  state.  The 
most  active  and  effective  among  these  collectors  and  interpreters  of  Oregon 
history  have  been  Professors  Yoimg  and  Schafer,  of  the  State  University,  Prof. 
Horner,  of  the  Agricultural  College,  and  Prof.  Robertson,  of  Pacific  University, 
and  to  the  writings  of  all  these  men  this  work  is  greatly  indebted. 

The  Editors.  With  three  exceptions  the  notice  of  the  editorial  fraternity  in 
this  Avork  will  be  limited  to  men  who  have  fought  their  battle,  run  their  race 
and  passed  over  the  Great  Divide.  And  they  are  noticed  here  only  incidentally 
to  illustrate  the  power  of  the  press  as  an  educator. 

It  has  long  been  current  thought  that  the  newspaper  has  a  large  influence  in 
moulding  the  opinions  of  men  and  their  action  in  organized  parties.  And  this 
influence  of  the  press  was  far  more  pronounced  and  effective  in  the  early  days 
of  Oregon  than  it  is  now.  The  reason  for  this  is  easily  found.  When  the  Oregon 
Spectator  and  Free  Press  were  struggling  for  existence  at  Oregon  City,  and  the 
Statesman  was  barely  paying  expenses  at  Salem,  and  Tom  Dryer  was  half 
starving  with  the  Oregonian  in  Portland,  there  were  no  full  page  department 
store  advertisements,  no  street  railway  and  electric  light  subsidies,  and  no  boom 
town  paid  for  reading  matter  in  the  Oregon  papers.  Editors  and  proprietors 
looked  to  their  subscribers  and  very  meagre  advertising  for  their  support.  They 
honestly  advocated  their  own  views  of  the  right  and  wrong  of  all  public  ques- 
tions; and  the  people  took  them  for  what  they  professed  to  be;  and  the  editor 
in  the  old  days  was  a  power  in  the  land.  Now  this  is  all  changed.  The  editor 
and  publisher  looks  to  his  advertisers  and  not  to  his  readers  for  his  expenses  and 
proflts.  The  business  office  on  important  questions  controls  the  editorial  chair; 
the  boom  town  advertiser  must  have  his  write  up ;  the  swindling  orchard  com- 
pany pays  for  roping  in  its  victims ;  the  public  service  corporation  is  represented 
as  a  purely  benevolent  enterprise  not  fully  understood ;  every  trash  theatre  is  the 
greatest  show  on  earth,  and  the  press  is  gauged  accordingly. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  this  venality  of  both  patron  and  press,  the  newspaper 
is  withal  the  most  powerful  agent  of  education  in  forming  the  common  mind 
at  the  present  day.  It  is  a  mirror  of  everything  being  talked  about  or  being 
done.  Good,  bad,  and  indifferent,  all  goes  into  the  newspaper  hopper  and  is 
ground  out  in  the  most  palatable  form  to  please  the  fancy  and  eater  to  the 
taste  of  every  sort  of  a  man  and  woman.    It  is  this  education 

"That  forms  the  common  mind. 

Just  as  the  twig  is  bent,  the  tree's  inclined." 

And  it  is  this  education,  everywhere  in  vogue  in  the  large  cities  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  which  has  enabled  corrupt  politicians  to  loot  the  tax- 
payers of  the  municipalities  as  the  gambler  robs  his  imbecile  victim.  The  news- 
papers of  the  pioneer  era  of  Oregon  would  quarrel  and  fight  about  seeming 
trifles,  but  they  would  not  "sell  out." 


-^•5- 


/f ^ky£^^*^'^yL/AA<My^^-^ 


^400 
^//  -rof 

JOS' 


J^rn^Or^-^   -^.^'^^.'Mt--^ 


/07 


Muz 


fo8 


^/o 


>//  O- 


J^  tA<:Ly-ftu^ 


'^-^7^  S^a^ZC^^    ,0.s 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  625 

The  first  printing  press  was  brought  to  Oregon  from  the  Sandwich  Islands  in 
1839,  having  been  sent  to  the  American  Board  missionaries  in  the  Islands  from 
Boston  between  1821  and  1830.  This  little  press,  with  its  type  was  carried  from 
Vancouver  up  the  Columbia  river  to  Wai-il-et-pu  in  a  eanoe  in  April,  1839; 
and  from  that  point  it  was  carried  on  pack  animals  to  Lapwai  missionary- 
station  on  Clearwater  river  above  Lewiston,  where  it  was  set  up  on  May  18, 
1839,  and  the  first  proof  sheet  ever  taken  off  a  printing  press  in  Old  Oregon 
territory  was  struck  off.  The  first  printing  done  on  the  press  was  400  copies  of  a 
dictionary  of  the  Nez  Perce  language. 

This  press  was  afterwards  sent  down  to  Old  Wascopum  (The  Dalles),  where 
it  laid  in  the  mission  house  for  two  years,  and  after  the  Whitman  massacre 
it  was  sent  to  Rev.  John  S.  GrifBn's  farm  near  Hillsboro,  where  Griffin  issued 
eight  numbers  of  a  magazine  called  the  "Oregon  American  and  Evangelical 
Unionist, ' '  in  the  year  1848. 

Charles  F.  Putnam,  who  came  to  Oregon  in  1846,  was  the  printer  of  this  pub- 
lication, and  taught  his  wife,  Rozelle  Applegate  Putnam,  the  oldest  daughter  of 
Jesse  Applegate,  who  came  to  Oregon  in  1843,  how  to  set  type ;  thus  she  became 
the  first  woman  compositor  on  the  Pacific  coast. 

The  first  newspaper  devoted  to  secular  affairs  was  issued  at  Oregon  City, 
Feb.  5,  1846,  by  the  Oregon  Printing  Association,  of  which  W.  G.  T 'Vault  was 
president,  J.  W.  Nesmith,  vice-president,  John  P.  Brooks,  secretary,  George 
Abernethy,  treasurer,  and  Robert  Newell,  John  E.  Long  and  Capt.  J.  H.  Couch 
were  directors.  T 'Vault  was  the  editor  of  this  first  newspaper  in  Old  Oregon. 
Col.  T 'Vault  was  a  unique  character;  and  while  he  was  editing  this  first  Oregon 
newspaper  he  was  also  postmaster  general  under  the  provisional  government  and 
started  the  post  office  department  of  the  government  with  a  capital  of  fifty 
dollars.  But  Oregon  soon  got  too  large  for  one  newspaper,  and  George  L.  Curry, 
afterwards  governor  of  Oregon,  and  whose  sons  now  reside  in  Portland,  started 
the  "Free  Press"  at  Oregon  City,  sailing  under  the  patriotic  standard  of 

"Here  shall  the  press  the  people's  rights  maintain, 

Uuawed  by  influence,  and  unbribed  by  gain." 

Mr.  Curry  had  neither  type  nor  press,  but  bought  or  borrowed  a  few  fonts 
of  French  type  from  the  Canadians,  that  had  no  iv's  and  made  a  press  out  of 
lumber,  and  whittled  his  w's  out  of  hard  wood  with  a  pen  knife;  and  issued 
the  fii-st  number  of  the  "Free  Press"  in  March,  1848.  In  1853  Editor  Curry 
was  appointed  secretary  of  Oregon  Territory  by  President  Pierce;  soon  became 
acting  governor  upon  the  resignation  of  Gov.  Lane;  and  when  John  "W.  Davis 
was  appointed  to  succeed  Lane,  Gov.  Curry  became  secretary  under  Davis;  and 
when  Davis  resigned  as  governor  in  1854,  serving  only  a  few  months,  Curry 
became  acting  governor  of  Oregon  for  the  second  time,  and  was  in  a  short  time 
appointed  by  President  Pierce  governor  de  facto;  having  been  in  substance 
three  times  governor  of  Oregon. 

The  first  daily  paper  in  Oregon  was  started  at  Portland  by  S.  A.  English 
and  Wm.  B.  Taylor  on  April  18,  1859,  and  named  "Portland  Daily  News." 
Its  first  editor  was  Alonzo  Leland,  who  was  soon  succeeded  bj'  E.  D.  Shattuck, 
who  came  to  be  the  most  useful,  reliable  and  honored  judge  of  the  circuit  court 
ever  holding  the  office  in  Multnomah  county. 


626  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Returning  to  the  pioneer  ' '  Spectator, "  it  is  found  to  have  rim  a  life  and 
death  struggle  for  existence  for  over  ten  years — suspending  publication  several 
times — and  finally  permanently  suspended  in  March,  1855.  Soon  after  this  the 
plant  was  purchased  by  W.  L.  Adams,  of  Yamhill  county,  a  pioneer  of  1848, 
who  started  the  "Argus."  Mr.  Adams  was  much  like  T 'Vault,  a  remarkable 
character,  but  with  more  common  sense,  a  caustic,  bitter,  sarcastic  writer  and 
always  ready  for  battle.  The  most  important  and  useful  act  in  the  editorial 
career  of  Mr.  Adams  was  his  introduction  of  D.  "W.  Craig  to  Oregon  journalism. 
Mr.  Craig,  born  near  Maysville,  Kentucky,  and  now  living  at  Salem,  is  a  third 
cousin  of  the  noted  Confederate  general  of  the  Civil  war — Jubal  Early.  But 
notwithstanding  his  southern  birth,  parentage  and  associations,  transplanted  to 
Oregon  he  became  virtually  the  founder  of  the  republican  party  in  Oregon. 
While  working  on  the  Argus  he  composed  and  set  in  type  in  the  same  act,  the 
editorials  which  made  "Billy  Adams"  famous  and  generated  the  political  senti- 
ment which  culminated  in  the  organization  of  the  republican  party  in  this 
state.  In  1859  Craig  became  the  owner  of  the  Argus,  and  in  1863,  consolidated 
the  paper  with  the  Oregon  Statesman  which  had  been  founded  by  Asahel  Bush. 

Of  the  pioneer  newspaper  men  Asahel  Bush,  founder  of  the  Oregon  States- 
man, still  living  at  Salem,  a  millionaire  banker,  and  Thos.  J.  Dryer,  founder 
of  the  Oregonian,  were  the  most  influential  factors  in  the  politics  of  Oregon 
from  1850  down  to  the  election  of  Lincoln  in  1860.  The  election  of  Lincoln 
resulted  in  giving  two  Oregon  editors  good  jobs — W.  L.  Adams,  was  appointed 
collector  of  customs  at  Astoria,  and  Dryer,  United  States  commissioner  to  the 
Sandwich  Islands.  Dryer  will  be  remembered  in  Oregon  history  as  the  founder 
of  the  Oregonian,  although  in  this  he  had  the  financial  support  of  Stephen 
Coffin  and  W.  W.  Chapman,  both  interested  in  the  Portland  townsite.  Dryer 
was  a  hard  worker,  a  good  fighter,  and  mentally  able  to  hold  his  own  both  as 
an  editor  and  popular  stump  speaker.  Asahel  Bush  was  a  difi'erent  man.  A 
dangerous  antagonist  in  the  editorial  columns,  he  could  plan  a  political  cam- 
paign for  one  or  five  years,  and  move  the  local  politicians  around  to  serve  his 
purpose  quite  as  easily  as  the  master  of  the  chessboard  could  move  his  pawns. 
He  was  the  founder  and  'manager  of  the  famous  ' '  Salem  Clique, ' '  the  head  and 
front  of  the  Douglas  democracy,  and  the  man  that  oiled  the  machineiy  that 
sent  General  E.  D.  Baker  and  James  W.  Nesmith  to  the  United  States  senate, 
in  spite  of  all  opposition  in  1860.  These  two  senators  represented  the  "insur- 
gency" of  the  republican  and  Douglas  democratic  parties  fifty  years  ago,  as 
against  the  whiggery  and  pro-slavery  democracy  then  passing  down  to  the  tombs 
of  the  Capulets. 

The  school  master  of  the  Press  of  Oregon — the  one  great  comprehensive  mind 
of  the  two  generations  of  men  since  the  Spectator  made  its  editorial  bow — was 
Harvey  Whitfield  Scott.  Mr.  Scott  was  a  voracious  absorber  and  consumer  of 
all  other  men's  thoughts,  writings  and  works.  He  was  equipped  by  nature  to  do 
a  great  work.  He  read  all  history,  poetry,  commentary  and  philosophy,  embodied 
it  in  his  own  mental  resources  and  freely  gave  it  out  modified  to  suit  the  hour 
and  promote  his  own  purpose.  Positive,  impatient,  energetic,  indefatigable  and 
aggressive,  he  pushed  his  ideas  of  political  economy,  social  responsibility  and 
public  policy  with  a  vigor  and  ability  which  has  given  the  Oregonian  all  the 
reputation  it  has; — and  that  is  nation-wide,  and  equal  to  any  other  newspaper 


•lOAOl  IN    MILI.Ki; 


*8T0R,  LENOX  ANt) 

TILDEM  FOUNDATION'., 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  627 

iu  the  forty-eight  states  of  the  Union.  Prom  the  nature  and  fiber  of  his  constitu- 
tion Mv.  Seott  was  compelled  to  make  war  upon  the  free  coinage  of  silver  and 
issues  of  legal  tender  paper  currenej'  as  substitutes  for  gold  coin  money.  His 
service  as  an  educator  in  this  regard  was  the  great  achievement  of  his  career. 
But  in  every  phase  of  public  opinion,  or  proposed  social  or  political  reform,  Har- 
vey Scott  was  the  leading  factor  in  Oregon  for  forty  years.  And  because  of  this, 
and  his  uncompromising  manner  of  pressing  his  arguments  and  opinions,  he 
excited  the  opposition  of  those  who  disagreed  with  him  to  the  extent  that  his 
party  could  never  give  him  the  recognition  or  honors  to  which  his  ability  and 
his  services  entitled  him. 

Of  the  pioneer  editors  and  newspaper  educators  yet  living,  and  to  be  noticed 
here,  is  Harrison  R.  Kincaid,  of  Eugene,  founder,  editor  and  proprietor  of  the 
Oregon  State  Journal.  For  more  than  forty-five  years  Mr.  Kincaid  and  his 
Journal  were  a  power  in  Oregon  politics  and  educational  affairs,  aiding  largely 
in  the  establishment  of  the  State  University,  and  building  up  Lane  county 
and  the  state.  And  by  reason  of  being  one  of  the  secretaries  of  the  United 
States  senate  for  many  years,  and  afterwards  secretary  of  state  for  the 
state  of  Oregon.  Mr.  Kincaid 's  acquaintance  and  associations  with  the  public 
men  of  his  state  and  of  congi-ess  has  been  larger  than  that  of  any  other  citizen 
of  the  state,  and  by  means  thereof  has  largely  aided  in  securing  from  congress 
great  aid  to  Oregon  educational  institutions  and  internal  improvements.  In 
connection  with  this  notice,  and  as  an  incident  of  educational  and  political 
history,  is  given  a  series  of  original  autographs  never  before  published,  and 
which  cannot  be  found  elsewhere,  of  presidents,  senators  and  congressmen,  which 
but  for  this  work  would  never  have  been  preserved  and  published.  Mr.  Kin- 
caid's  activities  in  this  connection  covers  practically  the  first  half  century  after 
the  close  of  the  pioneer  period,  and  might  be  called  an  autograph  history  of 
that  period  while  Oregon  was  making  its  place  as  the  first  of  the  states  in  the 
so-called  progressive  ideas  and  schemes  of  the  times. 

AUTOGRAPH  HISTORY 

The  following  autograph  letter  and  index  is  inserted  here  for  the  convenience 
of  the  general  reader. 

(Engraved  copy  of  Kincaid 's  letter.) 

1 — James  Buchanan,  fifteenth  president  of  the  United  States. 

2 — Andrew  Johnson,  seventeenth  president. 

3 — Jefferson  Davis,  president  of  the  Confederate  States  of  America. 

4 — Stephen  A.  Douglas,  familiarly  known   as  the  "Little   Giant" — senator 

fxom  Illinois.  1847-1859. 
5 — Samuel  Houston,  member  of  Congress,  1823 ;  governor  of  Tennessee,  1827 ; 
captured  Texas  from  Mexico,  1836;  U.  S.  senator  from  Texas,  1845;  gov- 
ernor of  Texas,  1859;  and  supported  the  Union  and  Lincoln  when  Texas 
seceded  in  1860 — died  in  1862. 
6 — Thomas  J.  Rusk,  secretary  of  war  of  republic  of  Texas;  commanded  the 
Texas  army  after  Houston  was  wounded;  U.  S.  senator  from  Texas,  1845. 


628  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

7 — Thomas  H.  Benton,  U.  S.  senator  from  Missouri,  1821-1831;  familiarly 
called  sometimes  the  "Lion  of  the  West,"  and  sometimes  "Old  Bullion" 
(from  his  advocacy  of  metal  money) — and  always  the  steadfast  friend  of 
Oregon. 
8 — James  Semple,  U.  S.  senator  from  Illinois  in  1843-1847 ;  and  friend  of  Ore- 
gon and  the  Oregon  pioneers. 
9 — Daniel  Webster,  the  great  constitutional  lawyer,  secretary  of  state  under 
President  Tyler — familiarly  called — "The  god-like  Daniel." 
10 — Lewis  Cass,  U.  S.  senator  from  Michigan,  1847-1849 ;  brigadier  general  in 
War  of  1812 ;  secretary  of  state  to  President  Buchanan,  and  the  first  states- 
man to  suggest  the  doctrine  of  "Popular  Sovereignty"  in  the  new  terri- 
tories. 

11 — David  Wilmot,  member  of  Congress  from  Pennsylvania  in  1844-48,  and 
while  in  Congress  proposed  the  "Wilmot  Proviso,"  which  declared,  "That 
as  an  express  and  fundamental  condition  to  the  acquisition  of  any  terri- 
tory from  Mexico  by  the  United  States,  neither  slavery  or  involuntary  serv- 
itude shall  ever  exist  in  any  part  thereof. ' '  And  over  this  ' '  Proviso ' '  the 
battle  between  the  anti-slavery  and  pro-slavery  men  raged  until  after  the 
acquisition  of  Texas  and  California.    Senator,  1861-1863. 

12 — John  M.  Clayton,  United  States  senator  from  Delaware,  1829-1836;  chief 
justice  of  that  state,  1839 ;  United  States  senator  again  in  1849 ;  Secretary 
of  State  to  President  Zaehary  Taylor,  and  negotiated  the  celebrated  Clay- 
ton-Bulwer  treaty  with  England  in  1850,  and  was  again  sent  to  the  senate 
in  1853-1856. 

13 — James  A.  Garfield,  the  twentieth  President;  assassinated  while  in  oiSce  by 
Gitteau. 

14 — Wm.  McKinley,  twenty-fifth  President,  assassinated  in  his  second  term  of 
office  and  succeeded  by  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

15 — Columbus  Delano,  member  of  Congress  from  Ohio,  and  secretary  of  the 
Interior  to  President  Grant. 

16 — Benjamin  Franklin  Wade,  United  States  senator  from  Ohio,  1857-1868,  a 
bitter  anti-slavery  man,  and  called  ' '  bluff:  Ben  Wade. ' ' 

17 — James  A.  Blaine,  member  of  Congress  and  United  States  senator  from 
Maine,  and  Republican  candidate  for  the  Presidency  in  1889. 

18 — John  Sherman,  United  States  senator  from  Ohio  for  eighteen  years  and 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  President  Grant. 

19 — Schuyler  Colfax,  member  of  Congress  from  Indiana  for  eighteen  years, 
vice  president  with  President  Grant,  and  author  of  the  "Degree  of  Re- 
becca" in  Odd  Fellowship. 

20 — Thaddeus  Stevens — the  great  anti-slavery  leader  in  Congress  from  Pennsyl- 
vania— called  ' '  Old  Thad  Stevens. ' ' 

21 — Oliver  P.  Morton — ^War  governor  of  Indiana,  United  States  senator  from 
that  state,  and  one  of  the  committee  visiting  Portland  in  1872  to  investigate 
the  election  of  Gov.  Grover  to  the  senate  from  Oregon. 

22 — Benjamin  P.  Butler,  of  Massachusetts,  a  great  lawyer,  the  major  general 
of  the  Union  army  who  first  set  the  slaves  to  work  for  the  Union  under  the 
name  of  ' '  contrabands ; ' '  and  afterwards  captured  New  Orleans  and  tamed 
the  "fire-eaters"  of  the  South. 


i.MK  nllF.coN   IMiKI'; 


June  Macilillan 
Mrs.  M.  L.  T.  Hidden 


Saiiiiicl  I..  Simpson 
Klla   Hitr'nnson 


PUBLIC     Lit 


T^'LOEH   FOUNDATlONe. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  629 

23 — Nathaniel  1'.  Banks— inomber  of  Cougruss  from  ilassacliiisetts,  and  a  major 
general  in  the  Uiiiou  armies. 

24 — George  P.  Edmunds,  United  States  senator  from  Vermont,  1870,  and 
chairman  of  the  judiciary  committee  of  the  senate. 

25— Lot  M.  Alorrill,  United  States  senator  from  Maine  for  two  terms,  1863  to 
1875,  governor  of  Maine,  1860.  Justin  S.  Morrill,  author  of  the  Morrill 
tariff,  was  a  senator  from  Vermont  at  the  same  time. 

26 — Asa  Biggs,  member  of  Congress  of  North  Carolina. 

28— William  H.  Seward,  Secretary  of  State  under  Lincoln  and  Johnson- 
purchased  Alaska  of  Russia. 

29 — Salmon  P.  Chase,  governor  of  and  United  States  senator  from  Ohio; 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  under  Lincoln  and  raised  the  money  to  put  down 
the  southern  rebellion  ;  and  lastly  chief  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States. 

30— Charles  Sumner  —  the  great  anti-slavery  United  States  senator  from 
Massachusetts. 

31 — Hannibal  Hamlin,  vice  president  of  the  United  States  with  Lincoln,  and 
was  congressman  and  senator  from  Maine  before  election  as  vice  president. 

32— James  Shields,  born  in  Tyrone  county,  Ireland,  1810;  served  in  Mexican 
war  as  brigadier  general;  United  States  senator  from  Illnois  in  1849, 
and  from  Minnesota  in  1857 ;  major  general  in  Union  army  and  defeated 
the  rebel  General  Stonewall  Jackson  in  a  pitched  battle  in  Virginia  in 
1862. 

33 — Henry  Wilson,  United  States  senator  from  Massachusetts  in  1870.  He 
opposed  the  admission  of  Oregon  into  the  Union  in  1859. 

34 — Robert  Toombs,  from  Georgia,  1855. 

35 — Simon  Cameron,  United  States  senator  from  Pennsylvania  for  four  terms, 
first  secretary  of  war  under  Lincoln. 

36 — Pierre  Soule,  United  States  senator  from  Louisiana  in  1847. 

37- — John  Bell,  six  times  a  congressman  from  Tennessee;  speaker  of  the  house 
of  representatives ;  twice  United  States  senator ;  secretary  of  war  to  Presi- 
dent Harrison;  candidate  for  President  in  1860  on  the  "native  American 
ticket." 

38 — R.  M.  T.  Hunter,  member  of  Congress  and  United  States  senator  from 
Virginia,  secretary  of  state  to  the  Southern  Confederacy,  and  a  senator 
in  the  senate  of  the  Southern  Confederacy. 

39 — Arthur  P.  Bagby,  a  United  States  senator  from  Alabama  in  1842  to  1849. 

iO — David  R.  Atchison,  a  United  States  senator  from  Missouri  in  1835;  took 
sides  with  Calhoun  against  Benton  on  the  slavery  question,  and  took  a 
leading  part  in  the  bloody  work  of  driving  free-state  men  out  of  Kansas 
in  1856. 

41 — Benjamin  Pitzpatrick,  governor  of  Alabama  from  1841  to  1845,  and 
United  States  senator  from  1848  to  1859. 

42 — William  Windom.  born  in  the  same  town  and  in  the  same  house  as  the 
author  of  this  book  (Lloydsville.  Belmont  county.  Ohio),  removed  to  Min- 
nesota in  youth,  became  governor,  member  of  Congress.  United  States 
senator  from  that  state,  and  secretary  of  the  treasury  under  two  presi- 
dents. 


630  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

43 — Alexander  Ramsey,  a  pioneer  governor  of  Minnesota,  one  of  the  found- 
ers of  the  city  of  St.  Paul,  and  afterwards  United  States  senator. 

44 — James  Harlan,  a  United  States  senator  from  Iowa  in  1862. 

45 — James  W.  Grimes,  a  United  States  senator  from  Iowa,  1860. 

46 — ^William  B.  Allison,  another  United  States  senator  from  Iowa. 

47 — Sidney   Breese,    a   United   States   senator   from   Illinois. 

48 — Shelby  M.  GuUom,  United  States  senator  from  Illinois. 

48 — John  Wentworth,  known  as  "Long  John,"  from  his  great  height;  a 
great  friend  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  member  of  Congress  from  Chicago,  and 
mayor  of  that  city  for  many  years. 

50 — Jesse  D.  Bright,  an  influential  United  States  senator  from  the  state  of 
Indiana  who  was  expelled  from  that  body  in  1861  for  treasonable  corre- 
spondence with  Jefferson  Davis,  president  of  the  Southern  Confederacy. 

51 — Henry  S.  Lane,  member  of  Congress,  governor  and  United  States  sena- 
tor from  Indiana,  1861. 
52 — Garrett  Davis,  United  States  senator  from  Kentucky,  1862. 
52^ — Lyman  Trumbull,  one  of  the  ablest  statesmen  that  ever  honored  a  seat 
in  the  United   States  senate.     Represented  Illinois  in  the  senate  when 
Williams  represented  Oregon. 

53 — Richard   Yates,   governor   of,    and   United   States   senator   from   Illinois. 

54— Jacob  Collamer,  chief  justice  of,  and  United  States  senator  from  Ver- 
mont ;  postmaster  general  in  18 — 

55 — Solomon  Foot,  member  of  Congress  in  1842,  and  United  States  senator 
from  Vermont  from  1856  to  1862. 

56 — James  M.  Howard,  a  United  States  senator  from  Michigan  in  1866  to 
1872. 

57 — Timothy  0.  Howe,  a  United  States  senator  from  Wisconsin  in  1861. 

58 — Your  guess?  Our  guess  is  Daniel  S.  Dickinson,  who  was  United  States 
senator  from  New  York  from  1844  to  1851.  He  was  the  leader  of  the 
"Hunker"  Democrats,  an  able  debator,  an  adroit  politician,  and  to  New 
York  what  J.  H.  Mitchell  was  to  Oregon. 

59 — Preston  King,  a  United  States  senator  from  New  York. 

60 — Roscoe  Conkling,  the  United  States  senator  from  New  York  who  advo 
cated  a  third  term  for  President  Grant. 

61 — -Wm.  Pitt  Fessenden,  a  United  States  senator  from  Maine,  and  secretary 
of  the  United  States  treasury. 

62 — John  W.  Forney,  secretary  of  the  United  States  senate  in  1870,  and 
founder  of  the  ' '  Philadelphia  Press. ' ' 

63 — James  Cooper,  United  States  senator  from  Pennsylvania  in  1850,  and 
brigadier  general  in  the  Union  army. 

64 — Oakes  Ames,  member  of  Congress  from  Massachusetts,  and  promoter  of 
Union  Pacific  railroad. 

65 — ^Wm.  D.  Kelley,  member  of  Congress  from  Pennsylvania  and  great  high 
tariff  advocate,  getting  the  name  in  Congress  of  ' '  pig-iron  Kelley. ' ' 

66 — Reverdy  Johnson,  United  States  senator  from  Maryland,  and  attorney  gen- 
eral under  President  Taylor — great  lawyer. 

67 — John  A.  J.  Cresswell,  senator  and  member  of  Congress  from  Maryland,  and 
post  master  general  in  1869. 


^<> 


...-^^  -^S^\? 


Right  Hand^ENNIE  LIND,  the  great  singer  nf  ls:,(),  .Irrs^cd  in  Ihi^  f;iNlii..ii  ni  tluit  day 
Left  Hand — Ladv  in  fasliion  of  1912 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  631 

68 — A.  Kennedy,  member  of  Congress"  from  Maryland. 

69 — John  P.  Hale,  one  of  the  first  anti-slavery  men  sent  to  the  United  States 
senate  from  New  Hampshire.  He  was  the  candidate  of  the  "Liberty"  party 
for  the  presidency  in  1852,  receiving  155,000  votes. 

70— John  C.  TenEyck,  United  States  senator  from  New  Jersey  in  1859. 

71 — Waitman  T.  Willey,  United  States  senator  from  West  Virginia,  and  gov- 
ernor of  that  state. 

73 — S.  C.  Pomeroy,  a  United  States  senator  from  J\ansas  who  having  actively 
solicited  aid  for  the  people  when  their  crops  failed,  acquired  the  name  of 
■ '  Beans  Pomeroy. ' '    He  was  not  a  great  statesman. 

74 — H.  Johnson,  a  senator  from  Louisiana,  1845. 

75 — Alexander  Barrow,  a  senator  from  Louisiana  in  1841. 

76 — John  MacPherson  Berrien,  attorney  general  of  the  United  States  under 
President  Andrew  Jackson;  and  twice  elected  United  States  senator  from 
the  state  of  Georgia. 

77 — John  B.  Henderson,  a  United  States  senator  from  Missouri  in  1862. 

78 — Chester  Ashley,  United  States  senator  from  Arkansas  in  1845 ;  an  able 
lawyer,  and  chairman  of  the  judiciary  committee  of  the  Senate. 

79 — Willard  Saulsbury,  United  States  senator  from  Delaware  for  eighteen 
years,  acting  with  the  extreme  pro-slavery  wing  of  the  Democratic  party. 

80 — Richard  W.  Johnson,  born  in  Kentucky  in  1827,  graduated  at  West  Point 
in  1849,  United  States  senator  from  Arkansas  in  1858,  took  sides  with  the 
Union  in  the  Civil  War,  joined  the  Union  army  and  commanded  a  division 
at  the  battle  of  Stone  River,  and  served  under  General  Sherman  in  1864. 

81 — J.  Speight,  United  States  senator  from  Mississippi  in  1845. 

82 — William  Upham,  United  States  senator  from  Vermont  in  1849. 

83 — J.  T.  Morehead,  a  member  of  Congress  from  Pennsylvania. 

84 — S.  R.  Mallory,  a  United  States  senator  from  Florida  in  1855  ;  and  secretary 
of  the  navy  of  the  Confederate  States  from  1861  to  1865. 

85 — Dixon  H.  Lewis,  member  of  Congress  and  United  States  senator  from 
Georgia  from  1830  to  1848. 

86 — Thomas  L.  Cliugman,  member  of  Congress  and  United  States  senator  from 
North  Carolina  from  1873  to  1858. 

87 — W.  K.  Sebastian,  United  States  senator  from  Arkansas. 

88 — Clement  C.  Clay,  born  in  Virginia  in  1789,  moved  to  Alabama  in  1812, 
elected  governor  of  that  state  in  1835 ;  and  United  States  senator  in  1837. 
His  son,  Clement  C.  Clay,  Jr.,  was  elected  United  States  senator  from 
Alabama  in  1853  and  in  1857,  and  a  senator  of  the  Southern  Confederacj' 
in  1861.     The  autograph  is  that  of  the  son. 

89 — Jackson  Morton,  United  States  senator  from  Florida  in  1854. 

90 — -John  A.  Kasson,  a  prominent  member  of  congress  from  Iowa  for  many 
years,  and  minister  to  Barraboolagay. 

91 — Spencer  Jarnigal,  United  States  senator  from  Tennessee  in  1844. 

92 — Henry  J.  Raymond,  born  in  Livingston  county,  New  York,  in  1820;  asso- 
ciate editor  New  York  Courier  in  1843 ;  founded  New  York  Times  in  1851 ; 
elected  lieutenant  governor  of  New  York  in  1854;  elected  to  Congress  in 
1864;  and  tried  to  start  a  new  political  party  to  support  Andrew  John- 
son for  the  presidency  in  1866;  died  in  1869. 


632  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

93 — John  Bidwell,  a  pioneer  to  California  in  1841 ;  great  farmer  and  land- 
holder ;  founder  of  town  of  Chico ;  member  of  Congress  in  1866. 
94 — C.  D.  Drake,  United  States  senator  from  Missouri  in  1862. 
95 — Francis  M.  Cockrell,  United  States  senator  from  Missouri  in  1893. 
96 — ^Wm.  Pinckney  Whj'te,  United  States  senator  from  [Maryland  in  1880. 
97 — A.  H.  Garland,  United  States  senator  from  Arkansas  in  1886. 
98 — Francis  Kernan,  United  States  senator  from  New  York  in  1879. 
99 — J.  D.  Walker,  United  States  senator  from  Arkansas  in  1879. 

100— T.  W.  Ferry,  United  States  senator  from  Michigan  in  1879. 

101 — ^Wm.  Pitt  Kellogg,  a  "carpetbag"  senator  from  Louisiana  during  the 
reconstruction  era. 

102 — Wm.  H.  Wallace,  a  delegate  to  Congress  from  Washington  Territory. 

103 — John  T.  Morgan,  a  senator  from  Alabama  in  1893,  and  largely  the  author 
of 'the  "Interstate  Commerce  Commission"  to  regulate  railroad  traffic; 
and  "the  author  of  the  Panama  Canal  bill. 

104 — Don  Cameron,  son  of  Simon  Cameron,  and  succeeded  his  father  in  the 
United  States  senate  from  Pennsylvania. 

105 — Isham  G.  Harris,  a  governor  of  and  United  States  senator  from  the  state 
of  Tennessee. 

106 — S.  B.  Maxey,  United  States  senator  from  Texas  in  1880. 

107 — Frank  Hersford,  United  States  senator  from  West  Virginia  in  1882. 

108— N.  P.  Hill,  United  States  senator  from  Colorado  in  1880. 

109 — 0.  H.  Piatt,  United  States  senator  from  Connecticut  in  1893, 

110 — H.  M.  Rice,  a  senator  from  Minnesota. 

Ill — James  R.  Doolittle,  United  States  senator  from  Wisconsin  in  1862. 

112 — S.  J.  R.  McMillan,  a  senator  from  JMinnesota  in  1880. 

113 — Angus  Cameron,  United  States  senator  from  Wisconsin  in  1880. 

114 — A.  S.  Paddock,  United  States  senator  from  Nebraska  in  1880. 

115 — Justin  S.  Morrill,  a  member  of  Congress  and  a  United  States  senator  from 
Vermont  in  1866. 

116 — Henry  B.  Anthony,  United  States  senator  from  Rhode  Island  in  1862. 

117 — John  J.  Ingalls,  school  teacher,  lawyer,  poet  and  statesman.  United  States 
senator  from  Kansas  in  1870. 

118 — Ambrose  E.  Burnside  (and  you  could  not  have  guessed  that).  Born  in 
Indiana  in  1824;  graduated  from  West  Point  in  1847;  brigadier  general 
in  command  of  a  brigade  at  first  battle  of  Bull  Run;  succeeded  General 
McClellan  in  command  of  Army  of  Potomac ;  fought  with  Sherman  in 
Tennessee,  and  with  Grant  at  battle  of  the  Wilderness ;  was  three  times 
elected  governor  of  Rhode  Island,  and  then  sent  to  the  United  States  senate 
from  that  state. 

119 — H.  W.  Blair,  member  of  Congress  from  New  Hampshire  in  1870. 

120 — E.  H.  Rollins,  a  member  of  Congress  from  New  Hampshire. 

121 — Allen  Saunders,  United  States  senator  from  Nebraska  in  1890. 

122 — Samuel  J.  Kirkwood,  secretary  of  the  Interior  and  United  States  senator 
from  Iowa. 

123 — Zachariah  Chandler — familiarly  called  "Old  Zach  Chandler,"  a  United 
States  senator  from  Michigan  from  1857  down  to  the  close  of  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  Southern  states  after  the  Civil  war.  He  was  a  public  official 
that  feared  no  man  or  party,  and  a  "terror  to  evil-doers." 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  033 

124 — lohn  A.  Logan,  member  of  Congress  and  United  States  senator  i'rom  Illi- 
nois ;  was  a  major  general  in  the  armies  of  the  Union ;  and  candidate  for 
vice-president  on  the  ticket  with  James  G.  IJIaine  in  1884.  Was  familiai'ly 
known  as  "Black  Jack  Logan." 

125 — James  H.  Slater,  United  States  senator  from  Oregon  in  1878. 

126 — Matthew  H.  Carpenter,  United  States  senator  from  Wisconsin  in  the 
seventies.  lie  was  an  able  lawyer,  and  fine  orator,  and  jocosely  named 
"the  corn-fed  Webster  of  the  West." 

127 — B.  H.  Bruce,  and  is  the  only  negro  man  ever  occupying  a  seat  in  the  United 
States  senate;  being  elected  senator  from  Mississippi  during  the  recon- 
struction period. 

THE  PATRONS  OF  HUSBANDRY 

known  generally  as  "The  Grange,"  is  proving  to  be  an  educator  of  the  most 
practical  and  useful  character.  Never  heretofore  noticed  in  any  history  of  the 
state,  the  Grange  has  quietly,  steadily  and  conscientiously  pursued  the  object 
of  its  membership  and  still  greater  benefit  to  the  state  of  Oregon.  By  its  con- 
tinued discussion  of  public  (luestions  within  the  gates,  by  its  continued  and  un- 
selfish appeals  to  the  patriotic  spirit  of  all  citizens  of  the  state  without  regard 
to  sex,  and  by  the  conscientious  use  of  the  ballot  the  Grange  has  protected  the 
public  treasury  from  the  corrupt  schemes  of  selfish  politicians  and  the  useless 
fads  of  impractical  schemers. 

This  nation-wide  organization  of  farmers  and  their  wives  was  founded 
December  4,  1868 ;  attained  great  popularity  in  Oregon  as  early  as  1875,  with 
183  subordinate  granges  in  the  state.  Then  followed  a  relapse  produced  by 
the  career  of  the  Populist  political  party  and  the  rise  of  direct  legislation  proposi- 
tions which  promised  great  reforms  in  the  public  service ;  so  that  by  the  year  1898 
the  number  of  local  granges  had  decreased  to  61  in  the  state.  But  time  and  dis- 
cussion soon  convinced  the  farmers  that  mere  political  parties  and  professedly 
political  reformers  were  not  a  reliable  substitute  for  the  Farmers'  Grange,  and 
re-organization  of  old  granges  and  formation  of  new  ones  rapidly  took  place; 
so  that  by  1910  the  number  of  local  granges  had  increased  to  144;  and  now  in 
1912  the  number  has  risen  to  192  local  granges  with  10,000  members.  The  order 
is  now  the  most  influential,  as  it  is  the  most  conservative  and  patriotic  organi- 
zation in  the  state ;  and  has  repeatedly  shown  its  power  and  disposition  to  pro- 
tect the  tax-payers  from  the  rapacious  demands  of  professional  exploiters  of 
selfish  schemes.    The  present  officers  of  the  State  Grange  are : 

C.  E.  Spence.  Oregon  City Master 

T.  L.  Lee,  Looking  Glass    Overseer 

H.   A.   Darnall,   Lents    Lecturer 

R.   S.   Grant,   Waverly    Steward 

H.    Hirschberger,    Independence    Treasurer 

C.   H.  Walker.  Albany    Chaplain 

Mary  S.  Howard,  Mulino    Secretary 

C.  D.  Huffman,  La  Grande;  E.  A.  Bond,  Irving,  and  C.  E.  Spence 

Legislative  Committee 


634  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

SUICIDE,  VICE  AND  CRIME 

The  story  of  the  pioneer  and  his  virtues  has  been  told.  The  rise  of  the  pio- 
neer state  in  the  midst  of  the  "continuous  woods  where  rolls  the  Oregon"  has 
been  rehearsed.  The  vast  increase  of  wealth  and  all  the  comforts  and  polishing 
agencies  of  education  therewith  obtainable  has  been  set  forth.  The  self-sacrificing 
labors  of  the  noble  men  and  women  of  the  churches  to  lift  up  and  help  their  fellow 
travelers  through  this  vale  of  tears  has  been  fully  portrayed;  and  now  the  veil 
must  be  lifted  from  the  reverse  picture.  The  makers  of  our  laws,  the  founders 
of  our  schools  and  colleges,  and  the  eshorters  from  a  thousand  pulpits  must  face 
the  fearful  record  and  answer  the  dread  question — whose  work  is  this? 

In  the  year  1887  there  were  27,419  divorces  granted  in  the  United  States, 
268  of  them  in  Oregon.  The  rate  for  the  nation  was  about  330  to  the  million 
population;  the  rate  for  Oregon  was  50  per  cent  above  that.  In  1911  the  num- 
ber had  grown  to  85,000  in  the  nation  and  1,800  in  Oregon.  The  increase  in  the 
number  of  divorces  in  Oregon  is  greater  than  the  increase  in  marriages.  In 
Multnomah  county  the  marriage  licenses  issued  for  January,  1911,  were  245, 
and  the  divorces  in  the  county  for  the  same  month  were  36,  while  for  January, 
1912,  the  marriage  licenses  were  265  and  the  divorces  62. 

In  the  United  States  the  homicides  and  murders  for  the  year  1885  were 
1808 ;  while  the  executions  for  murder  were  108,  not  one  in  ten ;  while  in  1910 
the  homicides  and  murders  had  risen  to  the  appalling  number  of  8,975,  with  only 
104  executions  for  murder,  or  one  murderer  executed  for  each  88  innocent  per- 
sons killed. 

In  Chicago,  the  last  two  years,  where  nobody  was  hanged,  there  were  653 
murders,  most  of  them  cold-blooded,  while  in  London,  with  a  vastly  greater 
population  than  Chicago,  but  where  law  is  law,  there  were  19  murders,  five  of 
whom  committed  suicide  to  escape  public  hanging,  four  were  svning  by  the 
neck  as  they  richly  deserved,  the  others  being  found  at  the  time  of  committing 
homicide,  as  crazy  as  bedbugs.  England  hangs  murderers  and  as  a  result  has 
few  to  hang. 

From  year  to  year  suicide  increases  in  the  United  States  until  now  it  has 
reached  a  ratio  of  20  for  each  100,000  people  in  100  principal  cities,  as  shown 
by  statistics  collected  by  the  New  York  Spectator.  Taken  by  five-year  periods, 
beginning  with  1891,  the  figures  evidence  a  steadj'  increase.  In  1891-5  the  ratio 
was  14.5  per  100,000;  in  1896  to  1900  it  was  16.2;  in  1901-5  it  was  18.8;  in 
1906-10  it  was  20. 

Oregon  has  its  full  proportion  of  self-murder. 

Demoralization  of  children  in  Oregon's  principal  city  is  shovm  by  the  annual 
report  of  the  Juvenile  court  for  the  year  1911,  as  follows: 

That  531  children,  378  boys  and  153  girls,  were  brought  before  the  court  for 
various  offences.  Proof  that  Juvenile  Judge  Gatens'  honor  system  is  working 
out  well  is  said  to  be  shown  by  the  fact  that  only  95  boys  and  eight  girls  who 
were  paroled  or  whose  cases  were  continued  pending  good  behavior,  were 
brought  before  the  court  a  second  time.  There  was  a  total  of  634  minors  dealt 
with  by  the  judge.  Of  this  number  185,  84  boys  and  101  girls,  are  classed  as 
dependents  and  the  others,  449,  as  delinquents. 

Under  the  head,  "Age  of  Children,"  the  record  shows  the  following:  Ten 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  635 

years  and  under,  161 ;  11  to  13,  inclusive,  185 ;  14  and  15,  162 ;  16,  69 ;  17,  57. 
The  charges  against  the  children  are  classified  as  follows : 

Burglary,  17;  larceny,  162;  violation  of  miscellaneous  city  ordinances,  19; 
malicious  mischief,  15 ;  smoking  cigarettes,  4 ;  destroying  property,  27 ;  assault 
and  battery,  7 ;  curfew  law,  6 ;  pool  room  ordinance,  3 ;  violating  state  laws, 
including  school  law,  child  labor  law,  carrying  concealed  weapons,  attempted 
holdups,  shooting  animals  and  chickens  and  one  boy,  and  drunkenness,  26; 
persistent  truancy,-42;  incorrigibility,  57;  immorality,  18;  running  away  from 
home,  and  Frazer  home,  20 ;  breaking  parole,  4 ;  other  causes,  15. 

And  during  the  period  covered  by  these  statistics  wealth  has  increased  in 
the  United  States,  and  in  Oregon  more  rapidly  than  in  any  other  country  in 
the  world,  or  in  any  other  period  in  this  country — forcibly  recalling  the  lines 
of  Goldsmith : 

"111  fares  the  land,  to  hastening  ills  a  prey. 
Where  wealth  accumulates,  and  men  decay." 

That  wealth  has  increased  in  Oregon  at  a  very  rapid  rate  is  evident  from  the 
reckless  manner  in  which  it  is  wasted.  Public  records  show  that  there  is  now  in 
the  state  of  Oregon  2,000  retail  liquor  dealers  (whiskey  saloons)  ;  54  wholesale 
liquor  dealers ;  60  cigar  factories ;  10  tobacco  factories,  and  10,000  retail  tobacco 
shops.  There  are  10,000  automobiles  in  the  state,  costing  over  30  million  dol- 
lars, and  most  of  them  used  for  pleasure  rather  than  business.  Not  less  than 
ten  million  dollars  is  annually  wasted  in  Oregon  for  whiskey  and  tobacco. 

Associated  with  this  waste  and  largely  a  result  of  it,  is  the  insidious  cor- 
ruption of  social  vice.    And  on  this  point  is  copied  the 

REPORT  OF  THE  VICE  COMMISSION 

In  response  to  a  general  demand  from  a  large  number  of  people  having  the 
interests  of  societj'  at  heart,  a  commission  composed  of  the  foUovdng  citizens  of 
Portland,  Oregon,  to-wit :  Rev.  Henrj'  Russell  Talbot,  chairman ;  L.  L.  Levings, 
secretary;  Rev.  H.  J.  McDevitt,  Rev.  "W.  G.  McLaren,  David  F.  Morrison,  John 
H.  Stevenson,  Dr.  S.  A".  Brown,  H.  M.  Patton,  E.  0.  Sawyer,  Jr.,  George  A. 
Thacher,  Rev.  Delmer  H.  Trimble,  Arthur  E.  Wood,  Mrs.  Millie  R.  Trumbull 
and  William  S.  Biddle,  was  organized  to  investigate  the  haunts  of  vice  in  that 
city.  This  commission  was  provided  with  ample  means  and  procured  from  New 
York  and  other  cities  persons  familiar  with  the  subject  to  be  investigated,  and 
took  nine  months  of  time  to  get  to  the  bottom  of  the  business.  The  following  is 
a  summary  of  their  published  report: 

"That  a  person  might  stand  on  the  roof  of  one  of  the  principal  churches 
of  the  city  and  throw  a  stone  into  any  one  of  14  immoral  places,  ten  of  which 
are  wholly  immoral. 

"That  nine  places  were  investigated,  immediately  surrounding  one  of  the 
principal  department  stores  of  the  city,  and  only  one  of  them  was  found  to  be 
moral.  Four  were  wholly  given  up  to  prostitution  or  assignation  and  the  re- 
maining four  were  of  the  intermediate  grades  of  immorality." 

The  report  classifies  the  547  places  visited  into  apartments,  hotels,  rooming 
and  lodging  houses  and  gives  the  following  general  analysis  as  to  their  charac- 
ter morally : 


636  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Apartments 

1.  Moral       22 

2.  Doubtful 9 

3.  Immoral — 

(a)  Wholly  given  up  to' prostitution  or  assignation 0 

(b)  Immoral  tenants  desired  or  preferred 10 

(e)     Immorality  countenanced  or  ignored   30 

Total     80 

Hotels 

1.  Moral     5 

2.  Doubtful     3 

3.  Immoral — 

(a)  Wholly  given  up  to  prostitution  or  assignation 6 

(b)  Immoral  tenants  desired  or  preferred 17 

(c)  Immorality  countenanced  or  ignored 28 

Total       '. 59 

Rooming  and  Lodging  Houses 

1.  Moral     71 

2.  Doubtful     6 

3.  Immoral — 

(a)  Wholly  given  up  to  prostitution  or  assignation   107 

(b)  Immoral  tenants  desired  or  preferred 88 

(c)  Immorality  coiiutenanced  or  ignored 136 

Total     408 

VICE  MONOPOLY  REVEALED 

Discussing  the  subjects  of  vice  monopoly,  the  members  of  the  commission  in 
their  report,  said : 

' '  Closely  allied  to  the  element  of  profit  in  commercialized  vice  in  relation  to 
the  conduct  of  hotels  and  rooming-houses,  is  an  observed  tendency  on  the  part  of 
individuals  and  realty  firms  to  acquire  and  either  manage  or  control  properties  in 
which  immorality  contributes  to  the  revenue.  This  tendency  is  manifested  from 
instances  where  one  person  owns  or  controls  two  such  properties,  to  that  wherein 
a  dozen  or  more  such  places  are  owned  or  controlled  by  one  real  estate  firm. 

The  insidiousness  of  this  evil  is  evident.  As  commercialized  vice  spreads 
through  houses  of  public  accommodation,  its  demoralizing  influence  is  exerted  in 
a  most  insidious  way.  It  tempts  the  cupidity  of  proprietors.  It  furnishes  a  con- 
venient and  comparatively  safe  field  for  the  lecherous  exploits  of  the  libertine. 
It  subjects  the  vanity  of  weak  women  to  terrible  temptation,  which  too  often 
leads  them,  for  the  sake  of  gayety  and  good  clothes,  to  take  the  plunge  into  the 
underworld.    It  opens  up  new  territory  in  which  men  and  women  who  trade  and 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  637 

barter  in  prostitution  may  conduct  their  business  with  greater  profit  and  safety. 
It  develops  abnormal  phases  of  viciousness  and  dangerous  deceit,  as  this  commis- 
sion discovered  and  can  show  by  its  records — cases  wherein  apparently  respect- 
able lodging-houses  and  hotels  have  been  converted  into  centers  of  activity  for  a 
wide  circle  of  depraved  people;  whei-e  debauchery  of  almost  unbelievable  charac- 
ter is  practiced;  where  blackmail  is  hatched  against  those  who  have  money  and 
social  position.  Even  lieyond  all  this,  the  evil  of  commercialized  vice  has  been 
found  by  this  commission  tlourishiug  virulently  in  a  house  of  I'efined  and  respecta- 
ble surroundings  under  the  managerial  control  of  a  minister  of  the  gospel  who 
lives  outside  the  city,  and  on  the  list  of  one  of  the  city's  benevolent  institutions 
as  an  applicant  for  the  patronage  of  young  women  who  were  seeking  respectable 
rooming  places. ' ' 

This  shameful  record  of  the  one  great  city  of  the  state  was  but  the  out  crop- 
ping evidence  of  other  and  greater  dangers  and  enemies  to  social  order  and  the  due 
execution  of  the  laws.  This  demoralization  of  the  public  conscience  soon  passed 
beyond  the  phase  of  private  immorality  to  that  open  defiance  of  the  laws  to  pro- 
tect the  lives  and  liberties  of  decent  and  law-abiding  people.  Public  officials  were 
either  bribed  or  cowed  and  bullied  into  silence  in  the  presence  of  rape,  robbery  and 
murder.  To  such  an  extent  were  these  outrages  carried  that  the  governor  of  the 
state,  Oswald  West,  was  compelled  to  invoke  the  last  resort  of  his  power  and 
authority  under  the  state  constitution,  and  demand  that  the  laws  be  honestly 
and  vigoi'ously  enforced,  or  the  officials  set  to  do  that  duty  must  be  removed 
from  office.  This  demand  was  made  upon  the  mayors  of  Huntington  and  Ma- 
dras; and  upon  the  sheriff  and  district  attorney  of  Multnomah  county.  The 
sheriff  failing  to  act,  the  governor  issued  a  proclamation  of  martial  law,  as 
follows : 

General  Orders  No.  20 

Headquarters  Oregon  National  Guard,  Adjutant-General's  office,  Portland, 
Oregon,  July  1,  1912. 

The  following  proclamation  is  published  for  the  information  and  guidance 
of  all  concerned: 

By  the  Governor  of  the  State  of  Oregon — A  proclamation : 

Whereas,  it  appears  that  a  certain  roadhouse,  inn  or  tavern,  located  near  Mil- 
waukie,  Clackamas  county,  Oregon,  and  known  as  the  "Milwaukie  Tavern," 
for  some  time  and  is  now  being  maintained,  conducted  and  operated  without 
due  regard  for  the  laws  of  decency  or  the  laws  of  this  state,  much  to  the  discom- 
fort and  embarrassment  of  good  people  living  in  that  vicinity  and  to  the  detri- 
ment of  the  whole  state,  and 

Whereas,  it  appears  that  local  officials  charged  with  the  enforcement  of 
the  laws  of  this  state  are  either  unable  or  unwilling  to  perform  that  duty; 
and  , 

Whereas,  the  governor  is  charged  by  the  constitution  with  the  duty  of  see- 
ing that  the  laws  of  this  state  are  duly  enforced  and  is  authorized  to  call  out 
the  militia  to  assist  him  in  the  performance  of  that  duty;  now,  therefore, 

I,  Oswald  West,  as  governor  and  commander-in-chief  of  the  militia  of  the 
state  of  Oregon,  having  found  it  necessary  to  call  out  the  military  forces  of 
the  state  to  assist  in  the  enforcement  of  law,  do  hereby  proclaim  and  establish 
martial  law  in,  on  and  about  the  said  premises  and  until  further  notice  the  said 


638  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

premises  and  tavern  will  be  under  the  control  of  the  military  aiithorities  of  the 
state  and  all  persons  are  warned  not  to  frequent  the  said  tavern  or  trespass 
upon  the  said  premises. 

Done  at  Salem,  Oregon,  this  first  day  of  July,  1912. 

Oswald  West, 
Governor  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  Military  Forces  of  the  State  of  Oregon. 
Attest:    W.  E.  FiNzER,  Adjutant-General. 
By  Order  of  the  Commander-in-Chief, 

"W.  E.  FiNZER,  The  Adjutant-General." 

Under  the  above  order  a  high  and  impassable  fence  surrounding  the  "road- 
house"  was  torn  down  by  the  national  guardsmen,  and  the  house  taken  posses- 
sion of  and  held  until  the  owner  yielded  obedience  to  the  governor  and  entered 
into  an  agreement  to  conduct  his  place  in  a  decent  and  law  abiding  manner. 

After  this,  on  August  27,  1912,  the  governor  removed  from  office  George 
Cameron,  district  attorney  for  Multnomah  county,  because  the  said  Cameron 
had,  in  the  judgment  of  the  governor,  been  derelict  in  enforcing  the  laws  against 
crime  in  said  county  and  appointed  to  take  said  office  Mr.  Walter  H.  Evans. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

1843—1912 

THE   EVOLUTION    OP    LAWS,    CONSTITUTIONS    AND    POLITICS THE    UNDERLYING    PRIN- 
CIPLES   AT    STAKE    AT    OLD    CHAMPOEG THE    POPULAR    SOVEREIGNTY     DOCTRINE 

THAT  OVERRULED  ALL  OTHERS TAXATION,  PROHIBITION  AND  SLAVERY — THE  RISE 

OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY — THE  CONTEST  BETWEEN  THE  PROGRESSIVES  AND  CON- 
SERVATIVES   OF    THE    DEMOCRATIC    PARTY  —  THE    CIVIL    WAR    PERIOD LEADERS, 

BOSSES,      AND      CORRUPT      PRACTICES      FINALLY      PRODUCING      POPULISM,      DIRECT 
PRIMARY  AND  DIRECT  LEGISLATION 

The  beginning  of  human  society  in  all  ages,  and  in  all  parts  of  the  world  has 
already  been  a  subject  of  profound  interest  to  all  reading  and  thinking  persons. 
The  unceasing  drift  of  the  centuries  which  has  carried  the  leading  race  of  man- 
kind continuously  around  the  earth  with  its  face  to  the  west,  and  its  back  to  the 
rising  sun,  while  producing  the  vigorous  and  aggressive  nations  of  the  world, 
shows  also  the  varying  influences  of  environment.  Transplanted  to  the  western 
hemisphere,  the  Caucasian  is  not  the  same  man  on  the  St.  Lawrence  that  he  is  on 
the  Hudson,  and  not  the  same  in  Virginia  that  was  developed  in  Massachusetts. 
And  confronted  by  the  savage  foes  of  the  Ohio  valley  the  Scotch-Irishman  is  not 
the  same  man  that  raised  his  oats  and  turnips  in  Scotland  or  mined  his  peat  and 
roasted  his  potatoes  in  Ireland.  And  passing  over  the  dividing  line  between  the 
"east"  and  the  "west" — "The  tall  and  pillared  Alleghenies, " — is  found  a 
people  in  the  great  valley  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  as  diverse  in  thoughts 
and  inclinations  as  was  ever  Puritan  and  Cavalier.  The  modern  Ben  Franklin 
(Horace  Greeley)  achieved  a  great  reputation  he  little  deserved  in  reiterating 
the  advice — ^"Go  west  young  man!  go  west;  and  grow  up  with  the  country." 
The  American  man  was  going  west,  and  still  further  west  to  Oregon,  before 
the  sage  of  the  Tribune  promulgated  his  panacea  for  hard  times  and  sure  for- 
tune. It  took  the  Teutonic  tribes  of  ancient  Germany  fifteen  hundred  years 
to  work  their  conquests  of  time  and  space  aci'oss  to  England  and  down  to  the  south 
end  of  the  Spanish  peninsula.  And  after  Columbus  had  spanned  the  Atlantic, 
and  England  and  Spain  had  made  peace  and  divided  up  the  New  "World  be- 
tween the  royal  sovereigns  in  1606,  it  took  one  hundred  and  sixty  years  for  the 
English  colonists  to  possess  and  hold  the  region  between  the  Atlantic  ocean  and 
the  Ohio  valley.  But  after  the  "Go  West  Americans"  had  thrown  off  the  British 
yoke,  and  achieved  their  freedom  to  go  west,  they  covered  the  great  space 
between  the  Allegheny  mountains  and  the  IMissouri  river — four  or  five  times 
the  area  between  Philadelphia  and  Pittsburg — in  less  than  25  years.  And  after 
planting  their  stakes  west  of  the  Missouri  and  raising  a  few  crops  of  corn,  they 
loaded  up  their  wagons,  hitched  up  their  oxen  and  cleared  the  remainder  of  the 

639 


640  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

way  to  the  Pacific,  two  thousand  miles,  and  founded  a  new  state  in  a  single 
year.  Whatever  lesson  there  is  in  this  unparalleled  achievement  in  the  history 
of  the  world,  must  be  found,  if  it  can  be  discovered,  in  an  examination  of  the 
lives,  character  and  conduct  of  the  men  and  women  who  wrought  this  great 
work. 

When  the  pioneers  met  at  old  Champoeg  on  the  banks  of  the  Willamette'  on 
May  2,  1843,  they  were  impelled  to  decisive  action  by  two  overmastering  senti- 
ments— first,  that  of  implacable  hostility  to  control  of  Oregon  by  the  English 
government;  and,  second,  the  vital  necessity  of  organization  for  the  sake  of 
mutual  protection  in  a  wild  Indian  country  two  thousand  miles  from  help  by 
kinsmen  or  nationality.  That  there  was  hostility  to  the  rule  of  the  Catholic 
priesthood  there  can  be  no  doubt.  But  there  is  no  evidence  that  there  was  any 
objection  to  settlers  of  the  Catholic  religion — the  French  Canadians.  And  the 
opposition  to  the  Catholic  priesthood  did  not  arise  out  of  the  question  of  religion, 
but  out  of  the  fact  that  the  priests  were  supposed  to  be  in  the  pay  of  the  Hudson 's 
Bay  Company,  and  assisting  that  company,  to  make  Oregon  a  British  province 
like  Canada.  There  was  manifest  jealousy  and  opposition  between  the  Protestant 
and  Catholic  missionaries  arising  out  of  the  control  of  the  Indians;  but  this 
feeling  was  not  participated  in  by  the  great  mass  of  the  American  settlers.  And 
the  fact,  that  upon  seeing  the  Americans  successful  in  organizing  a  provisional 
government,  the  Canadians  promptly  expressed  a  willingness  to  join  hands  in 
supporting  that  government,  and  the  Americans  as  promptly  amended  the  oath 
of  allegiance  to  allow  the  Canadians  to  take  active  part  in  the  government,  shows, 
that  as  between  the  actual  bona  fide  settlers  of  the  country  there  was  genuine 
friendship  and  a  unanimity  of  sentiment  to  maintain  the  provisional  government. 

And  while  it  is  the  fact  that  the  French  Canadian  (Catholic)  farmers  did 
come  in  and  support  the  provisional  government,  it  is  equally  true  that  the 
Catholic  clergy  and  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  did  not  support  it.  Dr. 
McLoughlin  recognized  the  provisional  government  by  applying  to  it  for  ferry 
franchises  and  other  considerations;  but  whether  he  would  have  done  so  if  he 
had  not  been  the  claimant  of  the  Oregon  city  townsite,  is  not  clear.  As  repre- 
sented by  the  ruling  power  in  London  the  Hudson 's  Bay  Company  eared  nothing 
for  the  Catholics,  their  religion  or  their  church.  But  as  the  priests  could  con- 
trol the  Indians  and  keep  them  at  work  hunting  furs  and  trading  them  to  the 
company,  it  became  the  settled  policy  of  the  fur  company  to  favor  the  Catholics 
and  subsidize  their  ministers  of  religion.  This  close  relation  between  the  fur 
company  and  the  Catholic  church  aroused  the  opposition  of  both  the  Methodists 
and  the  missionaries  of  the  American  Board,  drove  McLoughlin  into  the  member- 
ship of  the  Catholic  church,  and  aroused  the  bitterness  that  resulted  in  wrong- 
fully depriving  McLoughlin  of  his  just  title  to  the  Oregon  city  land  claim. 

It  may  be  asked  why  the  Protestant  ministers,  beiag  first  in  the  Oregon  mission 
field,  did  not  secure  the  confidence  of  the  Indians.  They  certainly  did  a  great 
work  for  the  Indians  in  the  way  of  teaching  beneficial  knowledge  and  open- 
ing of  schools  for  Indian  children,  and  submitted  to  great  personal  sacrifices 
in  that  respect.  Why  did  not  the  Methodist  and  American  Board  missions  suc- 
ceed as  well  as  the  later  coming  Catholics  ?  The  reason  is  plain.  The  Protestant 
missionaries  attempted  to  teach  the  Indians  theological  ideas  they  could  not 
comprehend.     They  sermonized  and  printed  books.     They  opened  farms  and 


1  iiiiMA^  .ii;i-i-Ki;s(iN   |l|;^  k 

KouikKt    of    'J'lu-    (•if"(iMiai] 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  041 

urged  tlie  Indian  to  abandon  the  chase  and  live  by  raising  domestic  animals, 
potatoes  and  wheat.  This  was  in  direct  opposition  to  the  interests  of  the  Hud- 
sou's  Bay  Company.  Tiie  Catholic  priests  taught  by  signs  and  symbols.  That 
suited  the  mind  and  imagination  of  the  red  man.  lie  could  understand  the  sacri- 
hce  on  Calvary,  but  not  the  Trinity  of  the  Godhead.  He  was  content  to  have  the 
priest  do  his  praying  and  save  his  soul  while  he  could  still  roam  the  forest  and 
sell  his  skins  to  the  fur  company.  It  was  a  perfectly  human  proposition ;  and 
quite  as  well  suited  to  the  majority  of  white  men  of  this  day  as  to  the  wild 
Indian  who  massacred  Whitman  and  his  family  without  a  single  regret  or 
remorse  of  conscience. 

POLITICS    IN    TIIE    PROVISIONAL    GOVERNMENT 

That  Jason  Lee,  W.  H.  Gray  and  John  S.  Griffin — one  ilethodist,  and  one 
Presbyterian,  and  one  Congregationalist,  were  the  men  who  '"stirred  up  the 
strife,"  agitated  the  question,  and  pulled  the  wires  that  led  up  to  the  meeting  at 
Champoeg  and  the  formation  of  a  Provisional  government,  there  can  be  but  little 
doubt.  Lee  and  Pabcock  planned  the  scheme,  and  Gray  and  Griffin  rode  all  over 
the  country  stirring  up  the  Americans  to  come  out  and  vote.  And  with  all  their 
efforts  they  did  not  get  more  than  half  the  Americans  to  attend  the  meeting; 
while  Bishop  Blanchet  as  leader  of  the  opposition  to  a  Provisional  government 
had  every  Catholic  in  Oregon  there  to  vote  against  an  organization,  and  put  their 
protest  on  record.  It  is  necessary  to  the  record  to  note  that  such  influential  men 
as  Abernethy,  who  became  the  first  governor,  although  not  more  than  twenty 
miles  from  the  place  of  meeting,  did  not  take  interest  enough  in  the  matter  to 
attend  the  meeting.  Gray,  Babcock,  LeBreton,  Newell,  jMeek,  Griffin  and  Lucier 
bore  the  brunt  of  the  battle  in  snatching  a  victory  from  apparent  defeat  on  that 
memorable  day.  And  it  was  fortunate  for  the  success  of  the  infant  state  that  the 
responsibility  for  it  was  thrust  wholly  upon  the  Americans.  For  had  there  been 
an  element  of  disloyalty  to  it  in  its  conduct,  strife  would  soon  have  put  an  end  to 
it ;  and  the  last  estate  of  the  American  hopes  would  have  been  woi-se  than  if  no 
attempt  to  organize  had  been  made.  The  very  fact  that  there  was  opposition  to 
the  Provisional  government,  but  outside  of  its  management,  put  the  new  born 
statesmen  on  their  conscience  to  do  the  best  they  were  capable  of. 

Aspiring  politicians  in  the  Oregon  of  1912  make  a  shibboleth  of  the  referen- 
dum in  politics,  as  if  it  were  some  new  discovery  or  invention  of  superior  wisdom. 
But  in  this  matter  they  are  about  70  years  behind  the  real  referendum 
Oregonians  of  1S4.3.  After  organizing  a  legislative  committe  to  prepare  a  code 
of  laws  the  people  in  mass  convention  at  Champoeg  on  May  2,  1843  adjourned 
to  the  5th  day  of  Jul.y  to  meet  again  as  a  mass  convention  to  adopt  or  reject 
the  work  of  their  committee.  At  this  adjourned  meeting  the  people  en  masse 
voted  for  and  against  the  report  of  their  committee,  section  by  section  including 
the  adoption  of  the  statute  laws  of  the  state  of  Iowa  covering  thirty-seven  dif- 
ferent subjects.  This  was  a  matter  of  necessity  more  than  choice;  because  the 
pioneers  had  no  means  of  printing  the  laws  they  adopted,  and  were  compelled 
to  limit  their  statutes  to  the  fewest  possible  number  of  subjects  to  make  and 
lireserve  a  government  of  sufficient  power  to  preserve  public  order  and  main- 
tain public  defense.    There  was  but  a  single  printed  copy  of  the  laws  of  Iowa 


642  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

in  the  territory  of   Oregon ;   but  that  was  sufScient   for  honest   law   abiding 
citizens. 

Organization  being  secured,  and  a  legislative  body  provided  for,  division 
of  sentiment  began  to  crop  out.  The  large  immigration  of  1843  did  not  reach 
Oregon  until  nearly  five  months  after  the  Provisional  government  had  been 
organized.  But  with  that  immigration  came  in  a  number  of  forceful  men  who 
would  have  made  their  mark  in  any  state,  and  did  make  a  profound  impression 
on  the  future  of  Oregon.  The  most  vigorous  and  forceful  character  added  to 
Oregon  in  1843  was  James  W.  Nesmith.  But  there  were  others  of  varied 
character,  and  all  of  them  courageous,  patriotic  and  useful  citizens.  Lindsay 
and  Jesse  Applegate,  Peter  H.  Burnett,  Wm.  T.  Newby,  Samuel  Cozine,  the 
Lenoxes,  Waldos,  Hembrees,  Garrisons,  Howells,  Mathenys,  Fords,  Almoran 
Hill,  T.  G.  Naylor,  Orus  Brown,  Hugh  D.  O'Brj'ant,  P.  G.  Stewart  and  many 
other  good  men.  Of  these  new  men  Nesmith  and  Burnett  were  successively  chosen 
to  the  office  of  supreme  judge  of  the  Provisional  government.  P.  G.  Stewart 
became  one  of  the  executive  committee,  Jesse  Applegate  was  a  member  of  the 
legislature.  All  these  new  men  from  "The  States,"  as  the  immigration  of  '43 
was  called,  were  indifferent  to  the  contentions  which  had  prevailed  between  the 
Methodists  and  American  Board  missionaries  on  one  side  and  the  Catholics  on 
the  other.  In  fact,  Burnett,  who  came  to  Oregon  as  a  Protestant  and  a  lawyer, 
like  LIcLoughlin  who  came  out  as  a  church  of  England  man,  went  over  to  the 
Catholics  to  the  great  disgust  of  the  Protestants. 

Another  man  that  came  in  from  the  States  three  years  after  the  formation 
of  the  Provisional  government  and  soon  secured  influence  with  it  was  J.  Quinn 
Thornton.  Thornton  was  the  most  thoroughlj^  book  educated  man  in  Oregon 
at  that  time  having  had  all  the  advantages  that  colleges,  foreign  travel  and 
study,  and  law  office  experience  could  afford.  Coming  into  Oregon  by  the 
southern  Oregon  route  he  suffered  many  hardships,  lost  his  movable  property, 
and  lost  no  time  in  denouncing  the  Applegates  and  others  for  inducing  him 
to  come  by  the  southern  route,  ascribing  their  conduct  to  unworthy  motives. 
This  got  him  into  a  hot  discussion  with  Jesse  Applegate  who  had  about  the 
best  command  of  the  king's  English  of  any  man  of  letters  in  Oregon.  Thornton 
being  a  Methodist,  or  pretended  to  be,  a  polished  gentleman  in  his  manners, 
and  withal  very  much  a  pecksniff  according  to  the  Dickens  standard,  he  soon 
insinuated  himself  into  the  good  graces  of  the  Methodist  party  and  within  a 
year  after  his  arrival  became  supreme  judge  of  Oregon.  Soon  after  Thornton's 
arrival  another  energetic  and  successful  politician  arrived  from  "The  States," 
in  the  person  of  Samuel  R.  Thurston,  who  afterwards  became  the  first  congres- 
sional delegate  from  Oregon. 

Now  the  line  of  cleavage  starts  and  political  lines  begin  to  take  form.  The 
legislators  of  the  new  state  had  fought  wordy  battles  over  the  right  or  power  of 
the  legislature  to  levy  taxes  without  a  referendum  to  the  people ;  over  the  wicked- 
ness of  making  moonshine  whiskey  in  the  Chehalem  valley  where  the  Quaker  vil- 
lage of  Newberg  now  stands ;  and  had  exhausted  the  whole  arsenal  of  reasons  for 
and  against  the  introduction  of  negro  slavery  in  Oregon.  But  on  all  these  ques- 
tions they  could  fight  and  quit  friends.  But  there  was  a  great  future  ahead. 
Certainly  there  would  soon  be  offices  and  honors  of  value  and  substance  to  dis- 
tribute, and  party  lines  began  to  form.    Nesmith,  Newell,  Meek,  the  Applegates, 


THE  CENTENNIAL  IIISTOin-  OF  OREGON  643 

lUii'iictl.  Dr.  Wili'ox  aiiil  tlicir  friciitls  (o  one  side,  niid  (Jovernoi-  Abernethy, 
Thornton,  Tlnii'slon,  and  llie  .Mi'lliiKlisl  leaders  to  the  oilier  side.  Tliornton  had 
attacked  Jesse  Applegate  on  the  soutlu-rn  Oregon  road  (luestion,  and  Nesmith 
and  all  the  immigrants  of  184;J  had  rallied  to  the  defense  of  "Uncle  Jesso."  The 
battle  raged  with  great  bitterness;  and  as  an  evidence  of  the  temperature  of  the 
political  atmosphere  about  Oregon  City  in  June,  1847,  this  History  is  alile  to 
bring  to  the  daylight  of  IDl'J  a  document  never  befoi'e  i)ublislied,  as  follows: 

"To  the  World: 

"J.  Qniun  Thornton,  having  resorted  to  low,  cowardly  and  dishonorable  means 
for  tile  purpose  of  injuring  my  character  and  standing,  and  having  refused  hon- 
oralile  satisfaction,  which  I  have  demanded;  I  avail  myself  of  this  opportunity 
of  publishing  him  to  the  world  as  a  reclaimless  liar,  an  infamous  scoundrel,  a 
black-hearted  villain,  an  arrant  coward,  a  worthless  vagabond,  and  an  imported 
miscreant;  a  disgrace  to  the  profession  and  a  dishonor  to  his  country. 

"James  W.  Nesmith. 

"Oregon  City,  June  7,  1847." 

But  notwithstanding  this  furious  blast  Governor  Abernethy  in  the  succeeding 
October  appointed  Thornton  as  a  secret  agent  to  go  to  Washington  and  represent 
Oregon  interests  to  the  president  and  Congress.  Thornton  resigned  the  otSce  of 
supreme  judge,  went  to  Washington,  labored  faithfully  and  most  usefully  for 
Oregon;  but  the  manner  of  his  appointment,  and  his  quarrel  with  Nesmith  and 
his  friends,  excited  so  much  opposition  that  he  got  nothing  from  the  organization 
of  the  territorial  government  but  the  office  of  sub-Indian  agent,  which  he  soon  re- 
signed and  retired  into  private  life  for  twenty  years.  Thornton's  friend  Thurston 
was  able  to  get  into  Congress  as  Oregon's  first  delegate  in  a  contest  which  gave 
Thurston  4,700  votes,  Columbia  Lancaster,  321,  Meek  and  Griffin,  46,  and  J.  W. 
Nesmith,  106.  Nearly  everybody  in  Oregon  was  a  democrat  in  those  days ;  all  the 
above  candidates  were  democrats  except  Lancaster,  who  was  a  whig.  Thurston 
ran  nominally  as  a  democrat,  while  L.  F.  Grover  (afterwards  governor  and  sena- 
tor), who  knew  Thurston  well  both  in  his  college  days  and  afterwards,  says 
Thurston  ran  for  Congress  on  the  issue  of  the  missionary  party  against  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company.  While  in  Congress  Thurston  took  an  active  part  in 
shaping  the  donation  land  law,  and  got  in  a  provision  that  debarred  John  Mc- 
Loughlin  from  getting  title  to  his  Oregon  City  land  claim;  and  when  this  fact 
became  known  to  Oregon  it  effectually  killed  all  future  hopes  for  political  hon- 
ors to  Thurston,  and  completely  destroyed  the  so-called  missionary  or  the  Meth- 
odist party  in  Oregon.  With  the  death  of  Thurston  in  April,  1851,  on  his  way 
back  to  Oregon,  the  existing  party  lines  that  sent  him  to  Congress  were  forever 
destroyed. 

The  act  of  .Congress  organizing  a  territorial  government  for  Oregon  closed 
the  era  of  the  pioneer  provisional  government  on  August  13,  1848 ;  and  the  great 
work  of  the  pioneers  can  now  be  clearly  seen  in  the  perspective.  The  declai-a- 
tion  of  rules  of  action  and  elementary  principles  adopted  by  the  pioneers 
at  tlieir  mass  meeting  on  July  5,  1843,  has  already  been  given  in  Chapter  VIII. 
liut  after  two  years'  experience  it  was  decided  by  the  Provisional  legislature 
that  the  original   declaration  was  not  sufficient;  and  accordingly  on  June  25. 


644  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

1845,  the  legislature  appointed  a  committee  consisting  of  H.  A.  G.  Lee,  Robert 
Newell,  Jesse  Applegate,  J.  W.  Smith  and  John  McClure  to  revise  the  organic 
laws.  That  committee  on  July  2,  1845,  submitted  their  report  to  the  legislature 
in  the  form  of  a  "Provisional  Constitution  of  Oregon;"  and  which  was  there- 
upon approved  by  the  legislature,  and  ordered  to  be  submitted  to  the  people 
for  adoption  or  rejection,  at  a  special  election  to  be  held  on  July  26,  1845.  The 
legislature  then  adjourned  to  meet  on  August  5,  1845,  and  the  first  entry  on 
the  journal  of  August  5,  is  Applegate 's  inquiry  about  the  vote  on  the  consti- 
tution; and  the  clei'k  informs  him  that  the  constitution  was  adopted  by  a  ma- 
jority of  203  votes  in  favor  of  the  same.  As  that  Provisional  first  constitution 
of  Oregon  is  out  of  print  and  not  printed  in  any  history  of  the  state,  it  is  here 
given,  as  follows : 

PROVISIONAL   CONSTITUTION  OP  OREGON 

Preamble 

We,  the  people  of  Oregon  territory,  for  purposes  of  mutual  protection,  and 
to  secure  peace  and  prosperity  among  ourselves,  agree  to  adopt  the  following 
laws  and  regulations,  until  such  time  as  the  United  States  of  America  extend 
their  jurisdiction  over  us : 

Be  it  enacted,  therefore,  by  the  free  citizens  of  Oregon  territory,  that  the 
said  territory,  for  the  purpose  of  temporary  government,  be  divided  into  not 
less  than  three  nor  more  than  five  districts,  subject  to  be  extended  to  a  greater 
number  when  an  increase  of  population  shall  require. 

For  the  purpose  of  fixing  the  principles  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  as 
the  basis  of  all  laws  and  constitution  of  government,  that  may  hereafter  be 
adopted, — 

Be  it  enacted.  That  the  following  articles  be  considered  articles  of  compact 
among  the  free  citizens  of  this  territory: 

Article  I 

Section  1.  No  person  demeaning  himself  in  a  peaceable  and  orderly  manner, 
shall  ever  be  molested  upon  account  of  his  mode  of  worship,  or  religious  senti- 
ments. 

Section  2.  The  inhabitants  of  said  territory  shall  always  be  entitled  to  the 
benefits  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  and  trial  by  jury,  of  a  proportionate  rep- 
resentation of  the  people  in  the  legislature,  and  of  judicial  proceedings,  accord- 
ing to  the  course  of  common  law.  All  persons  shall  be  bailable,  unless  for  capi- 
tal offences,  where  the  proof  shall  be  evident,  or  the  presumption  great.  All 
fines  shall  be  moderate,  and  no  cruel  or  unusual  punishment  inflicted.  No  man 
shall  be  deprived  of  his  liberty,  but  by  the  judgment  of  his  peers  of  the  law  of 
the  land;  and  should  the  public  exigencies  make  it  necessary  for  the  common 
preservation,  to  take  any  person's  property,  or  to  demand  his  particular  ser- 
vices, full  compensation  shall  be  made  for  the  same;  and  in  the  just  preser^'a- 
tion  of  rights  and  property,  it  is  understood  and  declared,  that  no  law  ought  ever 
to  be  made,  or  have  force  in  said  territory,  that  shall,  in  any  manner  whatever. 


r.UKIADIKU    CEXKKAL    STEPPIEX    COFFIN 

Organizi'd  the  Union  Lea^ie  in  Oregon  to  oppose  a  Pacific  Ucpuljlic 
nnil   maintain   tin-   I'nion 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  ORECJON  (J4o 

interfere  with  or  affect  private  contracts  or  engagements,  bona  fide  and  witliout 
fraud,  previously  formed. 

Section  3.  Religion,  morality,  and  knowledge,  being  necessai-y  to  good  gov- 
ernment and  the  happiness  of  mankind,  schools  and  the  means  of  education  shall 
lie  forever  encouraged.  The  utmost  good  faith  shall  always  be  observed  toward 
the  Indians;  their  lands  and  property  shall  never  be  taken  from  them  without 
their  consent;  and  in  their  property,  rights  and  liberty,  they  shall  never  be 
invaded  or  disturbed,  unless  in  just  and  lawful  wars,  authorized  by  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people;  but  laws  founded  in  justice  and  humanity,  shall,  from 
time  to  time,  be  made  for  preventing  injustice  being  done  to  them,  and  for  pre- 
sei'ving  peace  and  friendship  with  them. 

Section  4.  There  shall  be  neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  in  said 
territory,  otherwise  than  for  the  punishment  of  crimes,  whereof  the  party  shall 
have  been  duly  convicted. 

Section  5.  No  person  shall  be  depi'ived  of  the  rights  of  bearing  arms  in  his 
own  defense ;  no  unreasonable  searches  or  seizures  shall  be  granted ;  the  freedom 
of  the  press  shall  not  be  restrained ;  no  person  shall  be  twice  tried  for  the  same 
offense;  nor  the  people  deprived  of  the  right  of  peaceable  assembling  and  dis- 
cussing any  matter  they  may  think  proper ;  nor  shall  the  right  of  petition  ever 
be  denied. 

Section  6.  The  powers  of  the  government  shall  be  divided  into  three  distinct 
departments : — the  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial ;  and  no  person  or  persons 
belonging  to  one  of  these  departments,  shall  exercise  any  of  the  powers  properly 
belonging  to  either  of  the  others,  except  in  cases  herein  directed  or  permitted. 

Article  II 

Section  1.  The  legislative  power  shall  be  vested  in  a  house  of  representatives, 
which  shall  consist  of  not  less  than  thirteen,  nor  more  than  sixty-one  members, 
whose  numbers  shall  not  be  increased  more  than  five  at  any  one  session,  to  be 
elected  by  the  qualified  electors  at  the  annual  election,  giving  to  each  district  a 
representation  in  the  ratio  of  its  population  (excluding  Indians),  and  the  said 
members  shall  reside  in  the  district,  for  which  they  shall  be  chosen;  and  in  case 
of  vacancy  by  death,  resignation,  or  otherwise,  the  executive  shall  issue  his  writ 
to  the  district  where  such  vacancy  has  occurred,  and  cause  a  new  election  to  be 
held,  giving  sufficient  notice,  at  least  ten  days  previously,  of  the  time  and  place 
of  holding  said  election. 

Section  2.  The  house  of  representatives,  when  assembled,  shall  choose  a 
speaker  and  its  other  officers,  be  judges  of  the  c|ualifications  and  elections  of  its 
members,  and  sit  upon  its  own  adjournment  from  day  to  day.  Two-thirds  of 
the  house  shall  constitute  a  quorum  to  transact  btisiness,  but  a. smaller  number 
may  adjourn  from  day  to  day,  and  may  be  authorized  by  law  to  compel  the 
attendance  of  absent  members. 

Section  3.  The  house  may  determine  the  rules  of  its  proceedings,  punish  its 
members  for  disorderly  behavior,  and  with  the  concurrence  of  two-thirds,  expel 
a  member,  but  not  a  second  time  for  the  same  offense,  and  shall  have  all  powers 
necessary  for  a  legislature  of  a  temporary  government,  not  in  contravention  with 
the  restrictions  imposed  in  this  organic  law. 


646  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Section  4.  The  house  of  representatives  shall,  from  time  to  time,  fix  the 
salaries  of  the  different  of&eers  appointed  or  elected  under  this  compact,  pro- 
vided the  pay  of  no  officer  shall  be  altered  during  his  term  of  service ;  nor  shall 
the  pay  of  the  house  be  increased  by  any  law  taking  effect  during  the  session  at 
which  such  alteration  is  made. 

Section  5.  The  house  of  representatives  shall  have  the  sole  power  of  im- 
peaching; three-fourths  of  all  the  members  must  concur  in  an  impeachment. 
The  governor  and  all  civil  officers  under  these  articles  of  compact,  shall  be  liable 
to  impeachment  for  treason,  bribery,  or  any  high  crime  or  misdemeanor  in  office. 
Judgment  in  such  cases  shall  not  extend  further  than  removal  from  office,  and 
disqualification  to  hold  any  office  of  honor,  trust  or  profit,  under  this  compact; 
but  the  party  convicted  may  be  dealt  with  according  to  law. 

Section  6.  The  house  of  representatives  shall  have  power  to  lay  out  the  terri- 
tory into  suitable  districts,  and  apportion  the  representation  in  their  own  body. 
They  shall  have  power  to  pass  laws  for  raising  revenue,  either  by  levying  and  col- 
lecting of  taxes,  or  the  imposing  of  license  on  merchandise,  ferries,  or  other  ob- 
jects,— to  open  roads  and  canals,  either  by  levying  a  road  tax,  or  the  chartering 
of  companies, — to  regulate  the  intercourse  of  the  people  with  the  Indian  tribes, — 
to  establish  post  offices  and  post  roads, — to  declare  war,  suppress  insurrection  or 
repel  invasion, — to  provide  for  the  organizing,  arming,  and  disciplining  the  mil- 
itia, and  for  calling  forth  the  militia  to  execute  the  laws  of  Oregon, — to  pass  laws 
to  regulate  the  introduction,  manufacture  or  sale  of  ardent  spirits, — to  regulate 
the  currency  and  internal  police  of  the  country ;  to  create  inferior  tribunals  and 
inferior  officers  necessary,  and  not  provided  for  by  these  articles  of  compact,  and 
generally  to  pass  such  laws  to  promote  the  general  welfare  of  the  people  of  Ore- 
gon, not  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  this  instrument, — and  all  powers  not  hereby 
expressly  delegated,  remain  with  the  people.  The  house  of  representatives  shall 
convene  annually  on  the  first  Tuesday  in  December,  at  such  place  as  may  be  pro- 
vided by  law,  and  shall,  upon  their  first  meeting  after  the  adoption  of  this  instru- 
ment of  compact,  proceed  to  elect  and  define  the  duties  of  a  secretary,  recorder, 
treasurer,  auditor,  marshal  or  any  other  officers  necessary  to  carry  into  effect 
the  provisions  of  this  compact. 

Section  7.  The  executive  power  shall  be  invested  in  one  person,  elected  by 
the  qualified  voters  at  the  annual  election,  who  shall  have  power  to  fill  vacancies, 
to  remit  fines  and  forfeitures,  to  grant  pardons  and  reprieves  for  offences  against 
the  laws  of  the  territory,  to  call  out  the  military  forces  of  the  territory  to  repel 
invasion  or  suppress  insurrection,  to  take  care  that  the  laws  are  faithfully  exe- 
cuted, and  to  recommend  such  laws  as  he  may  consider  necessary  to  the  represen- 
tatives of  the  people  for  their  action.  Every  bill  which  shall  have  been  passed  by 
the  house  of  representatives  shall,  before  it  becomes  a  law,  be  presented  to  the 
governor  for  his  approbation.  If  he  approve,  he  shall  sign  it ;  if  not,  he  shall 
return  it,  with  his  objections,  to  the  house,  and  the  house  shall  cause  the  objec- 
tions to  be  entered  at  large  on  its  journals,  and  shall  proceed  to  reconsider  the 
bill;  if,  after  such  reconsideration,  a  majority  of  two-thirds  of  the  house  shall 
agree  to  pass  the  same,  it  shall  become  a  law.  In  such  cases  the  votes  shall  be 
taken  by  ayes  and  noes,  and  entered  upon  the  journals.  If  any  bill  shall  not  be 
returned  by  the  governor  to  the  house  of  representatives  within  three  days 
(Sundays  excepted)   after  it  shall  have  been  presented  to  him,  the  same  shall 


ADDISON  C.  GIBBS 
War  Governor  of  Oregon.  1S62-6 


.lAJIES   W.  NESMITH 

Pioneer   of    1843 — Supreme   Judjte    in    provisional   government — U.   S.    Senator 
anil   niciiilier  of  Congress 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  047 

become  a  law  in  like  manner  as  if  the  governor  had  signed  it,  unless  the  house  of 
representatives,  b.y  its  adjournment,  shall  prevent  its  return,  in  which  ease  it 
shall  not  become  a  law.  The  governor  shall  continue  in  oiSce  two  years,  and  until 
his  successor  is  duly  elected  and  qualified ;  and  in  case  of  the  office  becondng  va- 
cant by  death,  resignation  or  otherwise,  the  secretary  shall  exercise  the  duties  of 
the  office  until  the  vacancy  shall  be  filled  by  election.    The  governor  shall  receive 

the  sum  of dollars  per  annum,  as  full  compensation  for  his  services,  which 

sum  nuty  be  increased  or  diminished  at  any  time  by  law;  provided,  the  salary  of 
no  governor  shall  be  altered  during  his  term  of  service.  The  governor  shall  have 
power  to  convene  the  legislature  on  extraordinary  occasions. 

Section  8.  The  judicial  power  shall  be  vested  in  a  supreme  court,  and  such  in- 
ferior courts  of  law,  equity  and  arbitration,  as  may  by  law,  from  time  to  time  be 
established.  The  supreme  court  shall  consist  of  one  judge  who  shall  be  elected  by 
the  house  of  representatives,  and  hold  his  office  for  four  years,  and  until  his  suc- 
cessor is  duly  elected  and  qualified.  The  supreme  court,  except  in  cases  otherwise 
directed  by  this  compact,  shall  have  appellate  jurisdiction  only,  which  shall  be 
co-extensive  with  this  territory,  and  shall  hold  two  sessions  annually,  beginning 
on  the  first  Mondays  of  June  and  September,  and  at  such  places  as  by  law 
directed.  The  supreme  court  shall  have  a  general  superintending  control  over 
all  inferior  courts  of  law.  It  shall  have  power  to  issue  writs  of  habeas  corpus, 
mandamus,  quo  warranto,  certiorari,  and  other  original  remedial  writs,  and  hear 
and  determine  the  same.  The  supreme  court  shall  have  power  to  decide  upon  and 
annul  any  laws  contrary  to  the  provisions  of  these  articles  of  compact,  and  when- 
ever called  upon  by  the  house  of  representatives,  the  supreme  judge  shall  give 
his  opinion,  touching  the  validity  of  any  pending  measure.  The  house  of  repre- 
sentatives may,  hereafter,  provide  by  law  for  the  supreme  court  having  original 
jurisdiction  in  criminal  cases. 

Section  9.  All  officers  under  this  compact  shall  take  an  oath,  as  follows, 
to-wit : — I  do  solemnly  swear  that  I  will  support  the  organic  laws  of  the  provis- 
ional government  of  Oregon,  so  far  as  said  organic  laws  are  consistent  with  my 
duties  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  or  a  subject  of  Great  Britain,  and  faith- 
fully demean  myself  in  office,  so  help  me  God. 

Section  10.  Every  free  male  descendant  of  a  white  man,  inhabitant  of  this 
territory,  of  the  age  of  twenty-one  years  and  upwards,  who  shall  have  been  an 
inhabitant  of  this  territory  at  the  time  of  its  organization,  shall  be  entitled  to 
vote  at  the  election  of  officers,  civil  and  military,  and  be  eligible  to  any  office  in 
the  territory ;  provided,  that  all  persons  of  the  description  entitled  to  vote  by  the 
provisions  of  this  section,  who  shall  immigrate  to  this  territory  after  organization, 
shall  be  entitled  to  the  rights  of  citizens,  after  having  resided  six  months  in  the 
territory. 

Section  11  The  election  of  all  civil  officers,  provided  for  by  this  compact, 
shall  lie  held  the  first  Monday  in  June  annually. 

Artich  III 

Section  1.  Any  person  now  holding,  or  hereafter  wishing  to  establish  a  claim 
to  land  in  this  territory,  shall  designate  the  extent  of  his  claim  by  natural  bounda- 
ries or  by  marks  at  the  corners  and  upon  the  lines  of  such  claim,  and  have  the 


648  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

extent  and  boundaries  of  said  claim  recorded  in  the  office  of  the  territorial  re- 
corder, in  a  book  to  be  kept  by  him  for  that  purpose,  within  twenty  days  from  the 
time  of  making  said  claim;  provided,  that  those  who  shall  be  already  in  posses- 
sion of  land,  shall  be  allowed  twelve  months  from  the  passage  of  this  act,  to  file  a 
description  of  his  claim  in  the  recorder's  office;  and,  provided  further,  that  the 
said  claimant  shall  state  in  his  record,  the  size,  shape  and  locality  of  such  claim, 
and  give  the  names  of  adjoining  claimants,  and  the  recorder  may  require  the 
applicant  for  such  record,  to  be  made  to  answer,  on  his  oath,  touching  the  facts. 

Section  2.  All  claimants  shall,  within  six  months  from  the  time  of  recording 
their  claims,  make  permanent  improvements  upon  the  same  by  building  or  enclos- 
ing, and  also  become  an  occupant  upon  said  claim  within  one  year  from  the  date 
of  such  record,  or  in  ease  not  occupied,  the  person  holding  said  claim  shall  pay 
into  the  treasury  the  sum  of  five  dollars  annually,  and  in  case  of  failure  to  occupy, 
or  on  failure  of  payment  of  the  sum  above  stated,  the  claim  shall  be  considered  as 
abandoned ;  provided,  that  no  non-resident  of  this  territory  shall  have  the  benefit 
of  this  law ;  and,  provided  further,  that  any  resident  of  this  territory,  absent  on 
his  private  business  for  two  years,  may  hold  his  claim  by  paying  five  dollars 
annually  to  the  treasury. 

Section  3.  No  individual  shall  be  allowed  to  hold  a  claim  of  more  than  one 
square  mile,  or  six  hundred  and  forty  acres,  in  a  square  or  oblong  form,  accord- 
ing to  the  natural  situation  of  the  premises.  Nor  shall  any  individual  be  allowed 
to  hold  more  than  one  claim  at  the  same  time.  Any  person  complying  with  the 
provisions  of  these  ordinances,  shall  be  entitled  to  the  same  recourse  against 
trespass,  as  in  other  eases  by  law  provided. 

Section  4.  Partnerships  of  two  or  more  persons  shall  be  allowed  to  take  up 
a  tract  of  land,  not  exceeding  six  hundred  and  forty  acres  to  each  person  in  said 
partnership,  subject  to  all  the  provisions  of  the  laws ;  and  whenever  such  partner- 
ship is  dissolved,  the  members  shall  each  record  the  particular  parts  of  said 
tract  as  may  be  allotted  to  him,  provided,  that  no  member  of  said  partnership 
shall  hold  a  separate  claim  at  the  time  of  the  existence  of  said  partnership. 

Section  5.  The  boundary  lines  of  all  claims  shall  hereafter  conform,  as  near 
as  may  be,  to  the  cardinal  points. 

Section  6.  The  officers  elected  at  the  general  election,  held  on  the  first  Tues- 
day in  June,  1845,  shall  be  the  officers  to  act  under  this  organic  law,  and  their 
official  acts,  so  far  as  they  are  in  accordance  with  this  compact,  are  hereby 
declared  valid  and  legal. 

Section  7.  Amendments  to  this  instrument  may  be  proposed  by  the  house  of 
representatives,  two-thirds  of  the  members  concurring  therein,  which  amend- 
ments shall  be  made  public  in  all  parts  of  Oregon,  and  be  read  at  the  polls  at  the 
next  succeeding  general  election,  and  a  concurrence  of  two-thirds  of  all  the  mem- 
bers elected  at  said  election,  may  pass  said  amendments,  and  they  shall  become  a 
part  of  this  compact. 

I,  John  E.  Long,  secretary  of  Oregon  territory,  do  hereby  certify  that  the 
foregoing  is  a  true  and  correct  copy  of  the  original  law,  as  passed  by  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people  of  Oregon,  on  the  fifth  day  of  July,  A.  D.  1845,  and 
submitted  to  the  people  on  the  twenty -sixth  day  of  the  same  month,  and  by  them 
adopted,  and  now  on  file  in  my  office. 

J.  E.  Long,  Secretary. 


IIAK\KY    W.    SCOTT 
Editor    of    "Tlir    Ori'fzoiiian"    for    Koit\ -the    Years 


THK  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  049 

This  organic  law,  the  f  umlamental  authority  aud  rule  of  action  in  a  little  state 
localcHl  ill  the  wilderness  two  thousand  miles  distant  from  any  other  state,  friends 
or  aid,  worked  out  and  drafted  by  pioneer  men  not  one  of  whom  had  ever  seen  an 
institution  of  education  better  than  a  common  country  school,  will  compare 
favorably  with  the  best  work  of  the  greatest  statesmen  in  the  most  enlightened 
nations.  Under  these  circumstances,  and  under  this  law,  these  pioneers  preserved 
public  order,  defended  their  frontiers  against  savage  foes,  raised  armies,  estab- 
lished courts,  coined  money,  levied  taxes,  administered  justice,  punished  crime, 
ajiportioned  the  public  lands,  and  promoted  education,  industry,  agriculture, 
commerce  and  manufactures.  What  more  has  any  other  state  ever  done  with  all 
the  facilities  of  accumulated  wealth,  old  established  institutions,  kings,  parlia- 
ments and  armies  ? 

With  these  pioneer  Oregonians  the  doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty  was  su- 
preme. They  announced  that  idea  here  in  the  wilderness  before  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  declared  in  its  favor  in  the  United  States  senate  on  the  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  contest.  They  declared  against  taxation  of  the  people  without  the 
consent  of  the  people.  They  were  invoking  the  referendum  more  than  fifty 
years  prior  to  the  direct  legislation  people  of  the  present  day. 

The  organization  of  a  territorial  government  by  Congress  brought  nothing 
lo  the  pioneer  Oregonians  but  the  feeling  of  safety  and  protection  under  the 
national  flag  against  the  schemes  of  England.  The  new  governor  found  a  people 
educated  to  rule,  and  qualified  for  discharging  any  public  trust  or  duty.  He 
brought  with  him  some  new  men,  but  no  new  ideas.  Gov.  Lane  came  to  Oregon 
with  a  fine  rejiutation  as  a  man  and  a  brilliant  military  leader.  And  he  was  him- 
self a  most  gracious  gentleman  with  high  principles  of  honor  and  integrity — and 
he  came  to  serve  as  well  as  rule,  aud  in  every  sense  of  the  word  to  be  one  of  the 
people.  He  secured  the  hearty  support  of  the  people;  and  if  he  had  not  made 
the  fatuous  mistake  of  accepting  the  nomination  for  vice-president  on  the  Seces- 
sion ticket  in  1859,  he  might  have  served  out  his  days  as  a  U.  S.  senator  from 
Oregon. 

THE  RISE  OF  POLITICAL  PARTIES 

With  Governor  Lane  came  other  men  also  to  administer  the  government — 
governors,  judges,  and  Indian  agents.  The  popularity  of  Lane  excited  great 
interest  among  ambitious  men  already  on  the  grounds ;  and  it  was  not  long  until 
there  were  signs  that  the  leaders  would  organize  parties.  The  followers  of  Lane 
took  possession  of  the  political  field  from  his  advent.  And  as  there  were  "not 
offices  enough  to  go  around, ' '  to  quote  a  notable  phrase  of  ' '  Lish ' '  Applegate,  the 
unprovided  for  began  to  organize  against  the  "Lane  party." 

Matters  were  further  complicated  by  the  fact  that  Lane  had  scarcely  got 
seated  in  the  saddle  before  his  friend.  President  Polk  went  out  of  office  and  was 
succeeded  by  the  Whig  administration  of  Taylor  and  Fillmore.  The  Whig  party 
l)eing  quite  as  greedy  for  ofSces  as  the  Democrats,  demanded  inimediately  the 
official  plums  in  distant  Oregon,  and  John  P.  Gaines  was  appointed  in  October, 

1849,  governor   to   supersede   Lane,   but   did  not   reach   Oregon   until  August, 

1850.  Gaines  was  the  opposite  of  Lane  in  everything  and  made  no  friends  for 
the  new  administration.     The  Oregonians  in  1850  were  nearly  all  Democrats,  and 


650  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

all  of  them  in  favor  of  home-made  talent;  and  to  be  governed  by  foreign  ap- 
pointees was  distasteful  at  best ;  and  by  one  not  of  their  political  faith  and  with 
austere  and  unsocial  manners  was  inciting  to  rebellion ;  and  it  is  not  surprising 
to  find  a  public  meeting  at  Portland  in  1851  passing  resolutions  demanding  of 
the  president  the  appointment  of  Oregonians  to  the  territorial  offices.     And  thus 
dissatisfaction  from  various  causes,  with  ambitious  men  and  aspiring  towns,  had 
been  steadily  growing  until  the  strain  of  suppressed  discontent  was  ripe  for  a 
break  at  some  point.     The  territorial  legislature  met  at  Oregon  City,  in  Decem- 
ber, 1850,  with  the  new  governor,  to  provide  much  needed  legislation.     The  loca- 
tion of  state  capital  and  state  institutions  was  the  excitement  of  the  da3^  from 
Portland  to  Jacksonville.     Oregon  Citj''  was  the  existing  capital  and  demanded 
to  be  made  the  permanent  capital.     Salem  wanted  the  capital  and  was  the  more 
central  location.     There  was  no  eastern  or  central  Oregon  in  those  days.     The 
legislature  passed  a  bill  giving  Salem  the  capital,  Corvallis  the  university,  and 
Portland  the  penitentiary,  and  Oregon  City  got  nothing.     The  "Whig  governor 
rightfully  objected  to  the  act  as  containing  more  than  one  sub.ject,  which  was  a 
violation  of  the  congressional  enabling  act.     But  the  representatives  of  the  people 
would  not  be  criticised  by  a  foreigner  and  a  Whig,  if  he  was  the  governor,  and 
paid  no  attention  to  his  objections.     And  on  this  issue  was  raised  the  agitation 
which  resulted  in  the  first  organization  of  political  parties  in  Oregon.     The  next 
spring  in  March,  1851,  Asahel  Bush  launched  at  Salem  the  Oregon  Statesman 
newspaper  as  an  organ  of  the  Democratic  party  in  Oregon.     Bush  was  a  shrewd 
observer,  a  cool-headed  business  man  and  superbly  equipped  by  nature  and  edu- 
cation as  an  organizer  and  manager  of  state  politics.     And  he  had  for  a  competi- 
tor in  political  leadership,  already  in  the  field,  Thos.  J.  Dryer  of  the  Oregonian, 
who  had  in  the  first  issue  of  his  paper,  December  4,  1850,  announced  his  support 
of  the  national  Whig  party.    These  two  men  were  substantially  the  founders  of 
the  Democratic  and  AVhig  parties  in  Oregon.    Both  were  able  writers,  and  Dryer 
was  a  stump  speaker  of  much  more  than  ordinary  ability.     During  the  legislature 
of  1852  a  caucus  of  the  Democratic  members  was  held  at  which  a  resolution  was 
passed  declaring  that  "it  was  expedient  to  organize  the  Democratic  party  in 
Oregon, ' '  and  a  central  committee  was  selected  of  which  J.  W.  Nesmith  was  made 
chairman.     The  Whigs  did  not  formally  organize  until  after  the  election  in  1853 ; 
the  results  of  which  proved  they  could  not  successfully  oppose  the  Democrats 
without  an  organization.     In  June,  1853,  the  Oregonian  appealed  to  the  AVhigs 
to  organize,  declaring  on  June  18,  "that  the  good  of  the  whole  people  demands  a 
partisan  course."    To  this  appeal,  Bush,  in  the  Statesman,  replied,  July  4,  1853, 
"The  sewer  man  (Dryer)  is  in  favor  of  organizing  the  Whig  party.     Greeley  of 
the  New  York  Tribune,  says  the  Whig  party  is  dead  in  the  states.    But  like  all 
animals  of  the  reptile  order,  it  dies  in  the  extremities  last ;  and  him  of  the  sewer 
(The  Oregonian)  is  the  last  agonizing  knot  in  the  tail."     To  this  blast  from  the 
Statesman,  the   Oregonian  replied,  saying:   "Heretofore,   the  Whigs  have  not 
deemed  it  expedient  to  organize  in  opposition  to  this  band  of  political  marauders 
(Democrats),  supposing  themselves  to  be  in  a  hopeless  minority.    But  the  time 
has  now  come  when  further  submission  to  the  locofoco  party  would  be  highly 
criminal.     Therefore  we  ask  every  Whig  in  Oregon  to  come  out  from  among  the 
Durham  wolves.     Let  us  take  our  position— unfurl  our  banners — proclaim  our 
principles  and  charge  manfully  into  the  Philistine  camp."     The  reference  to 


ABKiAIL  SCOTT  IJIMWAV 
Editor,  Reformer,  and   Leiidci-   of   the   Ecjual   Siill'iage   Mov 


lU'iit   on   the   Pacific   Coast 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OK  OREGON  (5.-)! 

•■|>m-liinn  wolves"  was  a  thrust  at  the  Democratic  district  judge,  0.  C.  Pratt, 
wild,  having  bought  a  lot  of  Spanish  cattle  from  a  man  named  "Durham," 
turned  about  and  sold  the  cattle  as  thoroughbreds  from  the  English  county  of 
Durham,  making  a  scandalous,  rascally  trick  which  Dryer  cliarged  up  against 
tiie  whole  Democratic  party. 

Such  was  the  segregation  and  organization  of  the  first  political  parties  in 
Oregon.  So  far  as  any  good  work  for  the  state  is  concerned  their  history  is  not 
worth  writing.  Not  a  single  large  and  useful  measure  can  be  pointed  to  as  the 
exclusive  work  of  either  of  these  old  parties.  The  same  can  be  said  of  the  ephem- 
eral organizations  in  favor  of  tlie  adoption  of  the  Maine  (liquor  prohibition) 
law,  and  the  secret  political  order  known  as  the  "Know  Nothings"  in  1854.  The 
Whig  party,  as  such,  never  accomplished  anything  for  the  state,  except  to  form  a 
stepping-stone  for  the  organization  of  the  Republican  party.  The  rival  organiza- 
tions contended  for  the  offices,  for  location  of  capital  or  state  buildings,  and  for 
or  against  speedj'  statehood.  On  the  slavery  and  temperance  questions  men 
divided  without  regard  to  party  lines  up  to  the  date  of  the  great  contest  between 
Lincoln  and  Douglas  in  Illinois  in  1858.  There  were  so  many  men  in  Oi-egon  who 
were  personal  friends  and  acquaintances  of  those  two  great  leaders  that  they  took 
an  intelligent  interest  in  the  contest  and  began  to  align  themselves  politically  for 
or  against  "Squatter  Sovereignty,"  which  quickly  led  them  to  consider  the  slav- 
ery question  in  its  demand  for  extension  into  new  territories.  And  this  was  the 
school  that  paved  the  way  for  an  organization  of  the  Republican  partj^  in  Oregon ; 
and  into  which  nearly  all  the  leadei's  of  the  Whig  party  went  when  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  became  rival  candidates  for  the  presidency  in  1859.  And  now  the  long 
suffering  Whigs,  as  new  born  children  in  the  Republican  organization,  get  their 
revenge  upon  their  old  time  tormentors.  The  Democratic  party  splits  in  twain. 
Bush,  Nesmith,  Ben  Harding  and  their  wing  of  the  Democracy  espouse  the  cause 
of  Douglas,  while  the  "old  liners"  who  favored  slavery  go  with  Gen.  Lane  to 
the  pro-slavery  ticket,  and  to  defeat  and  utter  destruction  as  a  pai-ty.  The 
slavery  question  wrecked  the  ambitions  of  more  than  one  great  man  in  Oregon. 
George  H.  Williams,  Matthew  P.  Deady,  James  W.  Nesmith,  Gen.  Lane,  0.  C. 
Pratt,  Peter  H.  Burnett  and  R.  P.  Boise  were  all  leading  men  of  fine  talents; 
and  all  were  greatly  embarassed  by  the  question  of  slavery.  Bush  was  not 
friendly  to  Williams  whom  he  knew  to  be  looking  to  the  future  for  a  position  in 
the  United  States  senate;  and  very  adroitly  induced  Williams  to  write  a  public 
letter  on  the  slavery  question.  Williams  wrote  the  letter  (July  28,  1857),  an 
able  document  in  which  he  opposed  slavery  on  questions  of  political  economy, 
and  said  nothing  about  the  moral  side  of  the  question.  And  for  this  position  he 
was  opposed  by  the  pro-slavery  Democrats  on  one  side,  and  the  anti-slavery  men 
on  the  other  side  because  of  the  low  moral  tone  of  his  letter ;  and  in  the  first  two 
elections  of  U.  S.  senators  Williams  got  no  support  worth  mentioning.  Burnett 
went  to  California  and  became  the  first  elective  American  governor,  running  as 
the  miner's  candidate.  Deady  got  an  appointment  as  U.  S.  district  judge,  was 
president  of  the  constitutional  convention,  sought  no  other  preferment  than  the 
bench  and  became  the  great  jurist  of  the  state,  prepared  its  second  code  of  laws, 
and  was  the  author  of  many  of  its  most  important  statutes.  And  notwithstand- 
ing slavery  was  the  burning  issue  in  Oregon  politics  for  years,  and  in  the  consti- 
tutional convention,  it  never  was  a  question  of  practical  politics  for  the  reasons 


652  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

given  by  Judge  Williams.  The  institution  of  slavery  was  so  wholly  unsuited  to 
the  people  and  circumstances  of  Oregon  that  it  would  have  died  out  of  its  o'mi 
weakness  if  it  had  been  recognized  by  law.  The  following  letter  recited  all  of  the 
African  slavery  that  ever  existed  in  Oregon : 

"Salem,  Oregon,  June  4,  1906. 
"Hon.  T.  W.  Davenport,  Silverton,  Oregon, 

"My  Dear  Sir — Yours  of  the  2d  inst.  is  just  received.  Colonel  Nat.  Ford 
came  to  Oregon  from  Missouri  in  1844  and  brought  with  him  three  slaves — two 
men  and  one  woman.  The  woman  was  married  to  one  of  the  men  and  had  some 
small  children.  Ford  claimed  these  children  as  slaves  and  continued  to  claim 
them  until  1853.  One  of  these  children —  a  girl — had  prior  to  that  time  been 
given  by  Ford  to  Mrs.  (Dr.)  Boyle,  a  daughter  of  Ford.  Prior  to  1853  the 
parents  of  these  children  (Robbin  and  Pollj^)  had  claimed  their  freedom  and  left 
Ford,  and  in  1852  were  living  at  Nesmith's  Mills,  but  Ford  had  kept  the  children. 
In  1853  Robbin  the  father  of  the  children,  brought  a  suit  by  habeas  corpus  to  get 
possession  of  the  children.  This  case  was  heard  by  Judge  Williams  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1853,  and  he  held  that  these  children,  being  then  (by  the  voluntary  act  of 
Ford)  in  Oregon,  where  slavery  could  not  legally  exist,  were  free  from  the  bonds 
of  slavery,  and  awarded  their  custody  to  their  father. 

"Yours  truly, 

"R.  P.  Boise." 

There  were  pro-slavery  men  in  Oregon  prior  to  the  adoption  of  the  state  con- 
stitution, but  their  support  of  that  institution  was  a  sympathetic  feeling  inher- 
ited from  former  associations,  and  not  a  devotion  to  a  real  interest.  For  this 
reason,  Judge  Williams'  "Free  State  Letter,"  as  it  was  called  at  that  time,  was 
effective  to  defeat  slavery  in  the  constitution,  although  it  aroused  the  hostility 
of  the  pro-slavery  men  and  laid  the  judge  on  the  political  shelf  for  seven  years. 
That  celebrated  letter  was  useful  for  another  reason,  and  that  was  that  as  it  could 
not  be  answered  by  the  pro-slavery  men,  the  subject  of  slavery  was  shoved  into 
the  background,  the  great  mass  6f  the  voters  uniting  in  selecting  able  men  for 
members  of  the  convention,  and  the  people  got  the  best  constitution  that  the  pop- 
ular sentiment  of  that  era  could  produce.  But  notwithstanding  the  strength  of 
Williams'  letter  as  a  political  document  of  that  time,  and  his  ability  as  a  public 
man,  it  painfully  exhibits  his  want  of  courage  on  moral  c[uestions  and  his  fear  of 
unreasoning  prejudices.  Two  extracts  from  the  letter  will  show  the  difference 
between  such  men  as  Lincoln,  Seward  and  Sumner  and  the  writer  of  this  his- 
torical letter.    Towards  the  close  of  the  letter  Judge  Williams  says : 

"I  contend  that  we  have  a  perfect  right  to  have  slavery  or  not,  as  we 
please,  but  we  know  what  the  sentiment  of  the  North  is  upon  this  question, 
and  we  must  take  things  as  they  are,  and  not  as  they  should  be  '^  *  *  *  What- 
ever may  be  inferred  from  my  arguments  against  slavery  in  Oregon,  I  dis- 
claim all  sympathy  with  the  abolition  agitators  of  the  North  and  deprecate 
and  denounce  all  sectional  organizations  upon  that  subject.  The  general  gov- 
ernment has  no  right  to  interfere  with  slavery  except  to  carry  out  the  fugitive 
slave  law,  and  maintain  the  opinion  that  each  state  and  territory  has  the  abso- 
lute right  to  establish,  modify  or  prohibit  slavery  within  its  borders." 


DAVID  LOGAN 

Great  Advocate — Brilliant  Lawyer — "Master  of  the  Twelve" 

from   1850   to    1870 


MATTHEW    P.    DEADV 

Tlic    flroat    .Iiid-f 


THE  CENTEXNIATi  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  (jr)3 

Jlan  proposes,  but  God  disposes.  Oregon  held  its  state  constitutional  con- 
vention, adopted  its  fundamental  law,  was  quietly  admitted  to  the  great  union 
of  states,  and  within  four  years  fi-om  the  date  of  Judge  Williams'  celebrated 
letter  the  armies  of  the  slaveholders'  Southern  Confederacy  were  thundering  at 
the  gates  of  the  national  capital  to  overthrow  the  National  Union.  And  all  the 
fine  spun  theories  of  the  right  of  one  man  to  make  a  slave  of  another  had  vanished 
into  the  limbo  of  forgotten  and  hateful  things. 

While  Oregon  was  far  I'emoved  fi-om  the  stirring  events  and  bloody  scenes 
of  the  great  Civil  war,  its  people  took  an  exciting  interest  in  its  origin  and 
progress.  Men  quickly  placed  themselves  on  opposite  sides  of  the  question 
of  crushing  or  treating  for  peace  with  the  rebels  of  the  southern  states.  Quite 
a  number  of  Oregonians  joined  the  armies  of  the  Southern  Confederacy  to  destroy 
the  Union.  Gen.  J.  K.  Lamerick,  of  Jacksonville,  the  Indian  fighter,  a  delegate 
to  the  Charleston  convention  that  nominated  Breckinridge  and  Lane  for  the 
presidency,  joined  the  rebel  army  and  became  commissary  of  a  Louisiana  regi- 
ment ;  D.  B.  Hanna,  who  had  been  U.  S.  marshal  was  a  captain  in  the  rebel 
army;  J.  B.  Sykes,  of  the  territorial  legislature,  was  a  quartermaster  of  a  Vir- 
ginia regiment ;  R.  B.  Lletcalfe,  an  Indian  agent,  joined  the  rebel  army  in  Texas ; 
and  Benjamin  Stark,  who  Governor  Whiteaker  appointed  United  States  senator 
to  fill  the  vacancy  caused  by  the  death  of  Senator  Baker,  was  charged  with  dis- 
loyalty to  the  government,  and  Senator  Sumner  offered  a  resolution  to  expel 
Stark  from  the  senate.  A  committee  consisting  in  part  of  senators  Sherman, 
of  Ohio,  Willey,  of  West  Virginia,  and  Howard,  of  Michigan,  was  appointed  and 
took  evidence  on  the  charges  and  reported  to  the  senate  on  April  20,  1862 : 

"First — That  for  many  months  prior  to  November  21,  1861,  and  up  to  that 
time,  the  said  Stark  was  an  ardent  advocate  of  the  cause  of  the  rebelious  states. 
Second — That  after  the  formation  of  the  constitution  of  the  Confederate  States 
he  openly  declared  his  admiration  of  it  and  advocated  the  absorption  of  the  loyal 
states  of  the  Union  into  the  Southern  Confederacy  under  that  constitution  as  the 
only  means  of  peace,  warmly  avowing  his  sympathies  with  the  south.  Third — - 
That  the  senator  from  Oregon  is  disloyal  to  the  government  of  the  United  States. ' ' 

The  session  of  Congress  expiring  in  two  weeks  after  the  committee  repoi-tcd, 
and  before  the  senate  could  take  action,  the  Oregon  senator  escaped  expulsion. 

On  the  momentous  issues  of  the  war  the  people  of  Oregon  quickly  divided 
and  party  lines  were  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  state  severely  and 
sternly  drawn.  The  Repviblicans  and  Douglas  Democrats  organized  all  over  the 
state  as  Union  men.  The  Pro-slavery  Democrats  adhered  to  their  old  organiza- 
tion, and  were  denounced  by  their  opponents  as  "seceshers." 

On  this  line  up  of  the  voters  a  Union  convention  was  held  in  April,  1862, 
which  nominated  for  representative  to  congress,  John  R.  McBride,  of  Yamhill 
county;  for  governor,  Addison  C.  Gibbs,  of  Jackson  county;  for  secretary  of 
state,  Samuel  E.  May,  of  Jackson  county ;  for  state  printer,  Harvey  Gordon,  of 
]\rarion  county ;  for  state  treasurer,  Edwin  N.  Cooke,  of  Marion  county ;  for 
judge  of  fourth  judicial  district,  E.  D.  Shattuek,  of  Multnomah  county;  for 
prosecuting  attorneys,  first  district,  James  F.  Gazley,  of  Douglas  county ;  second 
district,  A.  J.  Thayer  of  Benton  county ;  third  district,  J.  G.  Wilson,  of  Marion 
county;  fourth  district,  W.  C.  Johnson,  of  Clackamas  county.  About  the  same 
time  the  Democrats  held  their  convention  at  Corvallis  and  nominated  the  fol- 


654  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

lowing  ticket:  For  congress,  Aaron  E.  Wait,  of  Portland;  for  governor,  John 
F.  Miller  of  Salem ;  for  secretary  of  state,  George  T.  Vining,  of  Jacksonville ;  for 
state  treasurer,  Jerome  B.  Greer ;  and  for  state  printer,  Anthony  Noltner.  When 
election  day  came  around  the  Oregonian  of  May  31,  1862,  made  the  following 
appeal. 

' '  This  day  will  determine  whether  Oregon  is  a  secession  state  or  whether  she 
is  true  to  the  Star-spangled  Banner  and  the  Union.  Words  are  worth  little  now. 
Every  man  has  made  up  his  mind  how  he  will  vote.  AVe  are  certain  that  Union 
men  will  stand  by  the  Union  and  vote  for  the  ticket  which  is  for  the  Union  with- 
out condition.  When  the  stars  shine  forth  this  evening  they  will  shed  their  luster 
over  a  redeemed  and  glorious  Union  state." 

It  was  the  warmest  election  ever  held  in  Oregon,  if  Columbia  county  was  a 
fair  expression,  and  the  Oregonian  coi-respondent  is  to  be  credited  when  he 
writes  that  St.  Helens  had  a  jolly  time  on  the  day  of  the  election.  About  40 
fights,  no  less,  are  said  to  have  occurred;  67  shirts  badly  torn,  36  bloody  noses, 
24  black  eyes,  18  backs  dusted,  140  buttons  lost,  12  pairs  of  suspenders  bursted, 
8  kegs  of  lager  and  19  gallons  of  whiskey  consumed,  the  ground  considerably 
torn  up,  besides  innumerable  scratches,  kicks,  bites,  etc.  etc.,  are  said  to  have 
been  the  result  of  the  day 's  disturbance.  That  election  placed  the  Oregon  democ- 
racy in  the  discard  for  many  years,  and  not  until  all  the  results  of  the  war 
policy  of  the  Republicans  had  been  fully  accepted  as  the  settled  policy  of  the 
nation  did  the  Democratic  party  again  carry  a  state  election  in  Oregon  by  the 
election  of  L.  P.  Grover  to  the  office  of  governor.  To  record  all  the  thrilling 
incidents  of  the  exciting  contest  between  the  Republicans  and  Pro-slavery 
Democrats  in  Oregon  during  the  years  1861,  2,  3  and  4,  would  fill  a  volume.  On 
July  3,  1861,  William  F.  Eastham,  of  Clackamas  county,  raised  a  home  made 
national  flag  with  all  the  Stars  and  Stripes  on  it,  to  celebrate  Independence  day 
at  his  own  home.  A  number  of  horsemen  rode  down  in  front  of  his  house  on  the 
morning  of  July  4th,  and  demanded  that  the  flag  be  pulled  down.  Eastham  with 
his  rifle  in  hand  placed  himself  between  his  flag  and  the  secessionists  and  defied 
the  crowd,  saying  the  first  man  that  dares  to  pull  down  that  flag  will  die.  That 
flag  was  not  pulled  down,  and  can  be  seen  now  at  the  rooms  of  the  Oregon 
Historical  Society.  The  secret  society  known  as  "Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle" 
was  organized  to  help  the  disunionists.  Gen.  Stephen  Coffin  promptly  organized 
the  "Union  League"  all  over  the  AA^'illamette  valley  to  offset  the  "Knights." 
Rifles  in  cases  were  secretly  smuggled  into  Oregon  and  concealed  in  barns  in 
Benton  and  Lane  counties,  to  be  used  in  a  hoped-for  uprising  in  favor  of  the 
Southern  Confederacy  if  the  success  of  its  armies  in  the  field  would  justify  the 
move.  Provost  marshal,  Captain  J.  M.  Keeler,  with  a  corps  of  detectives,  was 
sent  to  Oregon  to  watch  the  movements  of  certain  men,  and  promptly  arrest 
them  at  any  attempt  to  organize  armed  opposition  to  the  government. 

The  triumph  of  the  Union  armies,  and  the  overthrow  of  the  Southern  Confed- 
eracy, and  all  the  ideas  it  stood  for,  resulted  in  a  powerful  and  exultant  republi- 
can party  in  Oregon.  Its  marked  success  immediately  attracted  to  its  fold  all 
the  place-hunters,  self-seekers  and  mercenary  soldiers  of  fortune  in  the  state. 
And  as  that  class  of  recruits  could  not  by  themselves  control  the  party  they  were 
compelled  to  organize  secret  combinations  within  the  party  to  control  and  direct 
its  organization  and  monopolize  its  favors.     This  resulted  in  the  packing  of 


AVILLIAM   STRONG 
Justice   of   the    Supreme   Courts   of   Oregon   and   Washington 


ERASJirs   D.   SHATTUCK 
A  Greatly   llmimcd  and  'rnistiMl  .liuljje  for  Txvciitv-five  Years 


AaroR,  L~ '  - 


THE  CpNTENNTAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  (w^ 

primaries,  stuffing  of  luillot  boxos,  packing  ol'  party  conventions,  selection  of 
hireling  legislators  and  the  election  of  corrupt  judges.  This  aroused  bitter  oppo- 
sition within  the  party  lines,  and  strenuous  efforts  were  made  by  such  men  as 
A.  C.  Gibbs,  Gen.  Coffin.  W.  D.  Hare,  J.  D.  Lee,  Reuben  P.  Boise,  D.  W.  Craig, 
AV.  C.  Johnson,  E.  D.  Shattuck,  T.  "W.  Davenport  and  many  others  to  defeat 
the  schemes  of  the  eorruptionists  and  make  the  Republican  ])arty  stand  for  honor, 
justice  and  equal  rights  to  all.  And  this  opposition  to  the  corrupt  schemes  of 
the  "bosses  and  rings"  within  the  party  went  so  far  as  to  refuse  to  elect 
Jlitchell's  friend,  Solomon  Hirsch,  to  the  U.  S.  senate  in  188.5,  although  sup- 
l)ortcd  by  a  majority  of  the  Republicans,  and  adjourned  the  session  without 
electing  a  senator.  And  again  in  1897  the  house  of  representatives  refused 
to  organize  in  order  to  defeat  the  re-election  of  Mitchell  to  the  senate.  And  at 
the  special  session  in  1886,  twenty -three  Republican  members  of  the  legislature 
refusing  to  go  into  the  caucus  of  Republican  members  and  have  their  hands  tied 
by  the  partisans  of  Jlitchell,  he  went  into  the  Democratic  camp  and  bought 
up  seventeen  Democratic  members  of  the  legislature  with  money  furnished  by 
the  Southern  Pacific  Railroad  Company,  and  forced  his  re-election  to  the  United 
States  senate.  Ben  Holladay,  who  has  been  mentioned  in  Chapter  XIX.,  was 
the  pioneer  in  the  infamous  business  of  corrupting  the  Oregon  legislature ;  having 
bought  up  the  legislature  of  1868  to  designate  a  fictitious  and  fraudulent  railroad 
company  to  receive  the  Oregon  and  California  railroad  land  grant.  After  this 
success  he  became  a  candidate  for  U.  S.  senator;  and  failing  to  elect  George  H. 
Williams  to  the  senate  in  1870  as  a  reward  for  Williams'  support  of  Plolladay's 
fraudulent  railroad  company,  Holladay  became  a  candidate  for  the  senate  him- 
self in  1872.  John  H.  Mitchell,  the  Republican  "boss,"  and  Holladay 's  attorney, 
was  also  a  candidate ;  and  to  get  Mitchell  out  of  the  way  Holladay  offered  him 
$15,000  to  withdraw  and  support  his  ( Holladay 's)  pretensions.  This  Mitchell 
refused  to  do,  although  he  had  to  sacrifice  all  of  his  property  to  raise  money 
to  silence  the  legislative  cormorants  who  demanded  money  for  their  votes.  And 
although  Mitchell  was  three  times  elected  to  the  U.  S.  senate  after  that,  and  was 
an  attorney  whose  services  were  in  demand  and  well  paid,  he  remained  a  poor 
man  the  balance  of  his  days,  and  now  reposes  in  an  unmarked  grave. 

Those  high-handed  measures  of  Senator  I\Iitchell  and  his  partisans  produced 
such  demoralization  and  disorganization  of  the  Republican  party  in  the  state  that 
in  the  .year  1892  the  opposition  to  the  Mitchell  Republicans  held  a  state  conyen- 
tion  at  Oregon  City  to  organize  the  "People's  Party"  of  Oregon.  This  move- 
ment aroused  bitter  opposition  from  both  the  Repul)lican  and  Democratic  parties. 
But  it  steadily  increased  in  strength  until  it  had  elected  one  presidential  elector 
in  the  state  (Nathan  Pierce,  of  Umatilla  county),  and  in  1896  the  vote  on  the 
office  of  supreme  judge  was  40.451  for  the  Republican  candidate.  Robert  S.  Bean  : 
26,135  for  the  Populist  candidate,  Joseph  Gaston,  and  18,623  for  the  Democratic 
candidate,  John  Burnett.  Alarmed  by  the  growth  of  the  Populists,  and  unable 
to  check  their  increasing  influence,  both  of  the  old  parties — -Republican  and 
Democrat — made  haste  to  adopt  the  principles  of  the  Populists;  and  have  kept 
on  adopting  them,  until  there  are  now  three  great  National  parties  each  claim- 
ing to  be  the  only  safe  and  reliable  conservators  of  the  "  progi-essive "  prin- 
ciples proposed  by  the  despised  Populists  thirty  years  ago.     In  reviewing  this 


656  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

item  of  history  the  editor  of  the  East  Oregonian  of  Pendleton  (Mr.  Bert  Huff- 
man), made  the  following  record  on  June  20,  1904: 

"shake,  old  man" 

' '  J.  Gaston,  of  Portland,  one  of  the  most  tireless  and  indefatigable  reformers 
in  the  state,  who  has  been  pioneering  in  Oregon  politics  for  almost  half  a  cen- 
tury, pours  out  a  few  hundred  words  of  enthusiasm  in  a  communication  to  the 
Portland  Oregonian  over  the  success  of  the  direct  primary  nominating  amend- 
ment. 

"The  passage  of  this  amendment  is  the  realization  of  one  more  of  Gaston's 
dreams  and  he  celebrates  the  jubilee  in  the  following  happy  strain : 

"  'Portland,  Ore.,  June  8. —  (To  the  Editor.)- — The  Oregonian  has  duly  re- 
corded the  great  victory  of  John  Manning  and  Tom  Word,  the  great  victory  of 
Mr.  Nottingham  and  the  great  victory  of  the  Republican  party  on  the  state  ticket ; 
but  it  says  nothing  of  the  far  greater  Populist  victory  in  the  success  of  direct 
nominations  by  the  people. 

' '  '  This  measure  became  possible  only  after  the  adoption  of  the  initiative  and 
referendum,  and  that  amendment  to  the  constitution  was  wholly  a  Populist 
measure,  and  the  very  "head  and  front  of  their  offending." 

"  'Through  every  species  of  opposition,  ridicule,  and  abuse  did  the  pioneer 
leaders  of  populism  give  their  time  and  money  in  advocacy  of  the  right  of  the 
people,  not  only  to  dictate  the  nomination  of  their  public  servants,  but  also  to 
instruct  and  compel  them  to  enact  laws  in  obedience  to  the  popular  wish. 

"  'And  it  is  not  forgotten  with  what  fine  scorn  and  vehement  sarcasm  the 
Oregonian  and  the  other  old  party  papers  assailed  the  Populists  as  ' '  impractical 
visionaries,"  "crack-brained  fools,"  anarchists  and  other  epithets  of  coarser 
vein,  for  daring  to  offer  their  views  in  opposition  to  the  statesmen  who  support 
the  Republican  party  "that  thrift  may  follow  fawning." 

"  'The  Populist  leaders — who  gave  their  time  and  money  to  promote  these 
popular  measures — got  no  offices  or  reward  for  their  unselfish  labors. 

"  'But  they  have  the  satisfaction  of  living  to  see  their  measures  enacted  into 
the  fundamental  law  of  the  state;  and  the  rejected  stone  of  populism  become 
in  12  brief  years  the  chief  corner-stone  of  popillar  rights  in  Oregon. 

"  'Neither  of  the  old  parties  can  point  to  such  a  grand  victory  as  this  in  all 
the' history  of  the  state,  and  whether  the  direct  nominations  result  in  promoting 
the  public  welfare  depends  wholly  on  the  use  the  voters  make  of  these  revolu- 
tionary weapons  of  political  power. 

"  'But  the  fact  is  now,  on  this  June  morning,  patent  to  every  Oregon  poli- 
tician, that  a  new  and  Herculean  political  force  has  arisen  in  the  state,  and  one 
which  cannot  be  suppressed  in  backroom  caucuses. 

"  'The  despised  Populists  have  now  their  inning.  Good-bye  old  political 
hacks.    He  laughs  best  who  laughs  last. 

"  'J.  Gaston.'  " 

The  reformers  of  Oregon,  and  especially  eastern  Oregon,  well  remember  the 
beginning  of  the  movement  which  has  finally  resulted  in  giving  to  the  people 
the  initiative  and  referendum,  favorable  expression  on  the  popular  election  of 


2 — .James  K.  Kelly 
4— William    Lair   Hill 


THE   CliDK    MAKKU: 


1— Matthew    P.    Deady 


3 — Charles   Bvron   Bellinger 
5 — William  I'aris  Lord 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON  (jfi? 

United  States  senators,  a  direct  primary  amendment  and  a  prospective  flat 
salary  law. 

A  soulful  confession  will  not  be  amiss  here.  The  editor  of  the  East  Ore- 
gonian  was  a  boy  of  20,  the  youngest  delegate  in  attendance  at  that  Oregon  City 
Populist  convention  of  1892,  at  which  Uiiiatilla  county  had  the  largest  delega- 
tion outside  of  Portland,  and  headed  by  that  pioneer  warhorse,  Nathan  Pierce. 

J.  Gaston  was  at  that  convention  talking  direct  primaries,  initiative  and 
referendum,  equal  suft'rage  and  popular  election  of  United  States  senators. 

That  was  the  beginning.  There  were  no  newly  blacked  shoes  in  that  con- 
vention. Not  a  solitary  man  in  that  gathering  parted  his  hair  in  the  middle. 
There  was  but  one  Prince  Albert  coat,  three  striped  neckties,  and  "nary"  silk 
hat  among  the  100  delegates,  but  it  started  a  movement  for  reform  in  Oregon 
which  the  8,000  to  20,000  republican  majority  has  complimented  and  indorsed 
year  by  year  by  ingrafting  them  into  the  organic  law  of  the  state. 

When  equal  suffrage  is  atlopted  next  year  the  old  Populist  program  will  have 
been  completed  in  Oregon. 


PROHIBITION  PARTY 

During  the  period  above  considered  there  has  been  a  precarious  organization 
of  the  anti-liquor  men  under  the  name  of  the  Prohibition  party,  which  has  for 
twenty  years  kept  up  an  agitation  of  the  temperance  question,  with  regular 
state  tickets  in  the  field,  and  county  tickets  in  many  counties.  The  promoters 
of  this  reform  have  attested  their  devotion  to  their  principles  by  large  sacrifices 
of  time  and  money  for  the  good  of  society  and  the  state;  and  have  in  many 
places  succeeded  in  closing  the  liquor  saloons  and  making  orderly  quiet  and 
decent  many  town  and  counties  that  had  been  cursed  with  the  saloon  nuisance. 

The  Socialists  have  also  increased  in  numbers  sufficient  to  have  a  state  organi- 
zation ;  but  have  not  yet  exercised  any  noticeable  influence  in  state  politics. 

The  question  of  equal  rights  to  women  in  the  exercise  of  the  right  of  suffrage 
has  been  twice  submitted  to  the  electors  of  the  state,  and  failed  to  receive  votes 
sufficient  to  incorporate  the  proposition  in  the  state  constitution.  It  is  now 
again  to  he  voted  upon  at  the  ensuing  election,  the  result  of  which  will  not  be 
known  in  time  to  be  included  in  this  History.  The  great  leader  of  the  move- 
ment in  Oregon,  whose  likeness  appears  on  another  page,  a  leader  with  a  national 
reputation,  and  a  record  of  fifty  years  of  unfaltering  and  courageous  advocacy 
of  equal  rights  to  all  persons — Abigail  Scott  Duniway — is  at  this  time  unfortu- 
nately confined  to  her  home  from  the  infirmities  of  age.  But  with  an  intellect 
that  leads  that  battle  of  justice,  and  a  dauntless  spirit  that  halts  not  at  opposi- 
tion or  defeat,  from  her  home  in  the  city  of  Portland  still  goes  out  to  every 
hiinilct  in  the  state  the  ins])iring  command — 

"Oh   watch   and  fight   and   pray 
The  battle  ne'er  give  o'er 
Renew  it  boldly  every  day 
And  help  divine  implore." 


658  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

THE   EVOLUTION   OF   LAWS   AND    LEGISLATION 

The  most  noteworthy  incidents  in  the  development  of  state  government  in 
Oregon  are  the  original  compact  and  declaration  of  principles  adopted  by  the 
pioneers  at  the  mass  meeting  at  Champoeg  on  July  5,  1845 ;  and  the  Provisional 
constitution  adopted  by  the  people  by  a  majority  vote  at  the  election  on  July 
26,  1845.  Both  of  these  era-marking  popular  sovereignty  measures  have  already 
been  reviewed.  The  making  and  adoption  of  the  state  constitution  by  the  con- 
vention of  sixty  delegates  of  the  people  meeting  at  Salem,  September  18,  1857, 
was  a  more  considerate  and  deliberate  act  than  the  previous  documents.  It  was 
made  so  by  the  gi-eater  population  represented  by  these  delegates ;  by  the  ample 
time  given  for  discussion  of  every  question;  by  the  facility  of  consulting  the 
constitutions  of  other  states;  and  by  the  more  educated  and  trained  men  com- 
posing the  convention.  And  while  the  document  they  produced  was  for  more 
than  forty  years  the  undisputed  and  unaltered  fundamental  and  supreme  law 
of  the  state,  it  added  nothing  to  the  substantial  rights  and  immunities  of  the  citi- 
zen which  he  had  not  possessed  under  the  Provisional  government,  except  the 
right  of  appeals  to  appellate  courts.  Several  vigorous  efforts  Avere  made  to 
amend  the  state  constitution  to  give  the  right  of  suffrage  to  women,  and  to 
regulate  the  liquor  traffic  either  by  local  option  or  state-wide  prohibition,  but 
all  met  with  defeat  from  the  conservative  electorate.  But  in  1890  a  state-wide 
campaign  was  commenced  by  a  determined  band  of  men,  nearly  all  of  them 
members  of  the  Republican  party,  to  secure  such  amendments  to  the  state  con- 
stitution as  would  disarm  the  primary  ballot-box  stuffing  and  state  con- 
vention packing  "bosj;es"  of  the  old  parties,  and  restore  to  the  people  the 
power  to  dictate  and  control  legislation.  These  agitators  and  innovators  met 
with  bitter  opposition  from  both  of  the  old  parties,  and  were  denounced  by  all 
the  leading  newspapers,  office  holders  and  office  seekers  as  "calamity  howlers." 
But  they  would  not  retreat,  nor  keep  quiet,  but  kept  up  the  ' '  howl ' '  until  within 
ten  years  from  the  time  they  effected  a  state  organization  under  the  name  of  the 
"People's"  or  "Populist"  party,  the  voters  of  the  state  had  endorsed  their 
propaganda  of  reform  and  amended  the  state  constitution  so  as  to  secure  direct 
nomination  of  candidates  for  office  by  registered  voters;  direct  legislation  by 
the  people  by  initiative  propositions  proposed  by  registered  voters;  and  a  refer- 
endum to  the  people  of  any  act  passed  by  the  legislature  on  the  petition  demand 
of  registered  voters.  This  was  the  most  radical  departure  from  the  universal 
methods  of  legislative  bodies  ever  proposed  or  enacted  in  the  United  States.  And 
it  was  proposed  and  pushed  to  final  success  by  the  despised  Populists,  and  incor- 
porated into  the  laws  of  Oregon  prior  to  its  adoption  by  any  other  state  in  the 
Union.  These  are  now,  in  1912,  called  the  "Progressive"  laws,  and  three  presi- 
dential candidates,  and  their  respective  parties — the  Republican,  Democratic 
and  Roosevelt  (progressive)  parties,  are  each  claiming  to  be  the  only  true  and 
trustworthy  representatives  of  these  old  Populist  reforms. 

While  this  History  is  in  course  of  preparation,  two  propositions,  entirely  new 
and  distinctive  in  American  governments,  are  now  being  pressed  upon  the  voters 
of  the  state  for  a  decision.  First :  an  initiative  bill  to  substitute  a  tax  upon  the 
rental  value  of  land  in  lieu  of  all  other  raxes  upon  property.  This  proposition 
goes  by  the  name  of  ' '  The  Single  Tax. ' '    Second :  an  initiative  bill  to  substitute 


WILLIAM  S.  U'REN 

The  leading  advocate  of  the  "Oregon  System"  of  direct  primary  nomination 
of  public   offices   and   direct   ballot-box  law-making 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OKKCOX  (l.-)9 

a  I'abinet  form  of  government  for  the  state  in  place  of  the  political  elective  form 
of  government  now  in  force.  These  measures  are  proposed  by  the  People's  Power 
League  of  Oregon,  of  which  Wm.  S.  U'Ren,  is  the  secretary. 

B.\I;LOT  TITLE  DESIGNATION  OF  INITIATIVE  AND  UEFEBENDUM    MEASURES 

There  are  now  before  the  people  for  adoption  or  rejection  at  the  next  election, 
the  following  initiative  measures. 

Equal  suffrage  amendment,  extending  the  right  of  suffrage  to  women. 

For  constitutional  amendment  of  Section  8,  Article  V.,  for  the  purpose  of 
Treating  the  office  of  lieutenant-governor  who  shall  act  as  governor  in  case  of 
the  inability  of  the  governor  to  perform  his  duties,  and  also  act  as  president  of 
the  senate;  and  providing  for  the  president  pro  tem  of  the  senate  to  act  as  gov- 
ernor in  case  of  the  inability  of  both  the  governor  and  lieutenant-governor,  and 
in  ease  of  the  inability  of  the  governor,  lieutenant-governor,  and  president  pro 
tem  of  the  senate,  the  speaker  of  the  house  to  act  as  governor. 

For  an  amendment  of  Section  1,  Article  IX.  of  the  Oregon  constitution,  pro- 
viding for  a  uniform  rule  of  taxation  except  on  property  specifically  taxed,  pro- 
viding for  the  levy  and  collection  of  taxes  for  state  purposes  and  for  county 
and  other  municipal  purposes  upon  different  classes  of  property. 

For  an  amendment  of  Section  32,  Article  I.  Oregon  constitution,  for  the 
purpose  of  permitting  taxes  to  be  levied  upon  different  classes  of  property  at 
different  rates. 

For  constitutional  amendment  to  repeal  all  of  Section  1,  of  Article  IX.  except 
that  part  prohibiting  poll  and  head  taxes  in  Oregon,  and  instead  of  the  portions 
repealed  to  add  a  provision  prohibiting  the  declaration  of  an  emergency  in  any 
act  passed  by  the  legislature  regulating  taxation  and  exemptions. 

For  amendment  of  Section  1,  of  Article  XVTT.  of  the  constitution  so  as  to 
require  for  the  adoption  of  any  proposed  constitutional  amendment  a  majority 
vote  of  all  the  electors  voting  at  such  election. 

For  constitutional  amendment  of  Section  3,  Article  XI.  of  the  constitution, 
making  stockholders  in  banking  corporations  liable  to  pay  for  the  benefit  of 
depositors  an  amount  equal  to  the  par  value  of  the  stock  held  by  any  stockholder 
in  addition  to  having  originally  paid  the  par  value  therefor. 

An  act  vesting  the  railroad  commission  with  power  and  jurisdiction  to  super- 
vise and  regulate  every  public  service  corporation  and  utility  in  the  state  of 
Oregon,  as  to  the  adequacy  of  the  service  rendered  and  facilities  provided,  the 
fairness  of  rates,  tolls,  and  charges,  to  be  collected  from  the  public  therefor,  and 
also  as  to  interchange  of  business  between  such  public  service  corporations  and 
utilities. 

An  act  appropi'iating  $50,000  for  building,  furnishing  and  equipping  a 
dormitory  at  the  Oregon  State  Normal  School  at  Monmouth. 

A  bill  for  an  act  to  create  out  of  the  eastern  part  of  Clackamas  county,  a 
new  county  to  be  called  Cascade  county. 

A  bill  for  an  act  creating  a  single  board  of  regents  for  the  L^niversity  of 
Oregon  and  the  State  Agricultural  College. 

For  the  amending  of  Section  1,  Article  IV.  of  the  constitution -of  the  state 
of  Oregon  so  as  to  require  a  majority  vote  of  all  electors  voting  at  anj^  election 


660  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

to  adopt  constitutional  amendment  and  pass  initiative  measures,  and  a  majority 
vote  only  of  electors  voting  thereon  to  reject  measures  referred  to  the  people. 

A  bill  for  an  act  authorizing  any  county  in  this  state  to  issue  bonds  for  the 
construction  of  permanent  roads. 

A  bill  for  an  act  .to  create  a  state  highway  department,  authorizing  the  gov- 
ernor to  appoint  a  state  highway  engineer  at  an  annual  salary  of  $3,600. 

A  bill  to  put  chapter  266,  laws  of  1911,  into  effect  December  1,  1912,  instead 
of  January  1,  1915,  which  chapter  creates  a  state  printing  board  consisting  of 
governor,  secretary  of  state,  and  state  treasurer,  fixes  salary  of  state  printer 
at  $4,000.00,  and  secretary  of  the  board  at  $2,000.00. 

A  bill  for  an  act  creating  the  ofiSce  of  hotel  inspector,  prescribing  his  duties, 
appropriating  $7,000  per  annum  for  salary  and  traveling  expenses. 

A  bill  for  an  act  making  eight  hours  a  day's  labor  in  all  cases  where  labor 
for  the  state,  county,  school  district,  municipality  or  other  subdivisions  of  the 
state  are  interested. 

A  bill  for  an  act  to  protect  purchasers  of  stocks  and  bonds  and  providing  for 
the  regulation  and  supervision  of  corporations  selling  or  negotiating  for  the  sale 
of  corporate  stocks  and  securities. 

A  bill  for  an  act  prohibiting  the  employment  of  convicts  of  the  state  peni- 
tentiary by  any  private  person,  firm  or  corporation,  and  authorizing  their  use 
on  public  highways. 

A  bill  for  an  act  prohibiting  the  employment  of  county,  city  or  town  convicts 
by  any  private  firm,  person  or  corporation,  and  providing  for  their  employment 
on  public  highways. 

A  bill  for  an  act  creating  a  state  board  authorizing  it  to  issue  and  sell 
state  bonds,  payable  in  30  years  from  date  of  issue,  for  building  public  roads, 
not  to  exceed  $1,000,000  per  year,  creating  the  office  of  state  highway  commis- 
sioner. 

For  amendment  of  Section  7,  Article  XI.  of  the  Oregon  constitution  prohib- 
iting the  state  from  increasing  its  indebtedness  for  road  building  in  excess  of 
two  per  cent,  of  the  taxable  property  of  the  state. 

A  bill  for  an  act  authorizing  the  respective  counties  of  the  state  of  Oregon 
to  issue  twenty-year  bonds  for  building  roads  within  the  county. 

For  amendment  of  Section  10,  Article  XI.  of  the  constitution  of  Oregon 
prohibiting  counties  from  voting  any  indebtedness  for  roads,  in  excess  of  two 
per  cent  of  assessed  valuation  of  all  property  in  the  county. 

A  bill  for  an  act  providing  for  the  consolidation  of  contiguous  incorporated 
cities  and  towns. 

For  amendment  to  Article  IX.  of  the  Oregon  constitution  by  inserting  therein 
a  section  providing  for  the  taxation  of  incomes  from  whatever  source  or  sources 
derived. 

A  bill  for  an  act  amending  sub-division  S  of  Section  3554  of  Lord's  Oi-egon 
Laws  so  as  to  exempt  from  taxation  all  household  furniture,  domestic  fixtures, 
household  goods  and  efi:ects  actually  in  use  in  homes  and  dwellings,  and  all 
wearing  apparel,  watches,  jewelry  and  similar  personal  effects  actually  in  use. 

A  bill  for  an  act  to  exempt  from  taxation  all  debts  of  every  kind  whether 
on  contract,*  note,  mortgage,  bond  or  otherwise,  either  within  or  without  this 
state. 


GEORCiE  H.  WILLIAMS 

U.  S.  Senator,  U.  S.  Attorney  General,  U.  S.  District  Judge,  and 
Mayor  of  the  City   of  Portland 


ASTOn. 
TILDEM    - 


THE  CENTENNIAL  lilSTOKY   OF  01lK(i()N  COl 

A  bill  for  an  act   I'cvisiu^'  llii'  inlicritaiK-e  tax  laws. 

A  bill  for  an  act  tixiiiii;  the  percciitajiX'  that,  fruijjht  rates  on  les-s  than  car 
load  lots  shall  brar  to  car  loads,  and  to  establish  iiiiniimmi  weights  and  iiiaxiniuiii 
freights. 

For  aniendiiient  of  Section  10,  Article  XI.  of  the  constitution  of  the  state  of 
Oregon  empowering  the  conrt  of  any  county  to  issue  and  sell  bonds  or  other 
securities  to  build  and  maintain  roads  within  the  county  when  authorized  by  a 
majority  of  the  voters  of  the  county. 

For  the  amendment  of  Article  IV.  of  the  constitution  of  Oregon  abolishing 
the  state  senate ;  providing  none  but  registered  voters  be  counted  on  initia- 
tive or  referendum  petition ;  increasing  state  and  municipal  referendum  powers ; 
house  of  representatives  to  consist  of  sixty  elective  members,  and  the  governor 
and  unsuccessful  party  candidates  for  governor  to  be  ex-otScio  members;  gov- 
ernor to  introduce  all  appropriation  bills,  legislature  not  to  increase  the  amounts 
thereof,  four-year  terms,  annual  session ;  proportional  election  of  members ; 
proxy  system  of  voting  on  bills,  and  those  introduced  after  twenty  days  to  go 
to  the  next  session ;  control  and  revocation  of  franchises. 

For  amendment  of  Section  2,  Article  IX.  of  the  constitution  of  Oregon, 
providing  for  specific  graduated  taxes,  in  addition  to  other  taxes,  upon  all 
franchises  and  rights  of  way,  lands  and  other  natural  resources  in  excess  of 
$10,000  under  one  ownership,  and  assessing  water  powers  in  the  counties  where 
situate ;  exempting  from  taxation  all  personal  property  of  every  kind,  and  im- 
provements on,  in  and  under  land,  except  a  county  may  enact  a  county  law  to 
tax  the  same. 

A  bill  for  an  act  to  abolish  capital  punishment  in  the  state  of  Oregon. 

A  bill  for  an  act  prohibiting  boycotting  or  picketing  any  industry,  work- 
shop, store,  place  of  business  or  factory,  or  any  lawful  business  or  enterprise, 
and  prohibiting  enticing,  persuading  or  attempting  to  persuade  or  induce  any 
person  working  therein  from  continuing  such  employment,  and  providing  a  pen- 
alty for  violation  of  the  act. 

A  bill  for  an  act  prohibiting  the  use  of  the  public  streets,  parks  and  public 
grounds,  in  any  city  or  town  of  a  population  of  5,000,  or  over,  for  holding  meet- 
ings for  public  discussion  or  speech-making  purposes  without  a  written  permit 
from  the  mayor  thereof. 

An  act  appi-opriating  .$175,000  for  building  and  equipping  an  administra- 
tion building  and  extending  heating  plant  to  the  same,  for  the  University  of  Ore- 
gon, and  also,  appropriating  the  further  sum  of  $153,258.92  for  the  purchase  of 
additional  land,  equipment  and  apparatus. 

An  act  appropriating  $175,000  for  the  construction,  equipment  and  furnish- 
ing a  modern  fire-proof  library  and  museum  building,  and  the  extension  of  the 
heating  plant  to  the  same,  for  the  use  of  the  University  of  Oregon. 

THE    CODES,    AND    CODIFIERS 

As  has  already  been  staled,  the  peojjle  in  mass  convention  acting  as  a  Provis- 
ional government,  on  July  5,  18-13,  in  addition  to  their  organic  act  adopted  at 
that  time,  also  enacted  or  adopted  as  the  laws  of  Oregon,  the  laws  of  the  terri- 
tory of  Iowa  on  thirty-seven  leading  subjects  of  legislation.    Afterwards,  on  June 


662  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

27th,  the  Provisional  government  legislature  declared  that  "all  the  statute 
laws  of  Iowa  territory,  passed  at  the  first  session  of  the  legislative  assembly  of 
said  territory,  and  not  of  a  local  character,  and  not  incompatible  with  the  con- 
ditions and  circumstances  of  this  country,  shall  be  the  law  of  this  government, 
unless  otherwise  modified."  Laws  of  1843-49  p.  100.  This  action  of  the 
Provisional  legislature  does  not  appear  in  Grover's  compilation  of  the  proceed- 
ings of  that  legislature  called  the  "Archives;"  but  that  does  not  necessarily 
discredit  it,  for  it  is  known  that  Grover's  compilation  was  very  imperfect.  In 
organizing  the  territory  in  1848  Congress  continued  the  laws  of  the  Provisional 
government  in  force  until  they  should  be  altered  or  repealed. 

THE    CHAPMAN    CODE 

On  February  1,  1851,  the  territorial  legislature  passed  an  act  adopting 
certain  portions  of  the  revised  statutes  of  Iowa,  designating  them  by  their  titles 
and  dates  of  passage.  AV.  W.  Chapman,  one  of  the  founders  of  the  city  of 
Portland  was  a  member  of  that  legislature,  and  had  been  a  member  of  the  Iowa 
constitutional  convention,  and  legislature,  and  Iowa's  first  delegate  to  Con- 
gress, and  he  was  the  author  of  the  bill  to  adopt  the  Iowa  statutes  in  Oregon, 
and  on  this  account  this  collection  of  Iowa  statutes  in  book  form  was  called 
"The  Chapman  Code."  Here,  then,  were  three  different  compilations  of  statute 
law  adopted :  First,  the  thirty -seven  laws  enumerated  by  the  Provisional  legis- 
lative committee  of  July  5,  1843  ;  second,  that  all  the  laws  of  Iowa  territory  passed 
at  the  first  session  of  the  legislative  assembly  of  said  territory ;  third,  the  revised 
statutes  of  Iowa  enumerated  in  Col.  Chapman's  bill  and  adopted  by  the  legis- 
lature on  February  1,  1851.  There  were  three  U.  S.  territorial  judges  holding 
the  courts  in  Oregon  at  that  time — Thomas  Nelson,  chief  justice,  and  0.  C.  Pratt 
and  William  Strong  associate  justices;  and  each  of  these  judges  enfoi'ced  in 
his  district  a  different  code  from  the  other  judges.  This  uncertainty  of  the  law 
forcibly  called  for  a  revision  of  all  these  laws  and  codes;  and  accordingly  the 
territorial  legislature  at  its  session  in  1853  passed  an  act  providing  for  the 
election  of  three  code  commissioners  to  prepare  an  entirely  new  code.  Under  this 
law  James  K.  Kelly,  afterwards  U.  S.  senator  and  chief  justice  of  Oregon's 
first  separate  supreme  court ;  Reuben  P.  Boise,  for  thirty  years  a  circuit  judge  of 
the  state ;  and  Daniel  R.  Bigelov.'  of  Thurston  county,  Wash.,  (then  a  part  of  Ore- 
gon), were  elected  this  first  code  commission,  and  prepared  the  first  code  of 
Oregon  laws,  and  which  was  entitled  the  "Oregon  Code,"  and  which  was  printed 
in  New  York  in  1854  and  sent  to  Oregon  via  the  Isthmus  of  Panama.  In  pre- 
paring the  Oregon  code  the  New  York  code  of  practice  was  adopted,  with  a 
separate  court  or  jurisdiction  for  equity  proceedings;  Kelly  and  Boise  taking 
the  position  that  the  organic  act  of  Congress  contemplated  a  separate  system 
of  equity  proceediags  when  it  declared  that  "each  district  court  or  judge  thereof 
shall  appoint  its  clerk,  who  shall  be  the  register  in  chancery." 

This  Oregon  code  was  in  force  for  eight  years  and  until  the  code  prepared 
by  Judge  Matthew  P.  Deady  was  enacted  into  law  in  1862.  And  following  the 
adoption  of  Deady 's  code  of  civil  procedure  he  prepared  the  code  of  criminal 
procedure  which  the  legislature  adopted  in  1864.  He  also  afterward,  by  author- 
ity of  the  legislature,  collected,  revised  and  re-arranged  the  laws  of  Oregon  with 


THK   CENTENNIAL  HISTORY   OK  OREGON  ()()3 

notes  and  references  whieh  were  published  in  book  form  in  1874.  Many  of  the 
important  statutes  of  Oregon  are  the  work  of  Judge  Deady,  notably  that  pro- 
viding for  the  formation  of  private  corporations.  All  the  legal  and  judicial 
work  of  Judge  Deady,  commencing  with  his  appointment  as  U.  S.  district  judge 
in  1853,  until  his  death  in  1893,  which  cannot  be  enumerated  here,  and  which 
would  fill  a  volume,  has  entitled  Matthew  P.  Deady  to  be  regarded  as  the  greatest 
man  and  greatest  lawyer  and  judge  in  the  legal  profession  west  of  the  Rocky 
mountains.  Commencing  life  at  the  bottom  of  the  ladder  he  worked  his  way  up 
without  the  aid  of  wealth  or  friends,  and  wholly  by  his  owd  exertions,  until 
all  men  in  and  out  of  the  legal  profession  honored  and  respected  him  not  only 
for  his  talents  and  judicial  abilities  but  more  so  for  his  honor  as  a  man  and  his 
unswerving  integrity  and  impartial  justice  as  a  judge.  He  was  in  every  sense 
Oregon's  greatest  citizen;  and  his  statue,  and  not  that  of  another,  should  liave 
been  chosen  to  represent  his  state  and  honor  the  nation  in  the  hall  of  fame  in 
the  national  capitol. 

OTHER  CODES 

The  next  work  of  codifying  the  laws  of  Oregon  was  that  of  William  Lair 
Hill.  Mr.  Hill  is  still  a  practicing  lawyer  at  Oakland  in  the  state  of  California, 
and  his  code  takes  him  out  of  the  category  of  those  that  cannot  be  noticed  in 
history  until  they  are  dead.  Hill's  code  was  commenced  as  an  independent 
enterprise  of  his  own,  but  was  afterward  recognized,  indorsed  and  purchased  by 
the  legislature  of  the  state.  Coming  in  after  Justice  Deady 's  work,  and  after 
most  of  the  states  of  the  Union  had  adopted  the  reformed  practice  and  had  created 
codes  of  civil  procedure,  Mr.  Hill  had  the  advantage  of  a  large  body  of  material 
to  draw  upon  in  preparing  his  work  for  the  legal  profession.  And  being  well 
equipped,  both  from  education,  literary  attainment,  professional  study  and 
large  practice,  he  was  enabled  to  and  did  produce  a  very  valuable  work  entitled, 
"Hill's  Annotated  Statutes  of  Oregon,"  which  was  published  in  1887.  IMany 
of  the  young  lawyers  in  Oregon  have  started  in  practice  without  much  more  of 
a  library  than  Hill's  book,  and  done  good  woi-k  in  the  profession ;  Hill's  citations 
being  very  full  and  always  to  the  point.  Mr.  Hill's  work  remained  the  author- 
ity on  statute  law  for  about  fifteen  years,  and  entitles  the  author  to  a  high 
place  and  permanent  fame  among  the  lawgivers  of  Oregon.  Mr.  Hill  also  pre- 
pared a  code  of  the  laws  of  the  state  of  Washington,  which  was  adopted  by  the 
legislature  of  that  state,  making  him  the  only  lawyer  preparing  codes  for  two 
separate  states. 

Judge  Deady  was  succeeded  on  the  bench  by  Charles  Byron  Bellinger,  a 
member  of  the  law  firm  of  Dolph,  Mallory,  Simon  and  Bellinger.  As  it  was  a 
great  dignity,  high  honor,  and  life  position,  there  was  a  scramble  for  the  office 
among  the  democratic  lawyers,  Grover  Cleveland  being  president.  Bellinger 
was  always  a  protege  of  the  banker,  Asahel  Bush,  of  Salem.  Bush  was  personally 
acquainted  with  the  president,  and  was  the  sort  of  a  man  that  could  get  the 
presidential  ear.  So  that  in  this  contingency,  Banker  Bush  wasted  no  time  in 
making  a  visit  to  Washington  to  see  the  president  and  recommend  a  man  for 
U.  S.  judge  of  the  district  of  Oregon.  It  is  also  supposed  that  the  two  United 
States  senators  from  Oregon — Mitchell  and  Dolph — did  not  fail  to  support  the 


664  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

man  who  was  a  member  of  the  law  firm  they  had  erected.  And  so  Mr.  Bellinger 
was  appointed  U.  S.  judge. 

The  most  notable  and  useful  service  Judge  Bellinger  performed  while  on  the 
bench  was  the  preparation  of  a  new  edition  or  code  of  the  laws  of  Oregon ;  which 
he  did  prepare  in  connection  with  Attorney  W.  W.  Cotton.  This  work  was 
commenced  about  the  year  1898  and  completed  soon  after;  and  was  approved 
and  purchased  by  the  legislature  and  used  by  the  profession  and  the  courts. 
Judge  Bellinger  took  great  pride  in  and  bestowed  great  labor  on  this  work.  It 
is  very  much  larger  than  any  former  edition  of  the  laws  of  Oregon;  and  the 
vast  number  of  decisions  of  the  supreme  court  of  the  state  requiring  for  greater 
time  and  study  to  apply  them  to  the  interpretation  of  the  statutes,  placed  upon 
Judge  Bellinger  a  load  of  care  and  labor  that  told  heavily  on  his  physical 
strength,  and  possibly  hastened  the  breakdown  which  resulted  in  his  death  May 
9,  1905. 

Judge  Bellinger  had  for  a  short  time  filled  the  office  of  circuit  judge  for  the 
district  of  Multnomah  county.  He  was  quick,  bright  and  alert  in  the  practice 
of  his  profession,  with  a  great  fund  of  humor  that  made  him  a  delightful  com- 
panion and  universally  popular  with  his  professional  brethren;  and  his  demise 
was  greatly  mourned  by  all  wdio  knew  him. 

The  work  of  Mr.  "W.  W.  Cotton  on  the  "B.  &  C."  code  as  it  is  now  cited,  was 
very  considerable.  His  very  extensive  practice,  robust  constitution  and  great 
capacity  for  hard  work  enabled  him  to  accomplish  more  work  than  Judge  Bel- 
linger and  in  less  time,  and  with  less  wear  and  tear  of  body  and  soul.  Unlike 
Bellinger,  Cotton  had  never  wasted  any  time  on  politics,  but  had  been,  ever 
since  his  admission  to  the  bar,  continuously  storing  away  mental  capital  in  the 
form  of  fundamental  principles  of  law  and  leading  precedents  of  judicial  deci- 
sions. With  this  equipment,  his  part  of  making  the  great  code  was  not  a 
laborious  job. 

After  the  B.  &  C.  another  edition  of  the  code  of  the  Oregon  statutes  was 
authorized  by  the  legislatvire.  An  act  w'as  passed  authorizing  the  supreme  court 
to  select  a  suitable  person  to  revise  the  laws,  arrange  it  in  the  foi'ni  of  a  code 
and  superintend  its  publication,  and  William  P.  Lord  was  selected  by  the  court 
to  do  that  work. 

William  Paris  Lord  was  born  at  Dover,  Delaware  in  1838,  a  graduate  of 
Fairfield  College,  N.  T.,  and  a  graduate  of  the  Albany  law  school,  1866.  Joined 
the  Union  army  on  the  breaking  out  of  the  southern  rebellion  and  served  as  major 
in  the  Delaware  cavalry  under  Gen.  Lew  Wallace;  and  after  the  war,  at  Forts 
Aleatraz  and  Steilacoom,  and  in  Alaska.  Resigned  his  commission  in  1868,  and 
commenced  practicing  law  at  Salem,  Oregon.  Member  of  state  senate  in  1878; 
member  of  supreme  court  in  1880 — served, twelve  years;  elected  governor  of  the 
state,  served  four  years;  and  was  then  appointed  by  President  Mclvinley  as 
minister  to  the  Argentine  republic ;  served  four  years. 

LAWYER   POLITICIANS 

Oregon,  like  every  other  state,  has  had  a  full  supply  of  the  lawyers  who 
essayed  political  distinction.  From  the  earliest  times,  the  majority  of  public 
men  have  been  taken  from  the  ranks  of  the  lawyers.     This  statement  holds  good 


WILLIS  C.  IIAWLEV 
The    Republican    Represeiitati\  e    in    Conijress    from    Oregon,    1912 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  66.") 

from  the  presidency  down  through  congress;  cabinet  ministers,  governors,  for- 
eign ministers  and  legislatures  east  of  the  Allegheny  mountains.  The  Oregon 
legislatures  have  always  had  a  majority  of  farmers  and  tradesmen.  Of  the 
thirty-six  men  who  have  represented  Oregon  in  congress,  thirty  have  been  mem- 
bers of  the  legal  profession.  Of  the  governoi'S  under  the  territorial  government 
none  of  them  were  lawyers;  liul  ol'  the  governors  under  the  state  organization, 
seven  have  been  lawyers,  two  farmers,  one  merchant  and  one  saw  mill  man. 
It  is  not  intended  to  go  into  the  record  of  any  living  lawyer  of  Oregon  who  has 
made  politics  the  main  object  of  his  ambition.  And  of  those  deceased,  the  great- 
est of  them  have  already  been  noticed.  But  as  this  book  is  written  to  not  only 
tell  the  facts  of  life  and  progress  or  decay,  as  affecting  this  state,  it  is  necessary 
to  refer  to  at  least  one,  and  that  one  the  most  remarkable  career  that  has  ever 
transpired  in  any  American  state. 

And  there  could  be  no  justification  in  referring  to  the  life  of  John  H.  Mitchell 
if  it  did  not  teach  a  great  lesson.  And  while  charity  should  spread  its  mantle 
over  the  faults  of  him  that  has  fallen,  justice  to  all  and  the  safety  of  society 
requires,  that  those  who  supported  and  contributed  to  the  corrupt  system,  or 
tamely  surrendered  to  the  vicious  public  opinion  that  made  ilitchell's  career 
possible,  should  be  shown  the  evil  of  their  own  guilty  part.  The  misfortune  of 
it  all  in  this  world  is,  that  we  love  the  evil  we  do  until  we  suffer  fi'om  it;  and 
that  the  evil  we  do  does  not  die  with  us.  If  we  could  see  the  end  from  the  be- 
ginning, we  might,  as  Shakespeare  says : 

"Gather  honey  from  the  weed. 
And  make  a  moral  of  the  devil  himself." 

For  forty  years  it  was  an  open  secret  that  Mitchell's  political  ethics  justified 
any  means  that  would  win  the  battle.  And  he  could  not  have  succeeded  in  the 
face  of  all  the  bitter  opposition  to  him  if  the  majority  of  the  electors  in  the  state 
were  not  either  openly  in  favor  of  his  style  of  politics  or  silently  consenting  to 
it.  He  was  seven  times  a  candidate  for  United  States  senator  before  the  Oregon 
legislature  and  won  in  four  of  the  contests ;  and  if  he  had  lived  to  serve  out  his 
time  in  -the  senate,  would  have  served  twenty-four  years  in  the  senate — twice 
as  long  as  any  other  senator  from  Oregon. 

Mitchell  was  not  a  gi-eat  orator ;  he  was  not  a  profound  reasoner ;  he  was  not  a 
statesman ;  he  was  not  consistent  in  anything  but  his  personal  desires  for  public 
office.  But  he  accomplished  more  for  the  state,  and  had  more  influence  and  suc- 
cess in  the  senate,  and  satisfied  more  people  by  his  public  service  than  any  other 
man  ever  sent  to  the  senate.  He  was  handicapped  by  changing  his  name ;  he  was 
kept  poor  by  the  political  leeches  that  fed  upon  his  bounty  and  threatened  his 
ruin  unless  they  were  fed ;  he  was  bitterly  opposed  by  men  of  great  W'ealth ;  and 
])y  men  in  his  party  of  great  power  and  influence,  and  by  newspapers  read  by  all 
the  people;  and  over  and  against  all  of  it  he  triumphed  against  all  odds  and 
against  opposition  that  would  have  destroyed  any  other  man.  When  republicans 
rebelled  at  his  leadership  and  repudiated  his  acts,  he  called  in  democrats  and 
beat  down  his  own  party  leaders  with  the  club  of  their  political  opponents.  What 
was  the  secret  of  it  all  ?  A  kind  heart,  a  generous  disposition,  a  friendly  sympa- 
thetic handshake,  untiring  industry  and  sleepless  vigilance  and  persistence.  He 
has  imitators,  and  some  of  them  are  succeeding  with  precisely  the  same  tactics. 


666  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OP  OREGON 

But  not  for  long.  There  was  but  one  Mitchell,  and  there  won 't  be  another  for  a 
hundred  years. 

John  H.  Mitchell  was  born  in  "Washington  county,  Pennsylvania,  June  23, 
1835,  and  baptized  in  the  name  of  John  Mitchell  Hippie.  He  was  admitted  to 
the  bar  in  Butler  county,  Pennsylvania,  in  1857 ;  came  to  Oregon  in  1860, 
quickly  secured  a  large  law  practice ;  was  elected  to  the  U.  S.  senate  in  1872,  and 
had  his  name  legally  changed  by  the  county  court  to  John  H.  Mitchell  in  1874, 
although  passing  under  that  name  from  the  time  he  came  to  the  state. 

The  best  sketch  ever  made  of  Mitchell 's  political  career  was  that  made  by  Mr. 
Scott,  former  editor  of  the  Oregonian,  and  which  is  hereto  appended : 

"It  would  perhaps  be  difficult  in  all  the  history  of  American  politics  to  find  a 
man  whose  political  career  equaled  that  of  Senator  John  H.  Mitchell.  Men  whose 
political  careers  have  been  as  full  of  turmoil  and  strife  as  that  of  the  dead  sena- 
tor have  sprung  before  the  nation's  eye,  but  they  only  bloomed  and  flourished 
for  a  brief  time,  and  their  names  became  forgotten  with  the  flight  of  time.  Not 
so  with  Senator  Mitchell.  He  became  a  factor  in  Oregon  politics  when  the  '60s 
were  young,  and  almost  from  the  day  on  which  he  was  elected  state  senator,  his 
name  has  been  one  to  conjure  with  in  the  history  of  things  political  in  Oregon. 

"When  Senator  Mitchell  first  made  his  hand  felt  in  Oregon  politics,  he  entered 
a  tempestuous  conflict.  How  he  weathered  those  storms  that  repeatedly  broke 
around  him,  how  he  persistently  fought  and  overcame  the  apparently  overwhelm- 
ing political  tides  which  ever  threatened  to  destroy  him,  made  men  marvel  for 
almost  half  a  century.  Beginning  with  the  famous  bolting  caucus  of  September, 
1866,  Senator  Mitchell  has  been  an  issue  in  Oregon  politics  to  this  day.  But  a 
handful  of  men  who  mixed  and  mingled  in  the  political  strife  at  that  time  are 
alive  today.  Only  a  few  of  the  men  whose  names  are  at  present  on  the  political 
horizon  are  familiar  with  that  part  of  Oregon's  political  history.  Mitchell  had 
been  elected  state  senator,  had  served  one  term.  That  was,  the  beginning.  It 
was  in  1862.  In  1864,  just  two  years  after  he  was  elected  president  of  the  senate. 
Even  as  early  as  this.  Senator  Mitchell  had  his  political  star  directed  to  the 
United  States  senate.  His  political  aspirations  were  in  the  nature  of  a  whirl- 
wind, and  the  harvest  of  that  whirlwind  was  reaped  when  he  was  finally  elected 
to  the  upper  house  of  congress.  Before  his  ambitions  were  gratified  came  the 
tempestuous  days  of  the  legislature,  which  met  in  September,  1866. 

BOLT  DEFEATS  GIBBS 

' '  Salem,  then  as  now,  was  the  center  of  all  political  storms.  Addison  C.  Gibbs 
was  then  governor,  and  the  avowed  candidate  for  senator.  Jt  was  claimed  that 
Governor  Gibbs  was  the  choice  of  forty-five  republicans,  and  this  was  borne 
out  when  he  was  nominated  at  the  caucus.  Mitchell  was  also  a  candidate,  and 
he  was  charged  with  having  engineered  the  bolt  which  followed  the  nomination 
of  Governor  Gibbs  at  this  caucus.  Not  only  that,  but  from  that  day  to  this, 
certain  republicans  have  followed  this  lead,  and  have  never  felt  bound  to  follow 
out  the  mandates  of  a  caucus.  Mitchell's  plan  of  overriding  the  wishes  of  that 
republican  caucus  was  unique.  He  was  charged  with  having  manipulated  the 
primaries  of  Multnomah  county,  had  elected  the  men  he  had  nominated.  It  is 
a  matter  of  record  that  Multnomah  delegates  voted  straight  through  the  caucus 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  (iln 

for  ]\[itchell.  In  joint  conventions  four  men — nil  JMiteliell's  supporters — bolted. 
Two  of  these  were  from  Multnomnli. 

"It  \v;is  suspected  that  Jlili-hrll  was  lii'liiiiil  a  revolt,  and  a  trap  was  laitl  to 
catch  him.  A  deal  was  made  with  two  democrats  with  the  understanding  that  if 
Governor  Gibbs  received  enough  votes  to  elect  him,  their  votes  were  not  to 
count.  Again  the  vote  was  taken.  W.  W.  Upton,  a  prominent  Multnomah  county 
lawyer  in  those  days,  was  the  last  to  vote.  He  voted  blank,  and  it  was  found 
that  Governor  Gibbs  was  short  one  vote.  The  story  of  that  day  had  it  that  Senator 
Mitchell  gathered  around  him  seventeen  faithful  adherents.  It  was  agreed 
that  all  but  five  would  remain  silent,  and  that  five  were  to  stand  outside  and 
that  if  there  was  a  defection  among  the  five,  one  of  the  silent  twelve  was  to  step 
into  the  breach.  It  w'as  this  which  caused  the  political  pot  to  boil^over,  and 
with  this  incident  began  the  factional  fights  in  the  republican  ranks,  which 
have  never  been  healed.  The  result  of  the  "boiling"  was  the  election  of  Senator 
Corbett. 

"The  campaign  of  1872  saw  Senator  Jlitehell  and  Senator  Corbett  the  prin- 
cipal figures  of  one  of  the  most  bitter  political  fights  in  the  history  of  the  state. 
The  factions  were  lined  up  for  deadly  combat.  At  that  time,  and  for  that  mat- 
ter, for  many  years  previous,  Ben  Holladay  was  Oregon's  railroad. king.  Holla- 
day  was  behind  Mitchell.  Mitchell  was  the  issue  of  this  battle.  The  Holladay 
crowd  charged  Coi'bett  with  having  opposed  certain  railroad  measures.  Corbett 's 
friends  disputed  this  with  might  and  main,  and  declared  that  Mitchell  was  tied 
hard  and  fast  to  Holladay.  Then  the  Corbett  followers,  as  a  campaign  slogan, 
quoted  an  utterance  made  by  Mitchell  which  was,  "Whatever  is  Ben  Holladay 's 
politics,  is  my  politics,  and  whatever  Ben  Holladay  wants,  I  want." 

MITCHELL  DEFEATS  CORBETT 

"In  spite  of  this  Mitchell  was  elected  to  the  senate  and  Senator  Corbett  was 
defeated.  This  was  the  beginning  of  his  long  senatorial  career.  His  term 
expired  in  1878.  Here  the  political  map  of  Oregon  was  changed,  and  the  demo- 
crats went  into  power.  Mitchell  was  a  candidate,  but  the  toga  went  to  James 
H.  Slater,  a  democrat.  In  1880  there  was  no  session  and  the  battle  was  stilled 
until  1882.  Once  more  the  candidacy  of  Senator  Mitchell  was  an  issue  in 
Oregon  politics.  The  struggle  between  the  Mitchell  faction  and  the  Corbett 
followers  was  bitter,  but  the  contest  which  followed  in  1882  caused  the  memor- 
able event  to  pale  into  insignificance.  Many  republicans  opposed  to  the  candi- 
dacy of  Senator  Mitchell  were  elected,  but  Mitchell  had  the  majority  of  repub- 
licans. The  solid  eighteen  was  born,  nine  of  them  came  from  Marion  county. 
Neither  side  would  give  or  take,  and  the  battle  waged  throughout  the  entire 
session  of  the  legislature.  It  took  forty-six  to  elect,  and  Mitchell  started  out  with 
forty  votes,  and  held  them  with  hardly  a  single  loss. 

' '  The  result  was  that  Mitchell  went  down  to  defeat  and  J.  N.  Dolph  was  elected. 
When  it  came  time  for  the  next  senatorial  election,  the  time  of  the  meeting  of 
the  legislature  had  been  changed.  January  was  set  for  the  time  of  holding  the 
election  in  the  odd  year,  so  the  188.5  election  took  place  in  January  instead  of 
September.  Senator  Mitchell  was  not  a  candidate,  but  he  held  a  political  hand 
that  was  formidable.     He  rallied  his  forces  for  Sol.  Hirsch.     Here  followed 


668  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

another  struggle.  So  determined  and  unyielding  was  the  character  of  the  fight 
that  the  session  adjourned  without  electing  a  senator. 

DEMOCRATS  VOTE  FOR  MITCHELL 

"The  following  fall  Governor  Moody  called  a  special  election  and  right  early 
in  the  session  the  politicians  being  weary  of  the  protracted  turmoil,  Senator 
Mitchell  was  elected  by  a  combined  republican  and  democratic  vote,  some  seven- 
teen democrats  casting  their  ballots  for  him.  In  1891  Senator  Mitchell  was 
returned  to  the  senate  without  opposition.  Then  followed  the  free  silver  craze. 
Senator  Mitchell  became  a  conspicuous  and  persistent  advocate  for  the  white 
metal  and  another  schism  in  the  republican  party  followed.  In  1897  the  legis- 
lature met.  A  caucus  was  assembled  and  nominated  Mitchell  for  senator.  But 
the  gold  republicans  joined  with  the  democrats  and  populists  in  a  refusal  to 
organize  the  lower  house,  and  what  was  called  the  famous  legislative  hold-up 
came  into  being.    There  was  no  election  of  senator  from  Oregon. 

"In  the  special  session  called  in  1898,  Mitchell  was  not  a  candidate.  Joseph 
Simon  was  elected  by  the  gold  wing  of  the  party.  In  1901  G.  W.  McBride,  an 
ally  of  Senator  Mitchell's  was  a  candidate  for  re-election.  He  was  supported 
by  Senator  Mitchell,  but  he  was  defeated,  and  he  turned  his  strength  to  Mitchell. 
The  session  lasted  forty  days  and  Senator  Mitchell  was  elected  at  the  last  hour. 
He  was  serving  his  term  when  he  died.  Four  times  he  was  elected  to  the  senate, 
thrice  he  was  unsuccessful.  In  all  of  his  contests  but  one,  there  was  much 
strife  and  acrimony. ' ' 

GEORGE    H.    WILLIAMS 

Next  to  John  H.  Mitchell,  George  H.  Williams  has  been  the  most  prominent 
lawyer-politician  in  the  state.  Both  of  them  were  men  of  striking  and  unusual 
talents,  and  both  had  their  limitations  as  to  ability  and  integrity.  And  it  is 
fortunate  for  the  lesson  to  be  drawn  from  their  careers  that  these  two  men  can 
be  lined  up  in  the  shadow  of  Matthew  P.  Deady.  Both  Williams  and  MitcheU 
had  the  advantage  of  an  academic  education,  but  not  collegiate  training.  Deady 
had  only  the  opportunities  of  the  village  school  and  books  to  read.  Williams 
went  to  Iowa  in  1847  and  was  district  judge  before  he  was  twentj'-four  years 
of  age;  came  to  Oregon  in  1853  with  the  commission  of  a  federal  judgeship  in 
his  pocket ;  and  probably  never  would  have  come  but  for  the  gift  of  the  office. 
Mitchell  came  to  Oregon  in  1860  at  twenty-seven  years  of  age,  and  got  into  the 
•legislature  and  politics  within  two  years  after  landing  in  Portland,  and  practi- 
cally dominated  or  damned  the  politics  of  Oregon  for  over  forty  years  contin- 
uously. Deady  came  to  Oregon  in  1849  working  his  way  as  a  pioneer  across 
the  plains,  without  office,  acquaintances  or  friends,  and  attained  that  honor : 

The  honor  proof  to  place  or  gold 
To  manhood  never  bought  or  sold. 

which  cannot  be  given  to  the  politician-lawyer.  George  H.  Williams  attained 
the  highest  office  (U.  S.  senator)  within  the  gift  of  the  people  of  Oregon,  and 
was  afterwards  twice  refused  the  same  honor  by  the  same  people.    He  was  made 


No.  1.  The  (ilasgow  (Siotlaiull  voter  lia-  mily  iin.>  iianir  liis  ward  cimiH-iliiiaii—to  vote 
for,   and   he   has   the   best   city   government    in    the    woild. 

No.  2.  The  Des  Moines  (Iowa)  voter  lias  mdy  live  men  im  his  ticket,  and  lias  the  best 
city  government   in  the  United   States. 

No.  3.  The  Portland.  Oregon,  voter  has  in  this  year  of  our  Lord  1912.  about  100  can- 
didates for  office  on  his  ticket:  and  39  long  initiative  and  referendum  proposed  state  laws, 
and  22  proposed  city  laws — and  altogether  proiiosing  an  indebtedness  on  the  taxpayers  of 
forty  to  fifty  millions  of  dollars.  It  is  safe  to  .say  that  all  this  proposed  law  making  will 
not  even  be  read  by  one-fo\irth  of  the  voters — and  no  man  can  know  what  his  rights  or 
obligations    mav    be    under    these    circumstances. 


THE  W. 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  6(59 

attorncy-gpnt-ral  of  President  Grant's  cabinet,  and  a  member  of  the  joint  high 
commission  to  settle  disputed  claims  between  the  United  States  and  England, 
growing  out  of  the  fact  that  England  had  permitted  privateering  ships  (pirates) 
to  issue  from  the  ports  of  that  country  to  prey  upon  American  commerce  during 
the  southern  rebellion.  Upon  the  death  of  Salmon  P.  Chase,  chief  justice  of 
the  supreme  court  of  the  United  States,  the  president  nominated  Judge  Wil- 
liams for  that  high  and  honorable  office— an  office  esteemed  by  many  great 
statesmen  to  be  of  higher  honor  and  dignity  than  that  of  the  presidency.  The 
nomination  was  not  promptly  acted  upon  by  the  senate,  as  is  always  the  custom 
of  that  body  with  nominations  to  office  of  men  who  had  been  members  of  the 
senate.  And  very  soon  opposition  to  the  appointment  was  made  from  Oregon 
to  New  York.  This  opposition  increased  in  force  and  acrimony,  without  making 
definite  and  serious  charges  until  Judge  Williams  requested  the  president  to 
withdraw  the  nomination.  The  soul-racking  strain  and  humiliation  which  nujst 
have  afflicted  Williams  before  he  was  brought  to  the  point  of  giving  up  the 
highest  honor  in  the  government,  which  apparently  was  within  his  grasp,  can 
neither  be  conceived  or  expressed.  The  trial  was  enough  to  extinguish  any 
ambitious  man,  and  peculiarly  mortifying  to  the  victim  who  had  planned  his 
whole  life  to  the  attainment  of  political  honors. 

For  forty  years  the  question  has  been  asked  by  men  familiar  with  the  public 
career  of  Judge  Williams — why  did  he  withdraw  his  name  from  the  senate  after 
President  Grant  had  nominated  him  for  chief  justice  of  the  supreme  court  of 
the  United  States?  Senator  Nesmith  and  various  other  parties  had  made  oppo- 
sition to  the  confirmation  of  AVilliams ;  but  there  was  nothing  serious,  and  nothing 
sufficient  to  influence  the  action  of  the  Senate  in  all  that  was  trumped  up  against 
him.  Some  persons  imagining  they  possessed  the  secret  have  alleged  that  Wil- 
liams withdrew  because  the  society  ladies  of  the  capitol  disliked  his  wife  and 
made  war  on  him  through  their  senatorial  husbands  in  order  to  humiliate  Mrs. 
Williams.  This  is  puerile  and  ridiculous,  when  we  consider  that  the  nomination 
depended  on  the  good  will  of  such  senators  as  George  F.  Edmunds,  of  Vermont, 
chairman  of  the  judiciary  committee,  and  Allen  G.  Thurman,  of  Ohio — the  old 
"bandana"  leader  of  the  democracy,  an  Andrew  Jackson  man  in  every  drop 
of  his  blood.  A  "woman's  fuss"  was  made  against  the  wife  of  a  member  of 
Andrew  Jackson's  cabinet,  and  it  has  passed  into  history  how  "Old  Hickory" 
literally  politically  exterminated  every  man  who  gave  the  subject  the  least  con- 
sideration. And  precisely  the  same  result  would  have  come  to  pass  from  the 
indignation  of  General  Grant  had  any  person  objected  to  the  wife  of  George  H. 
Williams.  No,  it  was  not  objection  to  Mrs.  Williams,  who  was  a  good  woman 
with  an  unassailable  character;  but  it  was  the  fatal  weakness  of  Williams  him- 
self, that  led  to  his  undoing.  For  near  forty  years  the  secret  of  this  Waterloo 
defeat  of  Judge  Williams'  political  career  has  been  locked  up  in  the  mind  of  a 
single  Oregonian.  And  it  was  never  known  to  but  one  other  man  besides  Judge 
Williams  himself ;  and  that  man  passed  away  thirty-five  years  ago.  What  \va.s 
that  secret? 

The  taking  of  testimony  in  a  great  law  suit  involving  the  title  to  seventy-five 
million  dollars  worth  of  land  in  Oregon  has  recently  uncovered  the  dusty  records 
in  the  offices  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  for  nearly  a  half  century  past.  This 
has  laid  bare  the  old  skeleton  that  was  the  ruin  of  Oregon's  greatest  orator 


670  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

and  popular  statesman;  and  there  can  now  be  no  reason  why  the  truth  of 
history  should  not  be  vindicated  on  this  subject.  It  will  be  remembered  that  in 
the  fight  before  congress  for  possession  of  the  Oregon  and  California  railroad 
land  grant,  Judge  Williams  took  sides  with  Ben  Holladay  and  J.  H.  Mitchell 
to  rob  the  Oregon  Central  Railroad  Co.  of  that  grant  and  give  it  to  a  fraudulent 
and  fictitious  Salem  company  organized  in  the  same  name ;  and  that  by  Williams' 
aid  in  the  United  States  senate  Holladay  and  Mitchell  succeeded  in  that  scheme. 
After  so  succeeding  the  Holladay  Company,  reorganized  in  the  name  of  the 
Oregon  and  California  Railroad  Company,  as  soon  as  they  had  built  twenty 
miles  of  railroad,  sold  out  the  entire  land  grant  from  Portland  to  the  California 
line  to  another  corporation  controlled  by  Holladay,  which  was  called  "The 
European  and  Oregon  Land  Company."  This  new  company  then  started  in  to 
sell  the  land  to  anybodj''  and  everybody  in  violation  of  the  terms  of  the  grant 
which  provided  that  the  land  could  only  be  sold  to  actual  settlers  in  tracts  of 
160  acres  each.  To  get  rid  of  these  conditions  of  the  land  grant,  Holladay 's 
new  company,  by  their  general  manager,  Jos.  S.  Wilson,  who  had  been  formerly 
commissioner  of  the  U.  S.  general  land  office,  prepared  an  opinion,  which  was 
endorsed  as  good  law  bj'  J.  LI.  JMitchell,  attorney  for  the  R.  R.  Company,  arguing 
that  the  provision  requiring  the  land  to  be  sold  only  to  actual  settlers  in  tracts 
of  160  acres  each,  applied  only  to  the  settlers  on  the  land  at  the  date  when 
congress  made  the  grant  to  the  railroad  company ;  and  that  all  other  lands  of 
the  grant,  after  supplying  those  first  locators,  might  be  sold  in  any  sized 
tracts  and  for  all  the  company  could  get  for  them.  This  learned  opinion  was 
then  delivered  to  George  H.  Williams,  then  attorney  general  of  the  United  States, 
and  Williams  sent  it  to  Columbus  Delano,  then  secretary  of  the  interior  in 
Grant's  cabinet  along  with  Williams,  together  with  an  opinion  and  ruling  on 
the  points  desired  which  Williams  asked  Delano  to  agree  to  and  make  it  the 
order  and  ruling  of  the  secretary  of  the  interior,  and  by  which  the  Holladay 
Railroad  Company  could  do  as  they  pleased  with  the  land  grant.  Secretary 
Delano  took  time  to  investigate  the  matter,  and  after  such  investigation  he 
made  an  official  order  and  ruling  on  the  points  raised  by  Wilson,  Holladay, 
Mitchell  and  Williams,  and  over-ruled  their  opinions  and  request  in  every 
particular,  and  ordered  the  general  land  commissioner  to  limit  the  sale  of  the 
railroad  lands  to  actual  settlers  only,  and  in  tracts  of  160  acres  only ;  and  then 
sent  a  copy  of  this  order  and  ruling  to  Attorney  General  Williams  and  to  Holla- 
day's  land  company.  To  this  letter  of  the  secretary  of  the  interior  Attorney 
General  Williams  replied,  arguing  in  favor  of  the  railroad  company  and  asking 
Secretary  Delano  to  retract  his  opinion.  To  this  second  letter  of  Williams, 
Delano  replied,  refusing  to  retract  his  opinion,  and  again  reiterating  his  opinion 
that  the  act  of  congress  meant  just  what  it  said,  and  that  the  railroad  lands 
should  not  be  sold  to  speculators,  but  only  to  actual  settlers,  and  in  tracts  of 
only  160  acres  each.  To  this  second  letter  of  Delano's  Attornej'  General  Wil- 
liams wrote  another  letter  asking  the  secretary  of  the  interior  to  return  to  him 
(Williams)  all  the  correspondence  on  the  subject — and  Secretary  Columbus 
Delano  flatly  refused  to  grant  the  request. 

Now  it  had  so  happened  in  the  course  of  human  events  that  this  man,  Col- 
umbus Delano,  had  as  one  of  a  committee  examined  the  qualifications  of  the 
writer  of  this  book  upon  an  application  for  admission  to  practice  law  in  the 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  671 

.supreme  court  of  the  state  of  Ohio.  And  had  in  that  way  made  the  personal 
acquaintance  and  become  the  friend  of  the  author  of  this  book;  and  that  after 
this  aforesaid  correspondence  with  Attorney  General  Williams,  he  (Delano) 
wrote  a  letter  to  the  then  president  of  the  Oregon  Central  Railroad  Co.,  the 
author  .of  this  book,  who  had  before  that  date  removed  from  Ohio  to  Oregon ; 
and  in  this  letter  detailed  the  facts  of  the  above  mentioned  correspondence  with 
Attoi-ney  General  Williams.  And  when  after  Ex-Senator  Nesmith  and  others 
had  failed  to  influence  President  Grant  to  recall  the  nomination  of  Judge  Wil- 
liams for  chief  justice,  and  when,  after  Senator  Edmunds  had  held  up  that 
nomination  for  two  weeks  to  enable  Nesmith  to  make  all  the  opposition  he 
could  and  had  practically  failed,  the  author  of  this  book  wrote  a  letter  to  Judge 
Williams,  saying :  that  while  he  greatly  regretted  to  do  so,  yet,  considering  their 
former  relations,  unless  he,  George  H  Williams  should  immediately  withdraw 
his  name  from  the  senate  as  the  nominee  for  the  office  of  chief  justice,  a  copy 
of  all  the  aforementioned  correspondence  with  Secretary  Delano  would  be 
given  to  George  P.  Edmunds,  chairman  of  the  judiciary  committee  of  the  senate. 
Within  twenty-four  hours  after  that  letter  reached  W^illiams  his  nomination  to 
the  high  office  was  withdrawn  from  the  senate. 

When  Geoi-ge  H.  W^illiams  was  a  candidate  for  the  office  of  U.  S.  senator  he 
was  entertained  at  the  home  of  the  author  of  this  book  in  Jacksonville,  Oregon ; 
and  who  spent  his  time  and  money  to  elect  Williams  to  the  senate  under  a  promise 
from  Williams  that  he  would,  if  elected  senator,  favor  this  writer  in  securing  the 
railroad  land  grant.  This  promise  Judge  Williams  did  not  keep,  but  on  the 
contrary  went  over  to  the  other  side  and  by  his  great  ability  and  influence  as  a 
senator  robbed  the  Oregon  Central  Railroad  Company  of  its  land  grant,  gave 
it  to  Ben  Holladay  and  ruined  the  man  who  had  been  his  friend  and  served  his 
ambition — Joseph  Gaston  struck  back,  and  George  H.  Williams  lost  the  greatest 
honor  within  the  reach  of  any  American  citizen. 

The  character  of  Judge  Williams  was  singularly  inconsistent.  With  unques 
tioned  mental  abilities  of  a  high  order,  but  more  showy  and  superficial  than 
substantial,  he  took  n'otice  of  his  immediate  surroundings  rather  than  the  legiti- 
mate conseqiTcnees  of  his  acts  in  his  public  career.  A  genial  kind-hearted  man, 
often  sacrificing  his  own  real  interests  to  promote  the  selfish  demands  of  others, 
he  became  a  prey  to  the  unscrupulous  and  aggressive  schemes  of  Ben  Holladay 
and  J.  H.  Mitchell,  for  which  he  was  condemned  by  the  popular  vote  of  his 
constituents  at  the  election  in  1870 ;  and  which  proved  the  turning  down  point 
in  a  noble  career  and  the  blighting  of  a  worthy  and  commendable  ambition. 
Judge  Williams  took  the  senatorial  office  from  the  republican  pai'ty  of  Oregon 
as  the  most  popular  ulan  in  the  state ;  and  returned  in  six  years  to  find  that  all 
his  old  friends  that  had  lifted  him  up  had  now  turned  their  backs  upon  him. 
All  that  he  had  left  was  the  venal  support  of  Holladay  and  Mitchell;  and  this 
was  a  curse  rather  than  a  benefit.  He  had  taken  their  commands  largely  in  all 
his  recommendations  for  official  stations,  and  had  neglected,  if  not  turned  his 
back  upon  the  men  who  had  stood  by  him  for  j-ears.  His  career  in  the  senate 
on  the  reconstruction  of  the  states  lately  in  rebellion  had  given  him  honor  and 
distinction  throughout  the  nation ;  but  his  short-sighted  policy  about  the  local 
affairs  of  Oregon  had  made  enemies  of  such  republicans  as  B.  J.  Pengra,  S.  G. 
Reed,  Col.   Cornelius,  Wilson  Bowlby,  Judge  Whitson,  Gen.   Coffin,  Wm.  Lair 


672  THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON 

Hill,  Captain  Flanders,  W.  S.  Ladd,  W.  C.  Johnson,  Judge  Chenoweth,  James 
F.  Gazley  and  many  others  of  equal  standing  and  influence,  who  either  de- 
clined to  further  support  him  or  openly  opposed  him.  The  consequence  was 
that  the  democrats  controlled  the  legislature  of  1870  and  elected  James  K. 
Kelly  to  the  senatorial  seat  of  George  H.  Williams. 

CONCLUDING  REFLECTIONS 

In  the  development  of  states  and  nations  under  free  institutions  persons  and 
personalities  are  in  themselves  of  but  slight  account;  and  at  most,  like  drift- 
wood on  the  mighty  stream,  show  the  general  course  and  eddying  currents 
of  human  thought,  action  and  responsibility.  The  characters  sketched  in  this 
book,  far  from  being  all  those  deserving  of  notice,  or  the  most  worthy  of 
notice  are  yet  sufficient  to  show  the  fickle  fortunes  of  the  human  actors  upon 
the  surface  of  the  stream  which  carries  the  whole  fabric  of  society  to  good 
or  evil  ends.  Commencing  seventy  years  ago  with  a  handful  of  bold  adven- 
turers into  a  vast  and  unknown  wilderness,  we  see  the  soldiers  of  the  Cross 
and  the  rough  fortune  hunters  of  the  chase,  make  common  cause  in  that  primal 
instinct  which  is  the  first  law  of  nature — self  preservation.  Nowhere  else  on  the 
American  continent,  or  under  the  insignia  of  Anglo-American  ideas  and  insti- 
tutions, has  the  experiment  of  self-government  been  so  clearly  defined  by  isola- 
tion and  self-dependence  as  in  Oregon.  Whatever,  then,  has  been  accomplished 
here  can  be  attributed  to  definite  causes.  Neither  the  acquisition  of  a  livelihood 
or  defense  against  a  common  enemy,  brought  the  pioneers  to  Oregon.  But 
having  risked  all  the  trials  and  dangers  of  getting  to  Oregon,  defense  against 
common  enemies  compelled  them  to  unite ;  bread-winning  and  home-making 
united  them  in  a  common  bond,  while  poverty  and  industry  compelled  them  to 
be  sober,  virtuous  and  studious.  The  government  they  formed  and  maintained 
ever  since  did  not  of  itself  confer  blessings.  While  it  enabled  them  to  work 
together  for  common  defense  and  education,  it  conferred  no  fees  or  rewards. 
In  writing  to  Gen.  LaFayette,  just  after  the  adoption  of  the  constitution  in 
1789,  Geox-ge  Washington  said:  "I  expect  that  many  blessings  will  be  attributed 
to  our  new  government,  which  are  now  taking  their  rise  in  that  industry 
and  frugality  into  the  practice  of  which  the  people  have  ieen  forced  by 
necessity."  The  Oregon  pioneers  were  successful  in  founding  a  model  state, 
in  laying  deep  and  broad  the  institutions  of  education,  morality,  religion, 
justice  and  equal  rights  before  the  laws,  because  they  were  industrious,  frugal, 
honest  and  just.  If  the  laws  are  not  now  enfoi-ced  with  justice  and  impartiality ; 
if  it  has  become  necessary  for  the  governor  of  the  state  to  resort  to  the  extra- 
ordinary powers  of  his  office  to  compel  sworn  officials  to  do  their  duty  to 
society,  it  is  not  because  the  laws  are  not  good,  but  because  society  itself  is 
permeated  with  the  germs  of  its  own  destruction.  A  distinguished  author 
(Chateaubriand)  has  observed  that  "every  institution  passes  through  three 
stages — utility,  privilege,  and  abuse. ' '  The  Oregonians  commenced  as  the  severest 
of  utilitarians.  They  made  wise  and  just  laws,  and  established  uplifting  insti- 
tutions. But  their  fat  soil,  their  wealth  of  mines  and  forests  and  commerce, 
poured  out  unexampled  wealth,  which  begat  luxury,  idleness,  display,  pride,  van- 
ity, vice  and  crime — and  the  old,  old  battle  is  here,  as  everywhere.    Where  the  ear- 


THE  CENTENNIAL  HISTORY  OF  OREGON  673 

cass  is,  there  will  the  eagles  be  gathered.  And  where  eivilizatiou  ceases  to  dispense 
rewards  to  industry,  honesty  and  virtue,  the  backward  movement  towards 
anarchy  and  barbarism  again  sets  in ;  because  man  cares  less  for  life  than  the 
things  for  which  he  lives. 


INDEX 


Abi'incthy.  George,  a  saver  of  Oregon,  276. 

Ahiqiia,  the  battle  of,  ?.90. 

Adams,  Ephraim,  347. 

Adams,  W.  L..  pioneer  editor  and  politician. 
626. 

Agent,  real-estate,  first  in  Oregon,  201. 
British,  play  to  the  hands  of  slave-holders, 
22S.  329. 

Agricultural  societies,  the  first,  332. 

Agriculture,   started    in    Oregon.    539. 

Aikin,  H.  L..  347. 

Ainsworth.  Capt.  ,T.  C,  starts  transportation 
company,  371. 

Alaska,  discovered  by  Russians,  6. 

Albany  Academy,  founded,  577. 

Albany  College,  606. 

Allen,   Samuel,  346. 

Allphin.    William,   34S. 

America,  how  named,   17. 

American  rule,  germ  of,  in  Oregon,  160. 

Ancient  times,  gold  and  silver  in,  487. 

Anian,  Strait  of,  4;  hunted  for  200  years,  5. 

Animal  industries,  544,  545. 

Animals,  domestic,  when  introduced.  326; 
predaceous,  479. 

"Apex."  the  law  of,  489. 

Applegate,  .Jesse,  his  account  of  the  emigrant 
train,  347,  24S. 

Apples,  first  planting,  XVIII,  330. 

Astor,  John  .J.,  birth  and  education,  101: 
expeditions  of,  45-47;  betrayed  by  part- 
ners, 51;  great  work  of,  62:  commended  by 
Thomas  Jefferson,  102;  tries  to  organize 
a  company  at  St.  Louis,  102;  seeks  part- 
ners in  Canada,  103 ;  organization  of  Oregon 
Co.,  104;  builds  forts  on  upper  Columbia 
107;  last  chapter  of  Astoria  venture,  lOS: 
his  great  work,  62. 

Astoria,  founding  of,  X\'TI:  ikhihmI  Fort 
George,  XVTJ;  now  located.  !().■):  at  tlic 
gate.  445. 

Atkinson.  G.  H..  prepares  Gov.  Lane's  mes- 
sage on   public  schools.  591. 


Atlantis,  lost  island  of,  2, 
Aubrey,  Tiiomas  N,,  340, 
Avery,    Thomas   W.,   351,   352. 

Baker  County.  459. 

Ball,  John,  first  school   teacher,  588. 

Banks,  and  money,  559;  list  of,  in  1912, 
560-568. 

Baptists,  select  schools   started  by,  579. 

Barker,  William  S.,  347. 

Barlow,  Samuel,  saves  lives.  253.  253. 

Barnes.  George  A.,  351. 

Battle,  bravest  ever  fought,  616. 

••Battle  Rock,"  battle  of,  397,  398. 

Baum,  .John,  342. 

Beaver  money,  493. 

Bees,  colonies  of,  548. 

Belknap,   Jlrs.   Jane,   333. 

Bellinger,  Charles  B.,  his  code,  663,   664. 

Bellinger,  ,L  II..  342. 

Bennett    "Bill"    starts   business.    360. 

Benton  County,  445,  446. 

Benton,  Thomas  H.,  prediction  of.  XI;  pro- 
claims the  right  to  Oregon,  230;  friend  of 
Oregon,    367;    appeals    for   Oregon,    388. 

Bethel  Academy,  The,  580. 

Bewley.  Isaac  W.,  347. 

Biographies,  use  and  value  of,  XTV. 

Blair.  Mrs.  Emetine  Buell,,  341. 

Blancbet,  584. 

Blanco,  Cape,   discovered   by   .Spanish,  8. 

"Blue  Bucket  Mines."  495. 

Bonneville,  Lieut.,  expedition   of,  57. 

Bonser,  Stephen,  330. 

"Book  of  Heaven."  Indian  messengers  seek- 
ing. 379. 

Bozarth,  Mrs.  Asenath  M,  Luelling.  34s. 

Bridger,  Jim,  explorer  and  friend  of  Oregon 
emigrants,  53,  53. 

Briggs,  Albert,  343. 

Bristow.    W.    W.,    353. 

Brown,  J.  Henry,  historian,  623. 

Brown,  ^Iis.  Tabitha  M.,  a  founder  of  a  col- 
lege after  an   awful  experience,  598.  599. 


67: 


676 


INDEX 


Brown,  Valentine,  620. 

Buchanan,  James,  proclaims  the  right  to  the 

whole  of  Old  Oregon,  330. 
Buchtel,  Joseph,  secures  the  land  at  Champoeg 

for  a  memorial  site,  305. 
Buell,  Ellas,  341. 
Building,  city,  321. 
Burkhart,  Leander  C,  348. 
Burns,    Hugh,    troubles    of,   financing    Indian 

war,  300. 
Bush,  Asahel,  pioneer  editor,  626. 

Calhoun,  John  C,  pawns  Oregon  to  keep 
England  from  seizing  Texas,  228. 

California,   an   island,   5,   6. 

Campbell,  Alexander,  580. 

Campbellites,  The,  580. 

Canby,  Gen'I,  murder  of,  with  others,  418,  419. 

Capital,  State,  battles  for,  426. 

Capitol  Building,  burned  down,  428. 

Cardwell,  Dr.  J.  R.,  planted  first  commercial 
orchard  in  Oregon,  541. 

Carver,  Jonathan,  names  Oregon,  25,  26. 

Cascades,  Indian  attack  at,  409-415. 

"Catholic  Ladder,"  The,  380. 

Catholics,  The,  584;  French,  oppose  organiza- 
tion of  government,  172;  statistics  of, 
584,  585;   societies  of,  586. 

Cattle,  imports  of,  545. 

Census,  first  taken  in  Oregon,  424;  first  under 
United  States  authority,  425. 

Chamberlain,  Mrs.  Olive  Warren,  349. 

Cliampoeg,   the   historic   site,    205. 

Chandler,  Kev.  George  C,  first  principle  of 
McMinnvllle  College,  604. 

Chapman  Code,  The,  662. 

Chapman,  W.  W.,  buys  an  interest  in  Port- 
land, 365;  railroad  work  of,  530. 

Cheese  factories,  546. 

China,  tribute  on  traders  to  Oregon  levied 
by,  210. 

Cholera,  the  great  scourge,  250. 

Christian  Science,  587. 

Churches,  organization  of,  in  Oregon,  575 ; 
United  Presbyterian,  of  Oregon,  577;  Sta- 
tistics of,  583;  notes  of,  586,  587;  making 
no   reports,   588. 

City,  the  now  located,  331. 

Civilization,  advance  of,  by  fur  trading,  111; 
two  types  of,  clash  on  Columbia,  377. 

Clackamas  County,  443. 

Clark,  George  Rogers,  captures  Old  Vincennes, 
150;  Clark  and  George  Washington,  150, 
151. 

Clark,  Rev.  Harvey,  577;  comes  to  Oregon, 
124;   the  Christian,  603. 

Clarke,  Mrs.  Anna,  341. 


Clarke,  Samuel  A.,  historian,  622. 

Clatsop   County,   444. 

Clay,  Henry,  holds  title  to  all  of  Old  Oregon 
good,  217. 

Cleavage,  line  of,  starts,  160;  Protestant  v. 
Catholic,   American  v.  British,  161. 

Code  Commissioner,  the  first,  663. 

Codes  of  Laws,  661. 

Coffey,   Nebuxardan,    345,    346. 

Cofiin,  General  Stephen,  organizes  "Union 
League,"  655 ;  Coffin,  Chapman  and  Lowns- 
dale,  notices  of,  366-368;  buys  an  interest 
in  Portland,  365;  gives  a  church  site,  579. 

College  athletes,  596,   597. 

College   decadence.   597. 

College  fraternities,  596. 

Colleges  and  universities,  595,  596;  Catho- 
lic, 604,  605. 

Collegiate   fads,   596. 

Collins,   Luther,    344. 

Colnett,  Capt.,  of  English  ship,  arrested  by 
Spanish  captain,  211. 

"Colonial  Period,"  The,  261. 

Columbia  County,  456,  457. 

Columbia  River,  first  put  on  map,  6;  named 
"River  of  the  West,"  6;  discovered  by  Capt. 
Gray,  XI,  16;  discovery  of,  not  recognized 
by  Congi'ess,  317;  free  navigation  of,  con- 
ceded to  England  for  ten  years,  318. 

Columbus,    his    connection    with    Oregon,    1. 

Colvig,  W.  W.,  review  of  the  Rogue  River 
wars,   404,   405. 

Comegys,  Jacob,  346. 

Commerce,  commencement  of,  338. 

Commercial  City,  locations  of,  320. 

Condon,  Thomas,  132;   great  scientist,  615. 

Congregationalists,   start   of,   577. 

Congress,  first  Oregon  bill  in,  XVII;  first 
memorial  to,  from  Oregon,  163;  first  propo- 
sition in,  to  occupy  Oregon,  163,  164;  sec- 
ond memorial  to,  from  Oregon,  164. 

Couser,  Mrs.  Jacob,  353. 

Constitution,  provisional,  644-648. 

Constitutional  Convention,  The,  439 ;  members 
of,  429,  430;  personnel  of,  431;  character 
of  some  of  its  members,  433. 

Cook,  Capt.,  character  of,  10,  11;  started  Pa- 
cific coast  fur  trade,  11;  voyage  to  Ore- 
gon, 309;  makes  known  to  world  rich  furs 
of  Oregon,  209. 

Cooper,  Chandler,  341. 

Coos  County,  455,  456. 

Coquille,  discovered  by  Spanish,  7. 

Corbett,  H.  W.,  first  wholesale  merchant,  371, 
372;   elected  senator,  667. 

Corvallis  gets  and  loses  the  Capital,  437,  428. 

Couch.  John  H.,  starts  commerce  in  Oregon, 
333,    334;    locates    the    Oregon   metropolis, 


INDEX 


677 


334;  a  founder  of  Portland,  361;  Couch 
and  Flanders  start  Oregon  Central  Railroad 
with  depot  grounds,  373. 

County  organizations,  443. 

Court,  Supreme,  decides  Salem  Railroad  Com- 
pany to   be  a  fraud,    '>2?<. 

Covenanters,   The,   584. 

Cowan,  Robert,  346. 

Cox,  Joseph,  343. 

Cox,  Thomas,  343. 

Craig,  D.  W.,  pioneer  editor  and  founder  of 
the  Republican  party  in  Oregon,  626. 

Crain,  J.  H.,   342. 

Crater  Lake,  how  formed,  142;  and  forest, 
479. 

Crawford,  John   David,   344,   345. 

Crook  County,  460. 

Crops,  value  of,  548. 

Crosby,  Capt.,  builds  first  frame  house  in 
Portland,  362. 

Cumberland  Presbyterians,  a  college  started 
by  the,  578.  , 

Curry  County,  457. 

Curry,  George  L.,  pioneer  editor  and  gover- 
nor of  Oregon,  625. 

Cyanide  gold  saving,  501. 

Daily  paper,  first  in  Oregon,  625. 

Dairy   produce,   545. 

Davidson,   James,    345. 

Davis,  Henry   W.,   342. 

Davis,  Leander  L.,  349. 

Deady,   M.   P.,  431,  432;   codes  of,   662,   663; 

greatest  lawyer  of  Oregon,  662,  663 ;  Deady, 

Williams,  and  Mitchell  contrasted,  668,  669. 
Democrats   resolved   to   organize,  650,   651. 
Des    Chutes    River,    most    wonderful    stream. 

485,  486. 
Dillon,  William  H.,  349. 
Dimick,  A.  R.,   350. 
Doctor,  the  first  in  Oregon,  XIX. 
Dolph,  J.  N..  elected  senator,  667. 
Douglas  County,  452. 
Drake,  Sir  Francis,  when   on  Oregon  Coast? 

XV. 
Dryer,  Thomas  J.,  notice  of,  437;   founder  of 

The  Oregonian,  626;  Dryer  and  Busch.  their 

battles    begin,    426. 
Dundee,  center  of  walnut  crops,  542. 
Duniway,  Abigail  Scott,  657. 

Earth,  the,  views  of  its  shape  by  Plato,  2; 

Ptolemy,  1;  Marco  Polo,  2;   Toscanelli,  2; 

Columbus,   2;    maps   of   imaginary   regions 

of,  5. 
Eastman,  William,  defends  the  flag,  654. 
Edwards,   Philip   L.,    first    school    teacher    in 

state  of  Oregon,  590. 


Eells,  Rev.  Cushing,  missionary  to  Oregon, 
134;  first  principal  of  Tualatin  Academy. 
602. 

Election,  first  held  in  Oregon,  422,  423;  first 
four  ofliicials  under  U.  S.  authority,  426; 
first  congressional,  643. 

Elliott,  S.  C,  railroad  promoter,  520. 

Empire,  march  of,  XI. 

England,  claims  nothing  by  Drake's  discovery, 
7;  claims  Oregon,  9;  piratical  expeditions 
of,  12;  English  and  Spanish  claims  con- 
flict, 15;  claims  the  Ohio  Valley,  24;  war 
with,  in  1812  ruins  Astor,  51;  trading  mo- 
nopolies incorporated  by,  209,  210. 

Episcopalians,  The,  581;  history  in  Oregon, 
583. 

Evangelism,  era  of,  113. 

-Evans   Creek,"   battle   of,   398. 

Everett,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  344. 

Evolution,  effects  of,  seen  in  Oregon  history, 
XIII,  XIV. 

Executive  Committee,  message,   184. 

Expeditions,  independent,  52;  first  Spanish 
to  Oregon  coast,  208;  second  Spanish  to 
Oregon    coast,    208. 

Exposition,  Lewis  &  Clark,  569-571. 

Express  carriers,  509,  510. 

Fackler,   Rev.   St.   M.,   342,   343. 

Fackler,  Samuel,  344. 

Failing,  Henry,  a  great  merchant  and  bank- 
er, that  was  "a  just  man  and  loved  mercy," 
372,  373. 

Fairs,    State,    568,    569. 

Farley,  John  F.,  344. 

Farm  products,  the  first,   325. 

Farmers,  the,  how  they  started,  325;  increase 
of  debts  of,  550;  nativity  of,  550. 

Farms,  number  and  value  of,  548,  549. 

Fields,  Hugh,  350. 

'■Fifty-four,   Forty,  or  Fight,"   220. 

Finley,  W.  L.  protector  of  bird  life,  479, 
480. 

Fisher,  Mrs.  John,  349. 

Fish  hatcheries,  477,  478. 

Fiske,  Rev.  Wilbur,  appeals  for  mission- 
aries to  Oregon.  117;  and  Evangelism,  117. 

Flanders,  Capt.  G.  H,,  locates  in  Portland,  362. 

Flax,   culture   of,    540. 

Flouring  mill,  first  American,  556. 

Floyd,  John,  works   for  Oergon,  236. 

Ford,  Mrs.   R.  A.,   349, 

Forests,  the  great,  482, 

Fr.iser.  Simon,  expeditions  of,  30-41. 

Fremont,  Lieut.,  expeditions  to  Oregon  and 
California,  59-61;  his  part  in  making  Cali- 
fornia an  American  state,  61. 

Friends,   The,    (Quakers),   587. 


678 


INDEX 


Fruit,  first  planting,  330;  crops  of,  1911,  sta- 
tistics   of,    543;    packing   of,    558. 

Fuca,  Straits  of,  discovered  by?  XV;  wrongly 
named  for  an  imposter,  5. 

Fulton,   James,   347. 

Fur  companies,  arbitrary  rule  of,  in  the 
wilderness,  9S,  99;  wars  between,  99,  100; 
Mackinaw,  100;  Astor's,  101.  102;  tbe 
service  they  rendered  to  civilization,  111; 
fur  hunting  opened  new  regions  to  settle- 
ment.  91,  92. 

Fur  hunters  and  trappers,  98;  their  rendez- 
vous and  fandango,   98. 

Fur  trading,  first  on  Pacific  coast.  XV.  XVI; 
contrasted  with  gold  mining,  14. 

Game,  destruction  of,  476,  477;  wild,  de- 
struction of,  479;  reserves,  480. 

Gass,  Patrick,  member  of  Lewis  and  t'Uiik 
party,   35,   36. 

Gaston,  Joseph,  his   railroad   work,   527. 

Geer,  .Joseph  Carey,  350. 

Oeer,  Ralph  C,  350;  his  account  of  the  battle 
of  "Abiqua,"  391. 

Geology,  Oregon,  132-145;  economic,  145,  146. 

George,  Fort,  renamed  Astoria,  XVII. 

Gilliam,    Col.,    Indian    fighter,    384,    385. 

Gilliam  County,  461; 

Glover,   William,   349. 

Goat.  The,  comes  to  Oregon.  327,  328. 

Gold,  mining  of,  contrasted  with  fur  hunting, 
91;  discovery  of,  334.  369,  370,  490; 
United  States  laws  and  gold  come  at  same 
time,  337-339;  excitement  at  Portland  be- 
cause of  discovery  of,  369:  great  value  of, 
to  world,  491;  discovered  by  an  Oregonian, 
491;  discovered  in  Oregon,  494;  discovery 
of,   in  eastern   Oregon,   495. 

"Golden  Circle,"  Knights  of,  654. 

"Goose  Hollow,"  370. 

Government,  first  move  for,  XIX;  first  steps 
to  organize  a  provisional,  165;  second  meet- 
ing to  promote  organization  of,  June  1, 
1841,  166;  provisional,  first  meeting  for, 
February  18,  1841;  166;  provisional,  meet- 
ing at  Champoeg,  May  2,  1843,  175;  voters 
in  favor  of,  175,  176;  opponents,  177; 
provisional,  first  steps  toward.  178.  179: 
provisional,  first  principles  of,  181,  182; 
provisional,  military  force  of,  183,  184; 
provisional,  treasury,  first  report  from, 
187;  treasury  report  of  provisional,  196; 
provisional,  bonds  of,  200,  201;  provisional, 
last  acts  of,  201;  provisional,  supported  by 
McLoughlin,  202;  provisional,  character  of 
founders  of,  203;  provisional,  foundling 
.state,    lines   by   .Joaquin    Lliller.    203;    pro- 


visional, value  of,  260;  provisional,  politics 
in,   641-643;   provisional,  powers  of,  646. 

Governor,  his  message  of  December  1,  1846, 
194. 

Grange,  The,  633. 

Grant  County,  459.  ■ 

Gray,  Captain  Robert,  goes  around  the  world, 
XVI;  discovers  Columbia  River,  XVI,  16. 

Gray,  William  H.,  accompanies  WHiitman  to 
Oregon,  124;  first  to  propose  public  school, 
190;  the  irrepressible  agitator,  204;  his- 
torian, 622;  "Great  Spirit."  Indian  idea 
of,  73. 

Greeley,  Horace,  lii.s  opinion  of  the  Oregon 
emigration,   249. 

Greenwood,  William,  353. 

Griffin,    Burrell    B.,    351. 

Griffin,  Rev.  .John  S.,  missionary  to  Oregon, 
124. 

Groseilliers  and  Radisson  open  Great  Lakes 
a-egion,  92. 

Grover,  L.  F.,  compiler  of  Archives,   662. 

Hamlin,  Xathaniel.  353. 

Hanging,  first  on  Pacific  coast.  XVII. 

Harney    County,    461,    462. 

Harrison,   Hugh,   349. 

Haun,  Mr.,  350. 

Headrick,  Samuel,  346. 

Heceta,  explorer.  208;  sees  mouth  of  Columbia 
River,   208. 

Hendricks,  J.  M.,  352. 

Hennepin,  Father,  denounced  as  a  fakir,  21. 

Henry,  Andrew,  expedition   of,   41,   43. 

Heroes,  the  real  thing,  388. 

Hicklin,  .John  L.,  352,  353. 

Hidden,  Mrs- M.  L.  T.,  620.  621. 

Higginson,  Mrs.  Ella,  630. 

Hill.  J.  .J,,  his  work  in  Oregon,   537. 

Hill,  Wm.  Lair,  his  code,  663. 

Himes,  George  H.,  623. 

Hines,  Harvey  K.,  historian,  633. 

History,  unity  of,  XIII;   autograph,  627-633. 

Hodges,  .Jesse  Monroe,  343. 

Holgate,  John  C,  344. 

Holladay,  Ben,  comes  to  Oregon,  522;  char- 
acter of,  536. 

Home,  first  American,  west  of  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, 384. 

Hood  River  County,  463. 

Hood  River,  first  to  export  apples,  542. 

Hops  and  beer,  production  of,  544. 

Horticulture,  540. 

House,  first  in  Old  Oregon,  14,  211. 

House-building,  in  Old  Oregon  by  English  ob- 
jected to  by  Spain,  211. 

Houston,  Robert,  348. 

Hubbard.   Qiarles.    348,    349. 


INDEX 


i)7'.i 


ITiidson's  Bay  Conipsiny.  93;  charter  of.  92, 
93;  great  powers  of.  94;  territory  of, 
larger  than  United  States  in  1842,  94; 
fur  trade  of,  95,  96;  government  of.  9G. 
97;  claims  sovereignty  over  ()i-egon.  110; 
why  it  favored  the  Catholics.  129;  manage- 
ment of  Indians  by.  96.  97;  not  dis- 
franchised, 1S9;  early  mriiiiii;;  of.  't'i'.K  .llll; 
strife  between  Catholics  :iii,l  Pnifcstiints 
induced  by,  0.39-041. 

lluirman,  Bert,  records  oriaiii  nt  tlir  l'(C'|ilc'^ 
party,  656,  657. 

?Iunsaker,  .Joseph,  346. 

Hunt,  G.  W.,  his  work  on  railroads,  536,  537. 

Hunt,  Wilson  Price.,  expedition  ot.  47-49: 
terrible  trials  of.  on  Oregon  trail.  50. 

Huntington,  C.  P.,  agrees  to  Iniilil  railrnacl  to 
Oregon,    52S. 

Hurford.  Susannn  T..  341. 

Immigrants,  trials  !uid  ellVct^  uf.  Mil. 

Improvements,   internal.   5i)3. 

Indian   Lands,   purchase   of.    414.    415. 

Indians,  not  benefited  liy  missionaries.  59; 
their  tribes  and  families  in  Oregon,  63-71; 
native  character.  71.  72;  ideas  of  "(ireat 
Spirit,"  73;  confidence  in  the  coyote,  73; 
belief  in  Supreme  Being,  75;  population  of, 
in  1842,  77,  78;  jargon  language.  78-80; 
sign  language  of,  82;  the  white  men  who 
demanded  justice  for,  82;  his  complaints  of 
injustice,  83;  his  land  question,  83,  84; 
speeches  of  great  Indian  chiefs,  84,  85; 
.ludge  Story's  opinion,  87;  fear  of  losing 
land,  87,  88;  Great  Council  of,  88;  popu- 
lation of.  in  1910,  88,  89;  fear  of  smallpox, 
107,  108:  the  appeal  for  the  Book  of 
Heaven,  110;  answered  in  1S40  by  De 
Smet,  lis,  119;  the  Indian,  a  stone  age 
man,  72;  had  no  standard  of  values,  12: 
good  Indians,7G,  77;  Iroquois,  seek  religious 
teachers,  118;  habits  of.  73;  the  names  of 
the  white  men  who  contended  for  justice 
to,  82,  83;  Indian  demoralization,  391; 
Rogue  River,  392;  murders  of  white  men 
by,  395,  396;    idea  of  religion.   573,   574. 

"•Jack.   Captain."   leader   of   desperiido(>s.   416. 

Jackson  County,  453,  453. 

•Jackson.  President  Andrew.  e\plaiiis  why 
England  would  not  setde  the  boundary 
line,  326,  227. 

•Jeffers,  •Joseph,  341,  342. 

•Jefl'erson,  Thomas,  letter  to  Astor.  1112; 
writes  to  Clark  about  exploring  the  west, 
151;  and  John  Ledyard's  scheme,  153; 
becomes  president,  153;  sends  a  secret 
agent   to   old   St.   J>ouis   in    1802,    153;    his 


lame.  .iCij;  on  national  union.  26(');  his 
(iliinioM   of   the   Kngli.sh,  366. 

•  lulin.  Chief,  the  great  fighter,  402;  last 
speech    of,    402,    403;    character    of,    404. 

.luhnson.  James,  341. 

•lohnsoM.  William,  a  notable  man  and  honor- 
able character  in  Portland  history,  363. 

■  loint  Occupancy,  treaty  of,  316;  treaty  of, 
extended,  317;  held  to  be  a  treaty  of  non- 
occupation,  218. 

•fo.sephine    County,    458,    459. 

.lustices  of  tlie  Peace,  appointi'd  Ijv  .Meth- 
odists, 163. 


elop- 

itarts 

I  bout 

233, 

1;  a 


359. 
361. 


Kamni,    Jacob,    lirst    in    steamboat    dev 

men*.  371. 
Kelley.  Hall  J.,  arrives  in  Oregon.  XIX;  s 

missions,   115;   informs  the  chnrehes 

Oregon.    233;    first    Oregon    promoter. 

208.  269;   an  educator  of  the  people.  2 

saver  of  Oregon,  272. 
Kelly,  Rev.  Clinton,  352. 
Kincaid.  If.  R.,  pioneer  editor  and  puld 

637. 
King,  Amos  N.,  locates  King's  addition. 
King,   Colonel   William,'  first   politician, 
Kinney,    Robert    Crouch,    346. 
Klamath  County,  460. 


Lake  County,  460. 

Land,  first  proposition  of.  to  Oregon  settlers, 
338;  free,  and  "lick  the  British."  settled 
Oregon.  338;  foundation  of  the  colony,  316; 
titlcf.  to.  317,  047,  648:  irrigation  of  arid. 
481. 

Lands,  mineral,  sale  of,  commenced.  48S. 

Lane  County,  450,  451. 

Lane.  Governor,  his  first  treaty  witli  Eogue 
■  River  Indians.  393;  his  Indian  passports, 
394;  compared  with  Ogden.  394,  395; 
second  treaty  of,  398;  in  desperate  straits, 
401 :  appointed  first  United  States  governor 
of  Oregon,  423;  issues  first  proclamation  as 
governor,   591. 

La  Rocque,  George,  349,  350. 

La  Salle,  great  French  explorer,  20,  31;  gives 
the  Mississippi  Valley  to  the  French  king, 
22;  death  of,  23. 

Laughlin,  Samuel,  348. 

Lausanne,  the,  and  passengers  s:\il  for  Ore- 
gon, ii;!. 

Lava-bed  massacre,  the.  418. 

Lee.  Jason,  selected  as  first  missionary  to 
Oregon.  119;  why  did  he  not  answer  the 
call  of  the  Flatheads.  130,  131:  see  him  at 
work  building  his  log  cabin  in  Oregon,  131; 
services  of,  130;  why  did  he  not  attend  the 
t'hanipoeg    meeting?    205;     Lee.    Wliitman 


680 


INDEX 


and  MoLoughlin,  contrasted,  277,  278; 
birth  and  ancestry  of,  281,  282;  chosen  for 
■  the  Oregon  mission,  282;  memorial  to  Con- 
gress, 287,  288;  second  visit  to  tlie  presi- 
dent, 291. 

Lee,  Nicholas,  352. 

Leese,  Jacob  P.,  his  adventure,  326 ;  sends 
the  first  sheep  to  Oregon,  326. 

Legal  Tender,  what  was,  in  1845,  560. 

Leslie,  David,  first  American  judicial  officer 
in  Oregon,  163. 

Levee,  public  fight  over,  535. 

Lewis,  C.  H.,  first  wholesale  grocer,  372. 

Lewis,  Joe,  the  Indian  rascal,  386. 

Lewis  and  Clark,  cross  continent,  name  rivers 
etc.,  XVI;  expedition  of,  31;  leave  St. 
Louis  in  1804,  32. 

Lincoln  County,  463. 

Lincoln   and  Douglas,   651. 

Linenberger,  David,   353. 

Linn  County,  446. 

Linn,  David,  453. 

Linn,  Senator,  bill  in  Congress,  for  Oregon, 
1841,  59;  bill  to  organize  Oregon  territory, 
237. 

Live  stock,  census  of,   547. 

Locke,  A.  N.,  348. 

Lord,  William  Paris,  his   code,  664. 

Louisiana,  secretly  sold  to  France,  153;  sale 
of,  to  France  and  excitement  of  people  over, 
153;  offered  to  Jefferson  by  Napoleon,  154. 

Lovejoy,  A.  L.,  crosses  the  mountains  with 
Whitman,  296;  founder  of  Portland,  355, 
356;   character  of,  356,  357. 

Lownsdale,  D.  H.,  buys  half  interest  in  Port- 
land townsite,  359. 

Lucas,  John  Baptiste  Charles,  secret  agent, 
153. 

Lucier,  Etienne,  first  settler  in  East  Portland, 
XVni,    364. 

Luelling,  Henderson,  founder  of  fruit  indus- 
try, 330,   331. 

Lvimber,  first  cargo  from  Oregon,  236;  manu- 
facture of,  557. 

Lutherans,  The,  582,  583. 

Lyman,  Horace,  historian,  623. 

McBride,  G.  W.,  candidate  for  senator,  668. 

McBride,   Dr.   James,   344. 

McCormick,   Rev.   P.   J.,   347. 

McCornack,  Ellen  Condon's  work  on  Oregon 
geology,  133. 

McKean,   Samuel  T.,  349. 

McKinney,  William,  347. 

McLoughlin,  John,  condemned  by  British 
agents,  163;  his  position  and  opinion  on 
organization,  162;  familj'  and  ancestry, 
305;  comes  to  Oregon,  306;  his  treatment 


of    rival    traders    and   others,    308;    starts 

first  school  west  of  Rocky  Mountains,  308; 

his    treatment    of    the    missionaries,    309; 

aids  starving  immigrants,  311;  his  life  by 

Frederick  V.  Holman,  633. 
McMinnville    College,   579,    580,   603,   604. 
Mackenzie,  first  white  man  to  cross  continent 

to    Pacific    Ocean,    an    Indian    before    him, 

XVI,  37 ;  discovers  Arctic  Ocean,  38 ;  crosses 

Rocky     Mountains,     30;     reaches     Pacific 

Ocean,   31. 
Magazine,  first  in  Oregon,  635. 
Mails,  first,  504. 
Malheur  County,  461. 
Malone,  Patrick,  notice  of,  437,  438. 
Man,  but  one  species  of,  71;   his  age  on  the 

earth,  144,  145. 
Manufacturers,  hard  start  in  Oregon,  555. 
Marion  County,  449,  450. 
Markham,  Edwin,  619. 
Marks,  John,  340. 

Marquam,  P.  A.,  the  "Good  Citizen,"  374. 
Marquette,   Mississippi  River   discovered   by, 

20. 
Marriages,  first  on  coast,  XVII. 
Marsh,  Sidney  H.,  president  of   Pacific  Uni- 
versity, 603. 
Martial    law,    proclaimed    by    the    governor 

against  vice,  637,  638. 
Massey,  E.  L.,  351. 

Matthieu,  F.  X.,  a  saver  of  Oregon,  274. 
Meek,  J.  L.,  appeals  for  American  Flag,  173; 

appointed  messenger  to  Washington  City, 

300;    a   saver   of  Oregon,   374;    his   winter 

dash  across  the  continent,  387. 
Meeker,   Ezra,   his   account   of   the   emigrant 

train,  349. 
Men,  uncommon,  great,  horny-handed,  340.  - 
Merchandise,  prices  of,  31S. 
Merrill,  Ashbel,   350. 
Merrill,  Joseph,  349. 

Message,  Governor's,  December  1,  1846,   191. 
Methodists,  their  work  in  Oregon,  574. 
Miller,  Joaquin,  615-617. 
Miller,  Mrs.  Lischen,  621. 
Miller,  Minnie  Myrtle,  618. 
Minerals,    501. 
Miners,  mere  slaves  in  other  countries,  487, 

488;   laws  of,  adopted,  489;   code  of,  first 

in  Oregon,  494,  495. 
Mines,  the  rush  to,  491,  493. 
Mining,  commencement  of,  in  United  States, 

488. 
Mining   laws,    origin   of,    48S,    490;    Mexican, 

abolished  in  California,  489. 
Mint,  the  Oregon,  336,  493;   a  private,  493. 
Jlinto,  John,  631;  his  account  of  the  emigra- 
tion, 353. 


liNDEX 


681 


Jlissionaries,  Oregon,  rank  higher  than  all 
others,  114;  Catholic,  arrive,  XV,  125;  why 
did  they  come  to  Oregon?  115;  Lee,  the 
first,  1834,  the  Congregationalists  in  1835, 
XIX;  their  high  rank  in  self-saorifico,  114; 
why  did  tliey  come  to  Oregon?  115;  the  call 
from  the  Flathead  Indians,  117;  De  Smet 
answers  call,  118;  Jason  Lee  selected  first, 
119;  Jason  and  Daniel  Lee  and  Philip  L. 
Edwards  selected,  119;  reach  .Oregon,  120; 
why  did  they  not  answer  the  call  of  the 
Flatheads?  120,  121;  what  good  did  they 
for  the  Indians?  126;  Protestant,  justified, 
129. 

Mission  school,  the  first,  590. 

Missourians,  why  they  came  to  Oregon,  238. 

Mitchell,  John  H.,  buys  seat  in  senate,  655; 
career,  character  and  services  of,  665,  666. 

Modoc  War,  415. 

Moliair  and  goats,  547. 

Money,  coined  in  Oregon,  336. 

Monmouth  University,  The,  580. 

Monroe  Doctrine,  The,  foreshadowed  in  Ore- 
gon case,  225. 

Monteith,  Walter,  345. 

Morgan,  Carrie  B.,  620. 

Morris,  Bishop,  582. 

Morrow  County,  460,  461. 

Mosier,   Mrs.   Alice   Claget,   341. 

Multnomah  County,   457,   458. 

Napoleon,  prophecies  the  maratime  suprem- 
acy of  the  United  States,  155. 

Natural    resources,    475. 

Xcgro,  rights  of,  submitted  to  people,  431. 

Nesmith,  J.  W.,  judge  of  Oregon,  188;  his 
account  of  the  start  to  Oregon,  245;  bears 
testimony  to  Whitman's  services,  304; 
protests  against  Indian  treachery,  398,  399. 

Newbj',  W.  T.,  a  founder  of  a  college,  603. 

Newspapers,  first  in  Oregon,  XX,  625;  the  first 
hard  struggle  for  support  of,  624. 

Xootka  Sound,  headquarters  of  fur  traders, 
14,   15. 

Northwest  Company,  97,  98;  seeks  to  fore- 
stall Astor,  106;  has  control  of  fur  trade 
west  of  Rocky  Mountains,  109,  110. 

Oat  meal,  first  produced  in  Oregon,  540. 

Officials,  territorial  and  state,  lists  of,  438, 
441. 

Ogden,  Peter  S.,  rescues  prisoners  from  In- 
dians, 379;  his  speech  to  the  Indians,  380, 
381. 

Old  Oregon,  democratic  party  proclaims  right 
to  the  whole  of,  220 ;  size  of,  221 ;  given  up 
for  fear  it  might  become  a  free  state,  221. 

"Old  Soap,  Socks   and  Pickles,"   556. 

Vol.  1—44 


•■Oninibus   Bill,"   The,   426,   427. 

Oregon  Agricultural  College,  The,  006-608. 

Oregon,  contended  for  by  other  nations,  XII; 
history  of,  a  fruitful  field,  XII;  settle- 
ment, of,  exceptional,  XIII;  discovery  of, 
XV;  river  of,  XV;  discovered  by  Capt.  Cook, 
XV;  region  of  myths,  3;  named  ''New  Al- 
bion," 6;  discovered  by  Drake,  6;  discov- 
ered by  the  Spanish,  7;  title  to,  by  right 
of  discovery,  9;  claimed  by  England,  9; 
contest  for,  by  England  commences,  45; 
end  of  myths  about,  8 ;  coast  of,  13 ;  coast 
of,  seen  first  by  Americans  (Capt.  Gray)  in 
1788,  13;  Catholic  priests  come  to, 
XX,  125,  126;  Canadian  rule  in,  163;  first 
jury  trial  in,  162;  heroic  age  of,  204;  titles 
to,  Indian,  Spanish,  England  and  United 
States,  207 ;  English  traders  under  false 
colors  sail  for,  210;  contest  for,  begun  by 
Spain  and  England,  211;  English  and  Span- 
ish treaty  about,  212;  sovereignty  of, 
never  surrendered  by  Spain,  213;  Spain's 
title  to,  unbroken,  213;  ceded  to  the  United 
States  by  Spain,  213,  214;  Russia  recog- 
nizes right  of  United  States  to,  214;  title 
to,  from  France  and  England,  214;  Jefi'er- 
son's  eft'orts  to  send  boundary  line  of,  215; 
in  congress,  216,  217;  a  country  of  free 
trade  but  not  free  settlement,  218;  a  "no- 
man's  land,"  219;  Americans  in,  compelled 
to  act,  219;  saved  by  pioneers,  219,  220,  229, 
230;  denounced  as  the  riddling  of  creation, 
222;  title  to,  shewn  by  facts,  224;  claims 
and  counterclaims  to,  contrasted,  224,  225; 
the  ulterior  purpose  of  England  in  fighting 
for,  225;  knowledge  of,  in  1842,  231;  emi- 
gration to,  compared,  231;  could  not  be 
populated,  235;  fit  only  for  rogues  and 
scoundrels,  235,  236;  land  schemes  of,  236; 
military  post  to  be  erected  on  route  to,  237; 
jicople,  what  sort  of  started  for,  239;  start 
for,  240;  trail  on  to,  240-244;  the  outfit 
for  the  trip  to,  240;  who  was  to  own  it, 
.315,  316;  life  in  early,  318;  the  first  Epis- 
copal clergyman  drives  sheep  to,  327;  or- 
ganized into  United  States  territory,  421; 
land  grants  to,  480;  free  lands,  schools, 
canals,  etc.,  to,  480,  481;  mountains  of,  483; 
vast  water  powers  of,  484;  coins  money, 
492;  metal  production  in,  501;  railroad 
system  of,  532;  against  the  world  on 
apples,  542,  543;  apples  of,  beat  all  crea- 
tion, 542;  commerce  of,  550-555;  Baptists 
start  to,  579;  school  system  of,  criticised, 
595;  popular  sovereignty,  announced  first  in 
Oregon,  649;  slaves  in,  652;  goes  for  the 
union,  654;  scrapping  at  the  polls  in,  654; 
code  of,  662. 


682 


INDEX 


Oregon    Central    Railroad    Company,    history 

of,  526. 
Oregon  City,  located  by  MeLoughlin,  XVIII; 

loses  the  capital,   437,  42S. 
Oregonian ;  first  paper  so  named,  XIX. 
Oregon   Institute,   The,    576. 
Oregon    and    California    Railroad    Company, 

The,  organized,  534. 
"Oregon  'Rifles,"  the  first  defenders,   3S3. 
O'Reilly,  Bishop,  585. 
Overton,    William,    first   settler   on    Portland 

townsite,  355. 

Pacific  College,  610-613. 

Pacific  Ocean,  discovery  of,  4. 

Pacific    University,    598,    599;    beginning   of, 

601,  603. 
Panama   Canal,   first   mention    of,    337;    pro- 
tests  against,   237,   238. 
Paper,   manufacture  of,   558. 
Parker,  Rev.   Samuel,  sent   to   Oregon,   123. 
Parrott,  Rev.  Joseph  E.,  353. 
Patton,  Mrs.  Polly  Grimes,  341. 
Payne,  Aaron,  343,  344. 
Pengra,   B.   J.,   his  railroad   work,   528. 
People,  first  character  of,  340.  . 
Peoria  party  arrives,  XX. 
Perez,  explorer,  208. 
Pettygrove,    F.    W.,    an    owner    of    Portland 

townsite,  357. 
Philomath  College,  605,  606., 
Pike,  Lieutenant,  expedition  of,  38. 
Pioneers,  original  Oregon,   144;   unselfishness 

of,  303;   take  trail  to  Oregon — all  aboard. 

245. 
Political    parties,    rise    of,    649. 
Politicians,  lawyer,   664. 
Politics,   the   first    436;    in    1849— Busch    and 

Dryer,  649,  650. 
Polk  County,  445. 
Polk,  President,  backs  down,  320. 
Polo,  Marco,  his  connection  with  Oregon,  2. 
Population,  white,  in  1840,  234;  brought  over 

by  ox  teanis,  253;  Indian,  475,  476. 
Populist  party  organized,   655. 
Porter,  Wm.,   353. 
Portland,  how  named,  358. 
Postal  carriers,  503,  504. 
Poujade,  Dr.  John  P.,  346. 
Poultry,   increase   of,   547,   548. 
Preaching,  first  in  Old  Oregon,  XIX. 
Presbyterians,  start  of  the,  577;  Cumberland, 

578. 
President,    he    refuses    to    recognize    British 

rights  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  315. 

316. 
Press,  The  first  Oregon,  635. 


Prettyman,  Dr.  Perry,  340. 
Primary,  the  direct,  658,  659. 
Printing  press,  first  in  Oregon,  X\'. 
Prohibition  party,  657. 
Pruett,  J.  H.,  346. 
Prune    orchard,    540. 

Quartz,  mining  of,  begins,  500. 

Racial  character,  the  evolution  of,  and  ideals, 
147. 

Railroad  contract,  S.  G.  Reed  and  Company's, 
527. 

Railroad,  transcontinental,  1846,  194;  pio- 
neer, Oregon  proposition,  511,  513;  first 
bona  fide  proposition,  513,  514;  location  ot, 
517;  Oregon  Central,  history  of,  518;  con- 
test between  rival  companies  begins  520, 
521;  construction  work  of,  begins,  531; 
second  land  grant  to  Oregon  Central,  527; 
mileage,    537,    538. 

Ralston,  Jeremiah,  344. 

Rebel  army,  some  Oregonians  join,  653. 

Rector,  W.  H.,  saves  lives,  253,  253. 

Reed   College,   612-614. 

Reed,  S.  G.,  founder  of  Reed  College,  373,  374. 

Reid,  William,  railroad  work  of,  535. 

Religious    influence,    decadence    of,    573. 

Republican  organization,  place-hunters  seize 
the,   654. 

Republican  party,  evolution  of,  in  Oregon, 
651. 

Reservations,  red  man  and  Avhite  man  on, 
486. 

Reynolds,  Frances  Ella,  352. 

Robbins,  6.  C,  heart  breaking  experience 
of,  239. 

Robinson,  Rev.  William,   340. 

Rogue  River  Indian  War,  last  battle  of,  403. 

Rolfe,  Tollman  H.,  348. 

Ross,  John  E.,   351. 

Rupert's  land,  93. 

St.  Helens  to  the  front,  654. 

St.  Mary's  College,  604. 

Sacajawea  (Suh-ka-gowea)  pointed  the  way, 
37. 

Salem,  founded,  XX;  first  legislature  at.  bj' 
private  agreement  and  in  Oregon  Insti- 
tute, 427. 

Salmon  pack,  export  of,  477. 

Saloons,   increase   of,   635. 

Sanborn,  Charles,  347. 

Savage,  Luther,  350. 

Savage,  Morgan  Lewis,   343. 

Sawmill,  first  in  Oregon,  XIX. 

Scholl,  Peter,  341. 

School,  first  in  Old  Oregon.  XVIII.  588:  first 


INDEX 


683 


Catholic,  576;  public  funds  for,  and  for 
each  county,  591-595. 

Scotch  traders  beat  British  pirates,  108,  109. 

Scott,  Bishop,  491,  582. 

Scott,  Harvey  W.,  G3G,  637. 

Sea-beach  gold,  495. 

Secession,  some  Oregonians  join,  053. 

Settlements,  where  first  made,  330. 

Settlers,  how  they  lived,  317,  318. 

Shannon,  George,  member  of  Lewis  and  Clark 
party,  36,  37. 

Sheep,  first  importation  of,  XVIII;  first 
brought   to    Oregon,   327. 

Sherman  County,  462. 

Ship,  first  built  in  Oregon.  XX. 

Simmons,  Andrew  J.,  344. 

Simon,  Joseph,  elected  senator,  668. 

Simpson,  Bishop,  holds  conference  in  Ore- 
gon,  575. 

Simpson,  Samuel,  L.,  618,  619. 

Slater,  J.  H.,  elected  senator,  667. 

Slavery,  question  of,  submitted  to  people, 
430;    wrecks   great   men,   651. 

Smallpox  trick,  The,  107,  108. 

Smith,    Buford,    353. 

Smith,  Delazon,   notice   of,  436. 

Smith,  Airs.  Elizabeth,  353. 

Smith  party,  Jedediah,  massacred,  XVIII;  ex- 
pedition of,  53;  robbed  by  Indians,  54;  be- 
friended by  John  McLoughlin,  54. 

Social  conditions  in  1848,  337. 

South  Pass,  Rocky  Mountains,  discovered  by 
Stewart,  XVH." 

Spain,  renews  explorations  of  Northwest 
Coast  in  1774,  8;  makes  strong  claim  to 
Oregon,  8,  9 ;  silent  on  discoveries  on  Oregon 
coast,  209;  war  on,  threatened  by  England, 
313;  appeals  to  France  for  aid,  212;  Old 
Oregon  ceded  to  United  States  by,  316. 

Spalding,  Rev.  H.  H.,  missionary  to  Ore- 
gon, 124. 

Spanish  sailors  explore  northwest,  8;  claim 
the  Oregon   region,  8,   15. 

Specht,  Jonas,  342. 

Stage  coaching,  510. 

Stampede,  The,  to  the  gold  niines,  335,  336. 

Stark,  Senator  Benjamin,  charged  with  dis- 
loyalty, 653. 

Starr,  Rev.  John  W.,  353. 

State  Capital,  on  wheels,  437;  four  towns 
compete  for,  438. 

State,  germ  of  a  great,  163;  free  and  slave 
state  balance  must  be  maintained,  226. 

State  Officers,  the  first,  430. 

State  Organization,  strife  for,  429. 

State  University,  The,  608-610. 

Steam-boat,  first  on  Upper  Missouri,  279;  the 
first,  504,  505;  monopoly  of,  500;  monopoly 


of,   sells  to  N.  I'.  Railroad,   507,  508. 

Steamship,  first  in  Oregon,  XIX;  first  to  Port- 
land, 366. 

Stein  Mountain,  liow  formed,  143. 

Stewart,  Benjamin  E.,  341. 

"Sticcus,"  pilots  the  emigrants  to  Oregon, 
247. 

Stone,  David,  351. 

Strowbridge,  Joseph  A.,  first  apple  exporter, 
331. 

Sturges,  Mrs.  Susan,  352. 

Suicide,  vice  and  crime,  634-636. 

"Table  Rock,"  battle  of,  396;  treaty  of 
peace,  401. 

Tallentine,  Mrs.  Agnes,   344.  * 

Tannery,  the  first  west  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains north  of  Mexico,   359. 

Taylor,  John  F.,  347. 

Telegraph,  first  in  Oregon,  510. 

Tenures,  land,  original,  128. 

Territorial  legislature,  first  under  United 
States  authority,  426. 

Terwilliger,  James,  starts  the  first  business 
in  Portland,  358. 

Thompson,  David,  expedition  of,  43-45;  posts 
notice  of  England  claim  to  Old  Oregon,  44 ; 
reaches  Astoria,  July  15,  1811.  44. 

Thornton,  J.  Q.,  delegate  to  congress,  387; 
promotes  great  school  land  aid,  591. 

Tillamook  Bay,  Battle  of,  13;  named  "Mur- 
derer's Harbor,"   13. 

Tillamook  County,  453-455. 

Timber  grabbers,  483. 

Timber,  vast  resources  of,  4S3;  conservation 
of   forests   and,   4S3 ;    monopoly  of,  483. 

Timotsk,  Indian  chief,  one  hundred  and 
seventeen  years  old,  88. 

Tobacco,  native  to  Oregon,  XVII. 

Tonquin,  The,  blown  up,  XVH,  106;  sails  for 
Oregon,   104. 

Townsite,  the  'first  in  Oregon,  XIX. 

Townsites,  319. 

Trail,  the  Oregon,  354;  located  by  Hunt  and 
Stuart,  254;  the  Oregon,  who  made  it,  256. 

Tuality  District,  444. 

T'Vault,  made  postmaster-general,  190. 

Umatilla  County,  459. 
Umpqua   County.  451,  452. 
Umpqua  River,  discovery  of,  XV. 
Union  County,  459,  460. 
Union  party,  organized,  653,  054. 
Unitarians,   The,   581.    ■ 

Vice  monopoly,  636.  637. 
Victor,    Francis    Fuller,    historian    and    poet, 
021,  622. 


684 


INDEX 


Victor,  Mrs.,  her  account  of  the  immigration, 

253. 
Villard,    Henry,    comes    to    Oregon,    508;    at 

work  in  Oregon,  529;  secures  the  Northern 

Pacific    Eaih-oad,    531,    533;    character    of, 

533. 

Wagons,  the  first  on  the  old  trail,  355. 

Walker,  Rev.  E.  and  wife,  missionaries  to 
Oregon,  134;  his  opinion  of  reforming  an 
Indian,  137. 

Walker,  Robert  J.,  in  Polk's  cabinet,  true  to 
Oregon,   339. 

Waller,  ilrs.  Jane  L.,  345. 

Wallowa  County,  461. 

War,  Indian,  Cayuse,  383;  munitions  of.  in 
early  days,  386. 

Warren,  Henry,  345. 

Wasco  County,  458. 

Washington  City,  Meek,  and  Thornton  at, 
388. 

Washington    County,    446,    447. 

Washington,  Lady,  sliip,  first  to  carry  Amer- 
ican flag  around  the  world,  XVI. 

Washington  and  Jefferson  join  hands  to  se- 
cure Oregon  to  the  United  States,   155. 

Watson,  Mrs.  Mary,  343. 

Watson,  lii.,  350,  351. 

Watson,  W.  P.,  started  fruit  growing  at 
Hood  River,   542. 

Watt,  Ahio  S.,  351. 

Waymire,  Uncle  Fred,  "pizen"  to  corpora- 
tions, 433,  434. 

Waymire,  John,  ii  character,  359. 

Webster,  Daniel,  gives  up  Old  Oregon,  332; 
on  Oregon  boundary,  323. 

West,  the  settlement  of  the,  19;  explorers 
of,  19,  20. 

Wheeler  County,  463. 

Whiskey,  first  factory  of,  in  Oregon,  XIX. 
governor's  message  on  prohibition  of,  194, 
195. 

White  men,  first  laurder  of,  on  Pacific  coast, 
XV. 

White,  Mrs.   Susan  Bowles,  341. 

\A'hitley,  Samuel,  347 

AVliitman,  Dr.  Marcus,  turns  back,  123;  sec- 
ond start  of,  133,  134;  massacre  of,  87, 
138,  301,  375,  376;  his  over-mountain 
winter    ride,    130;    siuwices    of,    130;    aids 


emigrants,  246;  Applegate's  praise  of,  351; 
character  and  work  of,  393,  393;  his  idea 
of  Indians,  394:;  and  the  Catholics,  394, 
395;  with  first  wagon  on  trail,  355;  visits 
Washington  city,  396;  his  services  to  emi- 
grants, 297;  corresponds  with  government, 
297;  pioneer  of  the  ox-team  and  wagon 
road,  298;  prepares  a  bill  for  Congress,  303; 
aids  emigration,  303,  303;  warned  of  his 
danger,  377;  why  the  massacre,  377;  mas- 
sacre of,  opening  chapter  of  seven  years 
of  Indian  wars,  383. 

Whig  party,  651. 

Whitney,  William,  347. 

Wilbur,  "Father,"  cuts  news,  builds,  heals 
and  preaches,  369. 

Wilcox,  Dr.,  the  first  Portland  physician,  360. 

Wilkes,  Capt.,  expedition  of,  57;  travels  in 
Oregon,  57,  58;   his  report  on  Oregon,  59. 

Willamette  University,  576,  597,  598. 

Willamette  Valley,  future  of,  XI;  natural 
beauty  of,  131;   in  1843,  334. 

Williams,  Judge,  letter  on  slavery  question, 
653;   why  not  appointed  chief  justice  of 
United  States  Supreme  Court,  668-672. 

Wilson,  John,   350. 

Winnemucca,  branch  of,  defeated  by  Senator 
Williams,  53S. 

Winship,  Jonathan,  at  Oak  Point,  XVII:  ex- 
pedition of,  43,  43. 

Wolf  meeting,  167-170;  to  provide  bounties 
for  scalps  of  wild  animals,  168;  paved  way 
for  Champoeg  meeting,  173. 

Woman,  white,  first  on  Pacific  coast,  XVII; 
the  heroic  pioneer.  349,  250;  first  school 
teacher  west  of  Rockies,  263. 

Women,  the  bravest  on  trail,  352,  253;  first 
white,  over  trail,  255. 

Woods,  Mrs.  Margaret  McBride,  341. 

Woolen  mills,  start   of,   556,   557. 

Wyeth,  N.  J.,  first  shipper  of  salmon,  XVIII; 
expeditions  of,  55,  56;  memoir  to  congress, 
56;  starts  a  town,  56;  packs  salmon,  56. 

Yakima  Indian  War,  408,  409. 

Yamhill    County,    447,    448;    first    settler    in 

XVni,  447. 
Yamhill  Railroad,  533. 
Y'aquina  Bay,  discovered  by  Capt.  Cook,  10. 


d\ 


JUL  3  1  1933